Thinking about the protests in Iran, I am reminded of what my grandfather told me about the contradictions people with prejudices have in their ideas which comes out in how they express themselves.
In Iran the “morality police” enforce the strict but ambiguous rules on how women must cover themselves in public. The ambiguities have been raised elsewhere. I take it for granted that people can find what has been said and written about it in detail and make up their own minds about how clear and easy to follow the rules are.
The way rules are enforced matters more than the rules themselves. How those with power go about interpreting both the rule and what constitutes violation, and what they are allowed and not allowed to do in response, is where we find the message and meaning, the true intention of what the rules are for.
In the case of Iran, what are the rules about women covering themselves purportedly for? Again, anyone who wants to find out what’s in the texts both holy and profane, and what the apologists for what the regime intends and is doing, can go find and get into that.
For my purpose here I am going to sum it up at a higher level, in a way that applies to other situations rationalized in the same way in other times and places.
The assertion is that seeing women openly causes men to have sexual thoughts which leads to sexual crimes directly or indirectly. Only by keeping women covered up or better still out of sight and separated from men can this whole domain of human misbehavior be mitigated if not eliminated entirely, since sin is always with us.
Speaking for myself, I often walk with Satan at my shoulder. He whispers in my ear, and sometimes I swat him away like a fly. Sometimes I whisper back with an escalated suggestion, at which he blushes most fiercely and departs in disgust.
The point is ideas may not arise in the mind without input from a lifetime of experiences, but the whole concept that a woman’s mere appearance and behavior provokes sin and crime is idiocy. That there are no other ways to address the matter than for women to hide themselves away or under a bushel adds insult to idiocy.
The idea itself that women as victims are responsible for provoking unwanted attention, impure thoughts, or criminal violations of their persons ought to be considered an affront to human dignity and an assault on human rights.
No sane person accepts this way of thinking as an explanation and justification for a pedophile abducting a child. That the child just by being the object of the predator’s fantasies and desires somehow implicates the child is ridiculous. No one suggests we cover children up or hide them away entirely (although when it comes to school shootings in this country we seem to be headed in that direction).
What is the difference in the cases, of child victim and of woman victim? Does “normal” sexuality, defined by age and sex/gender attraction, justify violation of another person’s autonomy? Is that part of the spectrum of “normal” sexual response? Don’t both women and children have the right to live and go out in public free from harassment and physical harm?
I hope the implications of this are already clear. But it is important for us to connect more points explicitly in terms of human value.
The sanctity of a person’s bodily autonomy in a right to safety in her person in public and in private should be beyond dispute at this point in our history and in the evolution of ideas about human rights. But it is not, not only in Iran, not only in the United States, where rules concerning women’s decisions about their own bodies are being taken from them, but also in our minds, in the minds of some reading this now.
There remains significant ambiguity in how the rules are enforced. Not just the laws, but also the rules for behavior among ourselves in our ordinary relationships.
Even when there are no “morality police” empowered by the state, there are rules of what is acceptable and not acceptable, and we all act as our own enforcers, and some of us are not as good at setting or seeing and respecting boundaries as we should be from situation to situation, moment to moment.
Allowing myself a small tangent, it takes work, thought and reflection, to gain proficiency at being the best humans we can be. Just as it is difficult to maintain a physical exercise regime and also focus on intellectual pursuits because time and energy are finite, people have been known to neglect their interpersonal skills. To some extent, societies are designed to prevent us from developing as good citizens, good friends and family members. That could the subject of whole book.
Getting back to the hypocrisy of enforcement of rules in Iran, in the United States and in other places with regard to the sanctity and bodily autonomy of women, ultimately respect for them as equal, autonomous human beings, consider this. The “morality police” would likely say it is out of respect for women that they must hide themselves away. A great treasure is not left out on the street for anyone to steal.
Similarly, those who say women are not suited for certain work because it is dangerous, war for instance, have claimed part of the reason men fight is to keep women safe. Their women. Protecting their women is why men-folk fight. Having women in battle next to them undermines the high ideal of protecting those precious ladies from the foul depredations of the cursed foe.
Now, the fun part of this is that sometimes the women prefer what the cursed foe has to offer, because sometimes the enemy is willing to leave the women alone. But more to the point, how the men respond to violations of the rules reveals the true intention of the rules.
The “morality police” first seek to shame the women. Failing to inspire even embarrassment, they escalate their taunting and harassment, seeking to humiliate and inspire fear. Failing again, because people frequently when threatened decide to fight back, the men who claim the rules are for the women’s own good and they are there to protect them because they, the women are so highly valued and they need to learn to value themselves the way the men want them to, the protectors of morality then escalate to further violations.
Presumably this is not so much punishment as it is a lesson, to teach and demonstrate what not hiding yourself causes. Of course, this makes absolutely no sense. I value you so much. You may not want the way I value you at all. But if you do not accept and adhere to the rules for how I see you and want you to see yourself through my eyes, then I will show you what not doing what I want hurts you.
My grandfather in a casual conversation or two mentioned almost in passing how racists in the South characterized African-Americans as both lazy and hard working. It seems a similar contradiction in concepts that women can be highly valued and not have equal human rights.
Is the claim that these rules show greater “respect” for women than they have for themselves? Really? Who would want to be so highly valued that it infringes on personal autonomy?
It is not ultimately a function of racism and sexism. The contradictory expressions in ideas and actions are a sign of desperation, fear, and frustration.
Any self-respecting oppressors would just come out and say you will behave and be the way we want you to because we say so and the consequences follow this line of escalation because you have no existence or right to exist outside of our conception of you.
Clearly it is a sign of weakness or, more precisely, an indication of their own moral conflict, when the autocrats feel a need to rationalize and negotiate with the oppressed.
Whether we’re looking at Putin or the Chinese regime, or own homegrown oppressors, the moral conflict comes out in the contradictions of expression and the very fact they feel a need to explain themselves or pretend they are doing the opposite of what their actions so obviously reveal.
Let’s leave this here for now. I apologize that this is not as thorough as it ought to be. I hope to improve it on revision, perhaps with your assistance. Maybe others will take up some of what I have thrown together here and move it towards a more perfect articulation.
I Dwell In Possibility 