Yet again, the issue of women’s clothing has attracted attention, this time at last month’s Asian Games at Incheon, South Korea, when Qatari women walked out of a basketball match after being asked to remove their hijab.
The sporting authorities said they were bound by regulations that dictate that players can’t wear “headgear, hair accessories and jewellery”. Qatari player Ahlam Salem M Al Mana said that by refusing to take to the court against Mongolia, the team had decided to send a strong message to the governing body.
The Incheon episode is nothing but the latest manifestation of an entrenched bias against women’s apparel. Even if for a moment we overlook the Qatari team’s dejection at being excluded from a major international sports event, it’s tough not to be outraged by the players being subjected to stifling regulatory interference – and all this at a contest that trumpets diversity and inclusiveness.
Be it former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s ban of the burqa, British prime minister David Cameron’s insistence that his country’s institutions be allowed to dictate a dress code (that has led to the niqab being frowned upon at some workplaces) or radical groups in India banning women from wearing bikinis or jeans, all such instructions are part of a narrative that seeks to dehumanise women.
It is ironic that women’s clothing continues to be a potential point of conflict. American sociologist Patricia Hill Collins calls this “identity politics” and defines it as “the matrix of domination” – where women become the soft targets of a society’s expression of dogmas.
Why should these non-issues be allowed to hijack discourse in a world that aspires to be inclusive? Shouldn’t more meaningful topics be dominating agendas? If women are indeed to be burdened with being embodiments of a “culture”, how about implementing policies that empower them, ensure them good education, sound health and equal opportunities at the workplace?
Writing in The Guardian, Nesrine Malik, a Sudanese-born commentator, believes the argument against the niqab is not as simple as some think.
“The debate often couches different agendas – politicians furthering careers, misplaced feminist solidarity, Muslims asserting an identity they feel is under assault, and some old-fashioned prejudice,” she contends.
The debate is about civil liberty proscribed by practicality – a liberty that entails that no woman should be told what to wear, except where this choice actually infringes on someone else’s rights, she says.
And then there is the example of Amira Osman Hamed, a women’s rights activist in Sudan. When a police officer demanded that she cover her hair, Hamed said no.
“I’m Muslim, and I’m not going to cover my head,” she retorted. For that, the 35-year-old Sudanese engineer was arrested in 2012 and charged with “indecent dress”.
Feminism’s overarching credo, according to Nairobi-based activist Varyanne Sika, is that women must be allowed the right to be who or what they want to be and to do whatever they want to do, as long as they are not breaking any laws or infringing anybody else’s rights.
Women are spearheading campaigns demanding more equal treatment. And high time too. Equal tolerance of all religious sentiments or of their sartorial manifestations is a vital sign of civilised society. Its intolerance betrays lack of civility, and is incongruent in an increasingly globalised and inclusive world. Women should dress appropriately in public, absolutely. But dictating what they should or shouldn’t wear on a basketball court? Sorry, that’s unacceptable.
Neeta Lal is a New Delhi-based editor and journalist
