Marjorie in Qatar

A lawyer avers, in today's Peninsula, that "women are physiologically not geared to be in a judge's role since their performance can be affected during menstrual cycle, pregnancy and delivery," and more generally that "they are emotionally disposed which can be disadvantageous for a judge's job."

While troublesome, this sentiment is less disturbing than that of a Yemen Times article entitled There Must Be Violence Against Women, which accuses human rights organizations of failing to recognize the necessity of violence against women to maintaining family life. ("Personally, I don’t think fathers or brothers would undertake such behavior unless there was a reason for it," the author says. In related news, a Qatari resident just bashed his wife's skull in for not being at her office during the day, which he took to mean she was having an affair.)

Al-Kholidy's article is slightly confusing; for example, it argues that the Qur'anic injunction to beat your wife is a mistranslation, but then says that failing to beat women would lead to the downfall of Islamic values. But it does bring up an interesting conundrum. If you accept that God says husbands should (in some cases) beat their wives, then any movement to eliminate violence against women is irreligious. More broadly, if God has handed down a set of guidelines for how to run a society, any attempt to run society differently is problematic.

Both the Bible and the Qur'an have all kinds of unsavory verses that recommend beating one's children, stoning adulterers, killing heretics, and so on. It seems to me that one of the biggest differences between Christianity and Islam as practiced in the world today is that most Christians are perfectly happy to explain away those verses, whereas Muslims seem to have a harder time ignoring God's more troublesome edicts. Progressive Christians say that these archaic laws don't represent the will of God for our time. Outside of American academic discourse, I've never heard a Muslim suggest that.

I've often wondered what the difference is between Christianity and Islam that the unsavory laws are, on the whole, interpreted so differently. Is it inherent in the differences between the Qur'an, which outlines a comprehensive system of organizing society, and the New Testament, which focuses more on the individual? Is it a result of Christianity's ambivalence towards the Law? Or is it just that biblical interpretation has been shaped by centuries of Western humanism? After all, Christianity as practiced outside the U.S. and Europe is much more likely to side with Mr. Al-Kholidy on this issue.

Lest I come across as sounding biased against Islam and towards Christianity here, I will say that this is one of the issues that disenchanted me with Christianity. If American Christians are unlikely to agree with Al-Kholidy that women need to be beaten, or with Abu Nida that women lack the "balanced disposition" to become a judge, it is not because the Bible is imbued with feminist values; as far as I can tell, Western feminism developed despite Christianity, not because of it. The same is arguably true of all values I care most about -- equality, self-determination, tolerance, rationalism. It's hardly a celebration of Christianity if we manage to be civilized by ignoring scriptural injunctions to be otherwise.

Housemaids are probably the most frequently victimized members of Qatari society; since they're not covered by Qatari labor law, they have virtually no rights and no recourse to the court system. Statistics don't exist, but anecdotal evidence suggests that housemaid abuse is insidious. For example, maids are routinely imprisoned in the houses in which they work, to the extent that many people don't even think of this as imprisonment. In other cases, though, the abuse is shockingly violent. [More info here; thanks, anonymous contributor.]

What I'd never considered, though, was the case of Qataris living abroad. The ACLU has just accused the United States of violating human rights conventions because diplomatic immunity allows foreign diplomats in the U.S. to abuse their housemaids with impunity. One of the six housemaids they are representing works for a Qatari diplomat.

The ACLU's summary of abuses reflects the situation here in Qatar, too:

The abuses suffered by the petitioners while employed by diplomats include extreme wage and hour violations with no vacation, free time or holidays; virtual imprisonment in the homes of their employers with no ability to communicate with the outside world; passport deprivation; physical and emotional abuse; and invasion of privacy.

(Thanks to Nigel over on QatarLiving for the heads-up.)

My final news story of the day is one that has been getting press in the U.S.: a Saudi woman who was gang-raped while meeting with a male friend has been sentenced to 200 lashes for meeting with a man in the first place, and then for talking to the media about the rape case. ... I guess Qatar's human rights situation could be worse. Sigh.

From my sister's local paper: there are arguments going on in Oxford over whether Muslim women should be able to swim in hijab.

Aren't there burqinis in Oxford?

I just attended tonight's Doha Debate, which debated the resolution: "This House believes the face veil is a barrier to integration in the West."

Really, though, this is the wrong question. What ended up being debated -- and what is a more interesting topic, I feel -- was something like this: given the undeniable negative reaction Westerners have to the face veil, what is the responsible Muslim response? Should Western Muslims abstain from wearing the niqab in order to seem less foreign and threatening to Westerners, and thus more empowered to engage in more serious debates in Western society? Or should Western Muslims exercise their right to veil if they choose, thereby refusing to capitulate to the prejudices of the majority?

Some of the talk got back to an issue I've discussed in this blog before. If Westerners look at a niqabi and cannot see her as fully human and an equal participant in the public sphere, whose responsibility is that? Is it the responsibility of the Muslim woman to dress in a way that makes others comfortable and presents a positive image of Islam to the West? Or is it the responsibility of the Westerner to get over the prejudice that tells us that a veiled woman is not a complete human being?

---

Here's my niqabi story of the day. I've been using this usericon -- the one of me in a niqab -- as my usericon on Facebook. This morning I received a message from a man who wanted to get to know me because "MAY BE U ARE SPECIAL WITH UR PHOTO ...BECAUSE U ARE REAL MOSLEM." So there you go: I never knew that being hit on is a fringe benefit of wearing a niqab.

---

Update: Peninsula article on the debate.

My friend PeacefulMuslimah just wrote about this sad Peninsula article: Official laments apathy towards abuse victims.

In unrelated news, Filipina maids just got a salary hike.

Sheikh Jassem Al-Mutawah explains the difference between men and women, using modern computer software.

The cool thing is, I'm actually starting to be able to follow the Arabic! Maybe I should be watching more Arabic TV.

This is one of those days that I wish Qatari media were a bit more reliable.

Yesterday and today the Supreme Council for Family Affairs is holding a conference called "Family Violence in the Qatari Society: the Reality and Solution." I think this would be an interesting topic to know more about. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that violence against women was more prevalent here than in the States; I also wouldn't be surprised to discover the reverse. I could see explanations for either one being the case. (The statistics on reporting of domestic violence reported in The Peninsula article are quite low, but given the extreme underreporting of domestic violence I don't think that tells us much.)

The local papers do not have the level of sensitivity we Americans expect from the media (and that's saying something!), and there are a number of unfortunate newspaper passages on this conference. Here's the worst from The Peninsula:

Ameena said incidents of violence against women in Qatari families were on the rise over the past years but there was nothing alarming about it.

I suspect she said that the increase is not of alarming proportions, not that there is nothing alarming about violence against women. I hope that's what she said, anyway.

The Gulf Times reporting is, as always, even worse. While the Peninsula reports that uneducated women are more often victims of physical violence and educated women of emotional abuse, the Gulf Times headline proclaims: 'Educated' women face violence from husbands, finds researcher. The leading paragraph repeats this claim that "the more the woman is educated, the more she is subjected to family violence."

Contrary to Western myths, the Arab women I have come to know this year are strong and independent women, and by all accounts women are the strength of the Qatari family. And, again contrary to our stereotype, the advent of Islam probably did more to advance women's rights than any other single event in history. Given that, it's such a shame that the horror of violence against women isn't being explored more competently in public discourse here.
 

Why is that the BBC writes so much more on the Gulf than anyone else? Today it's an article on Why appearances matter in Saudi.

In other news, I just learned that Robin Cook died this weekend. Alas, poor Robin. You were one cool dude.