Hakimeh Saghaye-Biria[1]
It is argued that the West is always at the
forefront of development, and the East should follow the footsteps of the West
to move from backwardness to civilization.
The women’s liberation movement in the West
has been accompanied by the increasing sexualization of women.
Therefore, women’s freedom in the East must
also function according to Western sexualized standards.
What remains unsaid in this line of argument
is the fact that a century of the lived experience of women in the West is in
front of us. Thus, problematizing the model that is presented to Iranian
women as an alternative to their own religious/cultural standards is a must.
As colonialist powers attempted to expand
their penetration and exploitation of Muslim lands, around the beginning of the
19th century, they found Islam to be the biggest obstacle to political-economic
domination. Given the fact that, as mothers, women are agents of cultural
transfer to the next generations, women became one of the main targets of
cultural assault in all Islamic countries. Fighting hijab and the
promotion of the western lifestyle became a trademark colonialist cultural
policy in many Muslim countries including in Iran. In the quest for
cultural dominance, colonialists used the grand narrative of freedom.
It is argued here that the Western media’s
coverage of what is happening in Iran is perhaps the biggest Islamophobia
project in recent Muslim history with repercussions not only for Iranians but
for all Muslim women around the world. One has to keep in mind that this has
been a project in the making over the last decade. Just looking at Masih
Alinejad’s case, the person who has acted as the face of this project, she has
received more than 628 thousand US dollars just from the US government to fight
hijab in Iran.[2] About half of that
money has been given to her during the Biden administration.
As was done at the beginning of the
colonialist cultural penetration in Muslim lands, freedom is used as the
macro-frame for explaining the situation. A duality is created here: the
“free” West vs. the “unfree” Iran. And, what’s more, it is “the White
man’s burden” to carry out the project of saving Muslim women from their
religion and culture, as is evident in President Biden’s vow to “free Iran” at
an election campaign speech in early November, 2022.[3] Fortunately, today we
are at an advantage compared to people living during late 19th and early 20th
century. The results of the sexual revolution in the West are plain and
evident for all to see. A question that should be addressed is as follows:
“is it not fair to ask about the consequences of the Western model of women’s
liberation before adopting it, especially now that it has been the lived
experience of women in the West for the past 100 years?”
Experts believe in the emergence of rape culture in Western societies. The statistics of rape in the West and the collapse of the family system indicate this issue. In her book,The Sexualization of Childhood, Sharna Olfman, professor of psychology at Point Park University in Pennsylvania, USA, says:
“To say we live in a rape culture means that
we live in a culture in which rape is pervasive, prevalent and normalized
through societal attitudes about gender, sex, and sexuality. … For example, in
the United States, researchers predict that one in four women will be raped by
a man in her lifetime. Leaving statistics aside though, most women understand
what it means to live in a rape culture because of their lived reality of doing
so. … One way of thinking about this is to realize regardless of how many women
experience a rape or attempted rape within their lifetime, 100 percent of women
experience the threat of rape within a rape culture. This means that all
women’s lives are impacted.”[4]
“Sexual violence is a profound social and
public health problem in the United States,” according to the US Department of
Health’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report titled “Sexual
Violence Surveillance.” While the available statistics clearly show the
severity of the situation, many researchers and practitioners in the field
believe that the available national statistics underestimate the number of
victims of sexual violence. Below are some statistics in this regard. The
numbers are taken from the “Rape, Sexual Abuse and Intimate Rape National
Network (RAINN)” website. RAINN is the largest anti-sexual violence
organization in the United States, which also cooperates with the US Department
of Defense in this field.
