Why Do White Guys Hate My Hijab?

Just last week, I graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. A few weeks before graduation, my best friend (the only other hijabi on Wesleyan’s 2600+ student campus) and I were taking one of our infamous long walks (we have preset one and a half, three, and five mile loops) around campus and the surrounding Middletown area. As was typical of our second-semester of senior year conversations, we were venting to each other about the many difficulties of finding post-undergrad work with our liberal arts degrees (she a government major and I a history major) and barely-there networks. As we paused our conversation to cross one of the many streets that interrupt our rather scenic routes, I turned around to “look both ways” when I heard a car honk at us and someone yell, “Take that shit off of your head!” Amused, all I could think was, “Hey look, it’s another one of those white guys who hates my hijab.” Unfazed (and quite honestly, used to such behavior at this point in our Wesleyan careers), we continued on our walk.

The next morning, I had to share this story with one of the librarians at Wesleyan’s Art Library, where I worked. During my shift the week before, much to her surprise, I mentioned to my supervisor how often Middletown residents (especially young white men in their red or white pickup trucks) verbally abused my friend and me when we left campus to walk into town. I even refused to walk into town for dinner the day after the Boston Bombings in fear that I would be attacked, like the many hijab-wearing Muslim women in Boston in the aftermath of the bombings. Horrified to hear what my friend and I go through (even though it doesn’t bother us very much), my boss mentioned that it was common for young white males in Middletown to drive around Wesleyan’s campus in the warmer months to “cruise for chicks” (her words, not mine). That’s when it hit me, “So that’s why these white guys hate my hijab – the way I look interrupts their ‘cruises for chicks.’”  More specifically, the way I dress denies them their privileged white male gaze – a privilege that society has taught them is their right, especially over women of color.

The male gaze.  The white male gaze. That infamous white male gaze. Kind of like the male gaze that permeates Hollywood and cinema. Except in this case, the white male gaze is separated from its objects of desire by car windows, not movie screens. And these young white men in their pickup trucks feel it’s their absolute right to “gaze” at women on and off campus. They drive around Wesleyan to see long flowing hair, short shorts, and even shorter dresses. Our hijabs, long-sleeved shirts, maxi skirts, and maxi dresses disrupt their cruises; we deny them their gazing privilege. And so, through their shielded windows and in their mobile getaways, they feel it’s their right to tell me to “take that shit off” of my head.

I hate to break it to you, white guys, but your male gaze is one of the major reasons (among many others, rest assured) I began to wear a hijab.

And let’s not kid ourselves:  the privileged white male gaze and the verbal abuse it provokes is not reserved for Middletown residents only. Although their remarks usually surfaced when they were under the influence, I’ve gone through the same phenomenon with white fraternity brothers at Wesleyan. On one Friday night in the spring of our junior year, my friend and I were taking a late walk when a couple of white fraternity brothers shouted out of their car, “Take that shit back to India.” I’ll admit, this time the words hurt a little more, mainly because neither of us is from India. All joking aside, it did hurt that these Wesleyan fraternity brothers – who we’ve sat in semester-long seven-student seminars with – felt that it was their right to openly and publically shame us for acting different, all because we choose to dress in a way that does not allow them to see us the way they want to.

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Hostility on the Internet

Women in Pakistan are being harassed and are encountering hostility via social networks on the Internet. At the same time, many women's rights activists see the web as a new way to further their work. By Marcus Michaelsen

If a Pakistani woman journalist denounces child abuse and sexual harassment on Twitter, it can happen that she is threatened with rape. "I've received vile, detailed messages from random strangers who decide to tell me my home address and then live out their rape fantasies online."

Another women's rights activist has experienced a similar response. "Almost every time I talk about taboo issues on Facebook, Twitter or my blog, I receive hundreds of hate comments. Most of these involve calling me an atheist, an evil woman and an agent of the West. Most of them tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about and should 'go back to the kitchen'."

Both women have published their experiences on the Pakistani 'Take Back the Tech' campaign website, which draws attention to the issue of violence against women and seeks to promote the active use of digital media by women. The campaign originated in 2006 as part of the Association for Progressive Communications, a network that promotes human rights and development with the help of new communications technologies.

Since then, branches have sprung up in more than 20 countries. Last December, the network launched an important activity that focussed on 'digital storytelling'. In a series of short videos and articles posted on the Internet, women spoke about their own experiences of violence and abuse, but also of self-assertion and personal maturity.

Attacks on women with strong opinions

Nighat Dad, managing director of the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan, has observed that as use of the Internet becomes more widespread, more women are taking part in online debates about politics, religion, and sexuality. "All this is challenging the status quo and stereo types in an online space where there is a visible dominance of male internet users. When they see it is hard to win the arguments with women, they start abusing them and challenge their intellect and brain power," she says.

Besides attacks against women with strong opinions, there are also new forms of harassment and abuse on the net. Take Back the Tech documents the case of a Facebook profile, that was spreading stolen private photos of a young Pakistani woman on the web accompanied by offensive comments. The photos then appeared on websites with personal ads or combined with pornographic images.

