[Gendergap] Nudity vs Islam in Western Europe

[Sydney Poore]

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 4:34 AM, Arnaud HERVE <arnaudherve at x-mail.net> wrote:

> On 07/09/2011 04:02, Nathan wrote:
> >
> >
> > Since we know that the gender gap exists in many cultures, and not
> > just the U.S. or Europe, being aware of and sensitive to specific
> > cultural biases takes on special merit here. Far more "gratuitous"
> > nudity is not terribly uncommon throughout Western Europe, for
> > example, in everything from general interest magazines and newspapers
> > to street ads, movies, other media and even in personal interaction
> > (see [[Love parade]]).
>
> Yes nudity in Western Europe has become so frequent that it is devoid of
> any significance now. Showing sexual intercourse can provoke a debate
> about proper and improper, but Western Europeans will hardly notice an
> ad with a naked woman.
>
> However, there is a new element. That is the pressure from Islamic
> immigration.
>
> Some radical Muslims want the sharia immediately applied to all
> populations, even non Muslims, because sharia is the law from God, and
> God is far superior to any parliament or constitution. Some Muslims are
> more tolerant for other populations, but for their own family it is
> still the law, the law as in not a personal choice. Some other Muslims
> would like to get rid of Islam, but they are not helped by the
> prevailing multicultural policies, which tend to accept community
> leaders as the true representatives of what they wish.
>
> In the past, xenophobia was restricted to extreme-right political
> groups. However recently there has been a change, and the liberal
> lobbies have turned against Islam, which creates a new situation as it
> is the immigrant population which is now perceived as culturally
> backwards and threatening for civic rights. The majority of native
> European populations now perceive immigration as civilization
> threatening, and in this context Islam is perceived as particularly
> incompatible with Western civilization. Gender issues have become a
> major landmark for that in public debate. Gay groups, feminist groups,
> secular groups, now perceive the right to show female nudity, the right
> to celibate autonomous life, the right to gender orientation as gains of
> modern civilization, to defend actively and specifically against Islam.
> In the past it was against the local conservative right, now it is
> explicitly against Islam.
>
> As far as medical treatment of women is concerned, the sharia explicitly
> states that :
>
> - A woman patient cannot be seen naked, or even touched, by a male
> doctor. When the doctor is female that is not an issue, and fortunately
> many doctors are female. However, for specialized or emergency
> treatment, we now have a record of of life threatening situations or
> severe lasting damages, because the husband, the father or even the
> brother did not allow treatment.
>
> This also includes severe damages to the baby in obstetrics, when a
> complication occurred and the intervention of a male specialist was
> refused by the "man in charge".
> All this to explain to you that in Western Europe as it is now, the
> refusal to show nudity is becoming clearly identified with Islam, and
> feminists are turning clearly against Islam.
>
snip

>
> If you have time you can have a look at the photos in pregnancy pages in
> Farsi and Arabic. You have the languages column in the left of the
> English page. The decency of those pages, which in North American
> feminism would be typically considered as protecting women, is now in
> Western Europe becoming associated with a threat to civic rights of
> women. The pages with the naked woman are the pages of countries with
> strong women rights.
>
> Urdu and Punjabi pages are not developed, but then they are seldom
> developed for anything, so it is not very relevant. Some European
> languages have very little population and contributors, so they are not
> very relevant either. The Dutch page is surprising, as it shows more
> nudity, and in Holland they both enjoy high standards of women's rights,
> and Islam has become widely considered as an equivalent for political
> murder and threats to civic rights.
>
>
> Arnaud
>

Hi Arnaud,

Thank you for this enlightening email.

In the past I work as an obstetrical and gynecological nurse, and know some
of the difficulties in treating Muslim women in the United States where they
would be a minority population. In the United States, our health care system
is totally inadequate to meets the needs of people who wanted high quality
medical care and have religious/cultural  beliefs that prevent people from
the opposite gender from seeing them nude.

The way that it can effect women who want to be educated is important, too,
and very relevant to our work on Wikimedia projects.

I find your information about feminist reaction in Western Europe to be
interesting and informative. As I mentioned in another thread today, there
can be vastly differing opinions among feminists about issues related to
sexually topics.

Sydney

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