Female Producers in Saudi Arabia: "Did you have to wear the black thing?"

The reality is that it is not 'Muslim men forcing women to cover up.' It is society forcing women to cover up. Culture. The reality is that culture is almost always coercive & has many irrational elements. Dress codes particularly so. The fact that they base it on supposed hard facts is irrelevant. People always think they have hard facts backing up their irrational convictions. Covering women is a fact of virtually all societies. Including the US or wherever you're from.

As I said in the original. I do not agree with the conventions of Saudi. I don't like them. There are many cases of women being disadvantaged to the point where they have no hope of a satisfying life. That needs to be opposed. But when opposing there is a danger of considering all opposition equal. Taking anecdotes like yours as seriously indicative of any liberal Muslim country is like getting behind Khomeini because you oppose the Shah State.

The views of women within various Islamic cultures varies widely and in some cases are quite disturbing, but the four countries with the largest Muslim populations (Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) have all had female presidents / prime ministers. There are other odd data points like women's suffrage having reached Iran a decade before Switzerland (1963 vs. 1973).

What I am saying is the following: A common argument that comes up is usually. (a) Woman are forced to wear hijab. It is demeaning & cruel & oppresses women. (b) I choose to wear it. I find it dignified & liberating. (a) You are brainwashed.

All I am saying that (a) does not have a convincing argument. It is not (if you read up the thread) comparable to US rural slavery because they people being oppressed (if they are) by their own culture. Brainwashed is no argument at all in this case because it is applicable to any element of culture & can be used to argue virtually any point (you are brainwashed not to wear hijab, pray, respect your husband, etc). Accepting that argument in principle necessitates accepting an argument giving equal weight to the counter-argument.

> So criticize all of them! The problem here is that you're working off the premise that our own cultural norms are somehow above critique, which is simply untrue.

I am certainly not doing that. I am saying watch what you argue. "Islamic/Arabic cultures are oppressive" is a popular argument to make these days.

Many of the aspects of these societies, practices, traditions & laws are indeed oppressive. Many of these countries are military dictatorships or monarchies. A lot of the arguments are indeed correct & needed. But (and this is a big but) we cannot let this degrade (we have, but lets pretend) into an area where anything is admissible. Look at the defence that the argument in this thread got. The argument was almost "Muslims think women can't swim." And if we look at the context, it was in response to an article that said a woman found it interesting & (within her context) useful to wear these garments. "It smells like a defence of veils.""She mentions veils without enough of a groan" "Well i knew a muslim & he beat hist wife with a baloon"

HN is supposed to be a quarter of a step ahead of the pack. But this is a soft version of Bin Laden like clerics telling stories of Americans sodomising each-other in the streets.

Dress codes are sometimes highly symbolic. But if this is your reason for addressing them, don't you think you should let symbolic concepts be pursued within the context of their own cultures? Otherwise they are an element of culture that gets left alone because it does not much harm or good. It is pretty arbitrary, it is not in itself important & it exists everywhere.

What I am saying is the following: A common argument that comes up is usually. (a) Woman are forced to wear hijab. It is demeaning & cruel & oppresses women. (b) I choose to wear it. I find it dignified & liberating. (a) You are brainwashed.

All I am saying that (a) does not have a convincing argument. It is not (if you read up the thread) comparable to US rural slavery because they are being oppressed (if they are) by their own culture in which they are active participants. Brainwashed is no argument at all in this case because it is applicable to any element of culture & can be used to argue virtually any point (you are brainwashed not to wear hijab, pray, respect your husband, etc). Accepting that argument in principle necessitates accepting an argument giving equal weight to the counter-argument.

> So criticize all of them! The problem here is that you're working off the premise that our own cultural norms are somehow above critique, which is simply untrue.

I am certainly not doing that. I am saying watch what you argue. "Islamic/Arabic cultures are oppressive" is a popular argument to make these days.

Many of the aspects of these societies, practices, traditions & laws are indeed oppressive. Many of these countries are military dictatorships or monarchies. A lot of the arguments are indeed correct & needed. But (and this is a big but) we cannot let this degrade (we have, but lets pretend) into an area where anything is admissible. Look at the defence that the argument in this thread got. The argument was almost "Muslims think women can't swim." And if we look at the context, it was in response to an article that said a woman found it interesting & (within her context) useful to wear these garments. "It smells like a defence of veils.""She mentions veils without enough of a groan" "Well i knew a muslim & he beat hist wife with a baloon"

HN is supposed to be a quarter of a step ahead of the pack. But this is a soft version of Bin Laden like clerics telling stories of Americans sodomising each-other in the streets.

Dress codes are sometimes highly symbolic. But if this is your reason for addressing them, don't you think you should let symbolic concepts be pursued within the context of their own cultures? Otherwise they are an element of culture that gets left alone because it does not much harm or good. It is pretty arbitrary, it is not in itself important & it exists everywhere. We would not be seriously debating why bikinis are not allowed at work.

Coming to visit Hacker News exclusively over a place like Reddit has been a breath of fresh air. I hope things like this article keep coming up alongside posts about hacking more specifically.