Women are also being secretly photographed or stalked with the use of mobile telephones. The journalist Saba Imtiaz described in an article how many Pakistani women are besieged with text messages from unknown men. They obviously get the telephone numbers either through random calls or covertly from delivery services or the staff of mobile telephone providers.

Of course, the new media only reflect the realities of society. Sexual violence against women is widespread in Pakistan. According to a poll conducted by the Dutch Rutgers World Population Foundation, 66 per cent of Pakistani women have at some time or another experienced violence. This is primarily attributed to poverty, lack of education, and social tension.

An additional problem is that in Pakistan's conservative society, the behaviour of women is closely linked to questions of honour and morality. Professor Farzana Bari, women's rights activist, has demanded in the Express Tribune newspaper that the perceptions of gender roles must be fundamentally altered in Pakistan. In order to combat violence against women, women need to be given greater financial, social, and legal support.

Yet, it was only in 2010 that a law against the harassment of women in the workplace was introduced. A law against domestic violence, on the other hand, has been delayed due to opposition from Islamic organizations, who have warned of an undermining of traditions and religious values.

Lack of discretion

Correspondingly, the means to act against harassment on the Internet are also limited. A proposed law on cybercrime, which has been under discussion for years, is concerned only with crimes such as fraud and data theft. The organization Bytes For All, which champions freedom of opinion on the Internet in Pakistan, also complains that the police and judicial authorities seldom display the necessary discretion in cases of sexual violence, whether online or elsewhere.

It is therefore all the more important to alert users to the risks. Bytes for All has created an interactive map that documents incidents of violence and harassment. In addition, the organization offers courses in online security. A poster campaign carried out on social networks calls for the use of digital media without restrictions.

It is not only a matter of counteracting self-censorship, which, according to Nighat Dad, is how many women react to slander and aggression on the net. References to religion and morality also offer the pretext for state intervention in the digital sphere. In May 2010, the government shut down access to Facebook for two weeks because a competition involving Mohammed caricatures was being held on a member's profile.

YouTube has also been blocked in Pakistan since an anti-Islamic video provoked angry protests in September. Although the furore has long since died down, the Pakistani parliament recently recommended extending the blackout of the Internet platform. Shahzad Ahmand, director of Bytes for All, warns of the misuse of religion to further politically motivated censorship. After all, amateur videos documenting corruption and human rights abuses in the country have frequently been uploaded to YouTube in the past.

Strategies against state control

Last year, a minor victory was achieved against the state's need to impose controls. The government had announced a call for bids to set up of a national Internet filtering system. The justification was based on the need to combat pornography and blasphemy and to protect national security. With a clever campaign and international support, Pakistani network activists managed to force a provisional suspension of the plan.

Farieha Aziz took part in the campaign. Together with the blogger Sana Saleem, the journalist founded the organization Bolo Bhi (Speak Louder). Both women make use of their media experience to campaign for women's rights and freedom of expression. According to Farieha Aziz, Twitter and Facebook have opened new doors for activists to get their messages across to the public. If an issue garners sufficient attention on the net, then other media will sit up and take notice.

At the same time, social networks can help to correct reports from the press and television. When reports of rape were published including the names of victims, protests in social networks succeeded in bringing about a change to this unethical editorial policy, says Aziz. Internet users reacted similarly to a broadcast by the television presenter Maya Khan, who asked young couples in public parks on camera if they were married or not. Khan was forced to apologise and was subsequently fired.

There are many aspects to the struggle for freedom of expression and equal rights in Pakistan. As these women activists have shown through their experiences, digital media can serve both as a tool and a venue for action.

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Special Hijab tutorial: Hides everything! Most modest for brothers!

I am a man and I totally I agree with this. I have heard so many brothers moaning about the sisters hijab/lack of hijab/lax hijab etc they never moan about domestic violence, misogyny, oppression, sexual violence, harrassment or the blantant disregard for womens rights in their midst. These are the munafiqeen of today.

Egyptians protest against sexual violence

Dutch-Muslim girl says faces daily assault over faith

Comment: I think these 'local boys' boys are quite possibly also Muslim and are attacking her because she is too and because she dares to pursue an education and not dress the 'way she should'....

AMSTERDAM: She can’t tell her parents. They would keep her at home and force her to marry. She has gone to the police, but they have refused to intervene. For Fatima, a Moroccan-Dutch 19-year-old university student, life has become terrible.

“I can’t walk to university any more and don’t have money to pay for a taxi. I have to brave it and suffer every day to get to class,” she told Bikyamasr.com at a cafe on the outskirts of Amsterdam. For her, life is a struggle.

“I can’t talk to my parents about it because they threatened me already to send me to Morocco for school and to find a husband. This is my home,” she said.

