The first time I read about veiling,
outside of hearing critiques of it from the news and adults around me, was
probably when I read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This is a
graphic memoir written by Satrapi, that follows her from the age of ten, the
year after the Iranian Revolution, through her young adulthood. This was the
first time I had actually read about veiling and its socio-political
implications from a voice inside the context of it, rather than an extremely
white-washed Western view. Reading this in 5th or 6th grade, I was about the
same age as Satrapi in the beginning of the book and it was really powerful for
me in gaining an understanding of a culture outside of my own.
I am thinking a lot of the TED talk
we listened to by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her description of the stories
she read as a child about Western kids eating apples and playing in snow.
Growing up in the United States, so much of the reading I did as a child was
only about kids like me, growing up in places and situations similar to me.
This created a very single-story narrative in my understanding of the world.
This is dangerous for a lot of reasons. Adichie says, "show people as one
thing, as only one thing, and that is what they become," and that is true.
When I was four years old, a plane crashed into the twin towers, and thus began
a media frenzy. My entire childhood perspective of the Global South was skewed
by this story we were told time and time again. We were taught to pity women
who were forced into wearing veils. In
the article we read by Abu-Lughod she talks about the aftermath of 9/11 and the
following pity that white women felt for women in Afghanistan. She quotes Laura
Bush saying, "...women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can
listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment. The fight
against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women"
(U.S. Government 2002).
When thinking about how this relates
to Marjane Satrapi's experiences it's interesting to see how she shows a fuller
perspective of the veil. When she speaks with women in her life about the veil
a lot of them hold the view that the veil if a cultural norm, that they prefer
to wear it even when they are, at one point, "liberated" from it. Satrapi
discusses the veil in a way I had never seen it discussed. It is an aspect of
every day life, it is not, as some of our readings have pointed out the Western
view of it, "exotic." Satrapi talks about the feeling of conflict
when she has a respect as child for religion and cultural values, but also
feeling pulled to modernity. There are a couple images below from the book that
depict the conflict and fuller range of emotions she shares on veiling. This
shaped my view to allow me to question the things I am taught about veiling,
rather than accept a one story perspective. As Adichie said "when we
reject a single story, we regain a kind of paradise." Finally, I am
including a link to a short excerpt of an interview with Marjane Satrapi in
which she explains why she wanted to create this graphic novel. She talks about
the view that she saw the world has of Iran, the way it was portrayed on news
and TV, and how she wanted to give means to the "many different
realities" that we don't see, that get left out in this one sided views we
often see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iob0JIglcK0
I am in complete agreeance with you and your thoughts on the single story that exists within western perception of the veil. I found the quote that you included in your blog, “When we reject a single story, we regain a kind of paradise,” to be extremely relevant to veiling and how westerners perceive it. We view it as a single story, instead of many. We need to reject the single-story narrative.
ReplyDeleteAdichie viewed the Western world through books. She created a story in her head of what the Western world must be like based on different stories that she read. It is easy to read, watch or listen to ideas of a foreign place and assume that what these stories are saying means that that place must be what we think it to be. Just as Adichie began to create a single story of a foreign place based off of her observations of different mediums mentioning the West, Westerners do the same thing with places that are foreign to us.
We read stories about veiling that oftentimes make it seem oppressive and one-sided. We do not clearly understand the full story, but only a single story. We put a culture into a small box and ignore its complexities. The media that we consume oftentimes presents veiling in a negative light and that’s how westerners begin to think about it, when in fact, that is just one story. We need to remember that a person, a community, a people is more than a single story.
The first time that I truly understood veiling was around the same time, about 6th or 7th grade. Coming from a very white, closed off community (nicknamed a bubble for a reason), I would often hear conversations at school about how women in third world countries were horribly oppressed and needed saving from their culture, religion, and veiling. Like you said, we were only hearing and understanding one side of the media/stories… so people accepted it as fact. In reality though, the veil was not (and is not) the enemy. Through the readings and educating myself over the years, I understand that the one sided horror stories are not universal for every woman who veils. The overall theme that I have seen in most readings, in the interview you shared, and especially in Playing with Fire is: stories are the gateway to the truth of what women in third world countries are truly experiencing and the powers/oppressions they are actually fighting against. Thank you for sharing the links and the story! I had never heard of Persepolis before your post and hearing about it in class. I definitely will look into reading it in the future so that I can add one more story and create a better understanding for myself about veiling.
ReplyDeleteMaire Simpson
Coming from a mostly Christian community, I was never really taught about the meaning behind the veil and Muslim religion in general. Rather, following the 9/11 attacks, I was taught about how the veil represents women being oppressed. I was never taught that women chose to wear it, for a long time I was under the impression that they were only being forced to wear it because the countries they lived in oppressed women.
ReplyDeleteHaving read Persepolis, I think there are a lot of connections between Marjane's experiences and the experiences shared throughout Playing with Fire. Throughout Persepolis, Marji and her mother are both forced to start wearing the veil. I think the important distinction to make with the meaning behind the veil is whether one is choosing to wear it or they are forced to through their community. Throughout Playing with Fire, the women chose to remove their coverings and ride on the bikes, making them feel empowered. While they did choose to wear their coverings within their communities, choosing not to wear them at their place of work made them feel like they had less restrictions placed upon them. However, there are many women all around the world, and of all different religions, who choose to still cover because they feel that the hijab (or any form of covering) empowers them rather than restricts them.
-Erika Johnson
I too read Persepolis growing up. However I read it as a sophomore, I think, in High School. I recall being very excited about getting the opportunity to learn about the lifestyle of the people in Iran during the Iranian Revolution. My memory is a little foggy as it was a few years ago that I read the book, but what I do remember is being very taken back at how much I misunderstood the culture. The veil itself has always been something that I took a lot of interest. I assumed that every woman who wore a veil did not want to wear it and that she wore it out of force. But really just because it is a not a societal norm for where I grew up, does not mean that it is wrong, it is just another way of life. I think the veil for a long time was viewed as a symbol of mistreatment. But what people need to realize that the mistreatment being done in these cultures does not stop nor does it peak at women wearing a veil.
ReplyDelete