I was recently drawn to this article published by
Pew Research entitled 'How people in Muslim countries prefer women to dress in public'.
The survey was based on input from the local Muslim community on what's the best/most appropriate way for Muslim women to dress. The data was gathered from residents of seven countries (predominately Muslim or with a significant Muslim population). Cards containing images of female dressed in Islamic garb were presented to randomly selected respondents who then ranked the pictures according to whom they believe was the most suitably attired.
While the survey makes a good attempt at understanding Muslim psyche over a very superficial issue (women dress code) but it leaves some doubts in my mind;
- mainly because of the way the survey was carried out (some people may not be comfortable expressing their views unless they can do so privately and anonymously).
- The study is also missing other interesting countries and society like Indonesia, Bangladesh, Iran and also community with significant Muslim presence like India, China and the Western Hemisphere. How do you think they would have voted in this survey? And why?
- I also find it strange that countries with over 90% of its population Muslim (Pakistan) is falsely ranked with a country (Lebanon) whose population may only be at most 50-55% Muslim.
- Another mistake committed by the people behind this survey is to have introduced cards which are very biased. Look at card #1 and card #2. Burqa and Niqab are both the same, a type of face covering divided only by geographical location. Based on the result, even people who prefer women to cover their face (Saudi Arabian) don't prefer the exact clothing wore by the woman in card #1. That's because Burqa can generally be found in Afghanistan and Pakistan and they are not really wore in the Arab/Saudi Arabian culture even though it's a type of face covering. Card #4 and card #5 are also very biased. There's really no need to skew the result by a few strands of hair. Collectively that group of the people (who voted for card #4 and card #5) is the majority and you don't get that impression because of the way the result is presented).
A trend I can see based on the result is that the community is divided into the socially-extremist on women dress-code, the socially-moderate on women dress-code and the socially-liberal Muslim on women dress-code. The socially-extremist folks seem to be living in Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan. The socially-moderate people seem to be living in Iraq and Egypt while the socially-liberal folks seem to be living in Tunisia and Lebanon.
I don't find the result surprising at all. I've been posting many news articles on my blog highlighting the Saudi Arabian official state discrimination and hatred against women (perpetrated mostly by the conservative religious hierarchy of the country and their rabid followers).
I can also perhaps understand why the Pakistani society holds the view published in this survey. Tribalism, the very backward culture of the Pakistani society, lack of economic and social opportunities and couple that with the high illiteracy rate is a breeding ground for extremist folks and their ideas to thrive.
Iraq was moving historically towards very progressive rights for women but everything has gone downhill in the last 30 or so years.
Egypt had real diversity once upon a time even though all you see nowadays are extremism and craziness.
And I think everyone knows why the Turkish and Lebanese voted the way they did.
I don't find the study very interesting at all. I generally don't find anything based on answering the "WHAT" question interesting. A far more interesting question would be "WHY". Why do people think the way they do?
If you look at users' comments, people who mostly agrees to the strict dress code prescribe by Islam offered a scripture-based-explanation (dress code is a crucial part of the Islamic faith).
That doesn't really explain or help us in understanding as to why the Muslim community would prefer their women to dress in a certain style as opposed to the other style.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Muslim men don't generally get much attention or scrutiny over their dress style. They can wear whatever they want without any impunity or judgmental glances of the self-righteous community. Whenever I see some of the Arab or Saudi men walking around in their unfashionable knee-length-short with their fully-covered (from face-to-toe) wife beside them, I can only shake my head wondering why the poor wife didn't help her husband dress properly. Then I start wondering if she is really comfortable wearing that dark cloak/abaya?. Is the material breathable? Can you really be comfortable wearing that much clothing in such an uncomfortable weather (high temperature). Then I start wondering if the woman is wearing that dress because she is feeling deeply religious or is her husband forcing her to wear it? Is the society also deciding how she should dress? The survey says that the Muslim have an opinion about how their women should dress and they deem this view as a very "important issue".
