Women as the Keepers of Virtue, Men as the Victims (Book Notes: Ungodly Women)

One of the most interesting - or perhaps disturbing - things about male attitudes towards women in Islam is the assumption that women must bear the responsibility for men's virtue as well as their own. Women must not only keep themselves pure, but they must not act to cause men to have impure thoughts - that's why women must remain so covered. Christians had similar attitudes not long ago.

In Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism, Betty A. Deberg writes:

In an article entitled “Man’s Moral Machinery,” the King’s Business ran a letter [in the 1920s] from “a young college man” who described himself as mentally unclean because “the women I know will not let me be clean.” The “biggest stumbling block is the manner in which our women folks clothe themselves”:

“What is a fellow going to do? We don’t go around looking for these things, but we cannot help seeing them. No matter how much one may respect a girl, it is an effort for him to keep his thoughts from straying when she exposes too much of her body. ... Why should they go on dressing in a way to aggravate the sex tendency? The young man who is trying his utmost to keep himself clean for the sake of the woman he will marry ... has trouble enough without his sisters throwing a monkey wrench into his moral machinery.

It’s interesting just how similar this is to what a young Muslim man might say today when exposed to Western women in a Western setting. Rather than assuming the responsibility of maintaining a proper attitude towards others around him, this man blames those around him. He regards himself as enjoying the freedom to dress as he sees fit, but he can’t accord others the same freedom when it threatens to make him “impure.”

In this way, those who are having the negative thoughts and who end up enforcing repression against others become the victims of their sordid little morality play. As victims, they assume the authority to take control and see to it that no more evil happens again — not by controlling themselves, but by controlling others. The point of this control is to limit the ability of women to dress how they please and express themselves how they please — limitations not placed similarly on men.

The imposition of greater restrictions on women, explained as necessary due to their inability to control themselves and their negative effect on men, renders them second-class citizens. Strange as it may seem, the right to wear slacks or short skirts is actually part of the right of women to be fully equal members of society. Why? Because it represents their ability to be seen on their own terms, rather than allowing men to determine how women should be viewed. Furthermore, it demonstrates that women no more need to be controlled by men than men need to be controlled by others. It places men and women on an equal plane while in public.

 

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