Every year, 80,600 American prisoners, 60,000
children, 433,648 people over the age of 12, and 18,900 people in the American
military are victims of sexual assault. According to the statistics of the US
Department of Justice, every 68 seconds, another American is sexually
assaulted.[5]
Widespread sexual violence is found to hamper the American military’s effectiveness. Reducing the problem is listed as one of the United states’ 2022 National Security strategies, where it is stated, “We will strengthen the effectiveness of the force by ... intensifying our suicide prevention efforts; eliminating the scourges of sexual assault, harassment, and other forms of violence, abuse, and discrimination ...”[6] According to a 2022 report by the US Department of Defense, “Reports of sexual assault in the US military increased 13 percent in 2021... About 36,000 members of the military said in a confidential survey that they had experienced unwanted sexual contact – “A significant increase from the roughly 20,000 who said so in a similar survey in 2018.”
This problem is also seen among the American
police. Rampant police rape and sexual harassment against women, especially
black and colored women, in America is a problem matching in severity that of
deadly police brutality. Guardian newspaper reported in this regard: “Between
2005 and 2015, there were 517 cases of forcible rape by police in the US,
according to Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green state University criminal justice
professor. An officer is accused of sexual misconduct, the second most
common complaint against officers, at least once every five days in the US,
according to one analysis.”[7]
The situation in other western countries is
also very serious in terms of sexual violence. Only a few examples suffice.
On November 30, 2021, The New York Times
published a report titled “Like Fresh Meat: Detailing Rampant Sex Harassment in
Australia’s Parliament.” The story opens as follows: “Men strutting down
corridors looking women up and down. Women carrying fake binders to block
unwanted advances. Forcible touches, kisses and comments about appearance.
Fears of speaking out. A sweeping review of the workplace culture in
Australia’s Parliament paints a damning picture of widespread sexual
harassment, with employees sharing harrowing stories of an alcohol-soaked
atmosphere where powerful men blurred lines and crossed boundaries with
impunity.”[8] The situation of
women looks grim in Britain as well. According to the report of UN Women
UK, the United Nations monitoring body for gender equality in England, 97% of
British women aged 18 to 24 have experienced sexual harassment. This figure for
all English women, regardless of age, was 70%.[9]
The crisis of sexual violence in Western
countries is rooted in the sexualization of women in such societies where
women’s worth is measured against their sexualized appearance. The issue
is tackled in depth by the American Psychological Association report on the
sexualization of girls in America.[10] Western culture is
so obsessed with women’s appearance that it has become “beauty sick,” to use
the title of a book by Dr. Rene Engeln, a psychology professor at Northwestern
University, USA. Psychological problems like body shame, depression,
anorexia, anxiety, etc. have been found associated with the sexualization of
women. More importantly, women’s social agency is reduced in the process.
Interestingly that the Islamic Republic of
Iran’s constitution is the only constitution in the world where the government
is made responsible to tackle the problem of women’s objectification.
With the colonialist-oriented propaganda
campaign against hijab though there is no space left for such an assessment of
the status of women in the western model of women’s liberation. Such an
assessment is, nonetheless, a necessity, and unless we take the time to see
through the thick smoke of anti-Iran Islamophobic propaganda, all Muslims will
suffer in the long run.
Source : Mahjubah
[1] 1. P.h.D In North
American Studies, Tehran
University
[2] https://govtribe.com/vendors/masih-alinejad-7dek1
See
also https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/01/06/u-s-media-outlets-fail-to-disclose-u-s-government-ties-of-iranian-journalist-echoing-trump-talking-points/
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-vows-free-iran-west-coast-campaign-speech-2022-11-04/
[4] Olfman, S. (Ed.).
(2009). The sexualization of childhood. ABC-CLIO.
[5] Department of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime
Victimization Survey, 2019 (2020). Note: RAINN applies a 5-year
rolling average to adjust for changes in the year-to-year NCVS survey data.
[6] National Security
strategy. October 2022. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-strategy-10.2022.pdf
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/10/phoenix-police-officers-rape-sexual-assault
[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/world/australia/parliament-harassment-report.html
[9] https://www.unwomenuk.org/safe-spaces-now
[10] Zurbriggen, E. L.,
Collins, R. L., Lamb, S., Roberts, T. A., Tolman, D. L., & Ward, L. M.
(2007). APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. American
Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf
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