Her ordeal began last Spring, when she would walk the same route to the University of Amsterdam where she was taking her first round of coursework. She liked to dress up for school and had been wearing what other Dutch girls her age often do in the warmer months: a skirt and tanktop.

“I wanted to be noticed at school, and I was, but also on the streets,” she said.

She said that a group of local boys began harassing her on a daily basis, commenting on her body and propositioning her. “I didn’t give them notice and they didn’t ever touch me.”

It all changed one morning when her mother called and they overheard her speaking Arabic. Fatima said that is when they began to get even closer.

“It was a few days later when they jumped on me and started swearing at me and calling me horrible names like ‘Moroccan slut’, ‘prostitute’ and others,” she revealed. “The first time it happened, they grabbed my chest and behind, but nothing more. I thought it was a one-off thing and I yelled at them when they ran away.”

She didn’t call the police or report the incident, hoping, she said, it would not happen again.

But the following day, the boys attacked again. She said they tore at her clothes and “they inserted fingers … it was the worst experience of my life. I thought they would rape me.”

When she went to the police, in tatters, she said the officers on duty laughed when she tried to report the incident.

“They told me to wear better clothes and to hide being Arab. And they didn’t move to do anything. I was so shocked and hurt. I didn’t know what to do,” she said.

For the next few weeks, calm returned to her routine and the boys were not present, but then they returned and the assaults began again. After two more sexual assaults on her, she has since taken different routes.

“But they somehow find me. I have been attacked at least 10 times and each time they call me names about being an Arab and Muslim. The police say they would like to help, but they need some evidence. They think I am lying,” she said.

For her, being an Arab, a woman, and a Muslim in the lower class areas of Amsterdam has been a struggle. Fatima hopes that she can start finding a ride to university to end her turmoil.

“I can’t say anything to my parents because they would keep me at home and force me to marry someone in Morocco. I am Dutch and I will fight this no matter what,” she said, adding that she plans to go to the central police station to file a report against the boys for attacking her and the police officers who sat idly by.

The Netherlands has seen a rise in anti-Islam sentiments in recent years and Fatima is only one of numerous hate crimes erupting across the once tolerant society.

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Egypt's sexual harassment of women 'epidemic'

Campaigners in Egypt say the problem of sexual harassment is reaching epidemic proportions, with a rise in such incidents over the past three months. For many Egyptian women, sexual harassment - which sometimes turns into violent mob-style attacks - is a daily fact of life, reports the BBC's Bethany Bell in Cairo.

Last winter, an Egyptian woman was assaulted by a crowd of men in the city of Alexandria.

In video footage of the incident, posted on the internet, she is hauled over men's shoulders and dragged along the ground, her screams barely audible over the shouts of the mob.

It is hard to tell who is attacking her and who is trying to help.

The case was one of the most extreme - but surveys say many Egyptian women face some form of sexual harassment every day.

Marwa, not her real name, says she worries about being groped or verbally harassed whenever she goes downtown. She says it makes her afraid.

"This is something that scares me, as a girl. When I want to go out, walking the street and someone harasses or annoys me, it makes me afraid.

"This stops me from going out. I try to be excessively cautious in the way I dress so I avoid wearing things that attract people."

'Deeply rooted'

The day I met Marwa, she was wearing a long headscarf pinned like a wimple under her chin, and a loose flowing dress with long sleeves over baggy trousers.

But dressing conservatively is no longer a protection, according to Dina Farid of the campaign group Egypt's Girls are a Red Line.

She says even women who wear the full-face veil - the niqab - are being targeted.

"It does not make a difference at all. Most of Egyptian ladies are veiled [with a headscarf] and most of them have experienced sexual harassment.

"Statistics say that most of the women or girls who have been sexually harassed have been veiled or completely covered up with the niqab."

In 2008, a study by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights found that more than 80% of Egyptian women have experienced sexual harassment, and that the majority of the victims were those who wore Islamic headscarves.

Said Sadek, a sociologist from the American University in Cairo, says that the problem is deeply rooted in Egyptian society: a mixture of what he calls increasing Islamic conservatism, on the rise since the late 1960s, and old patriarchal attitudes.

"Religious fundamentalism arose, and they began to target women. They want women to go back to the home and not work.

"Male patriarchal culture does not accept that women are higher than men, because some women had education and got to work, and some men lagged behind and so one way to equalise status is to shock women and force a sexual situation on them anywhere.

"It is not the culture of the Pharaohs; it is the culture of the Bedouins," Mr Sadek says.

Mr Sadek and women's campaign groups also blame what they call the lack of security enforcement. They say the police should do more to enforce laws protecting women from harassment.

'Provocative dress'

And the harassers are getting younger and younger.

On the Qasr al-Nil bridge in central Cairo, a hotspot for harassment, I met a group of teenage boys hanging out near street stalls blaring loud music.

When I asked them about a recent case of mass harassment in which women at a park were groped by a gang of boys, they told me the girls brought it on themselves.

"If the girls were dressed respectably, no-one would touch them," one of them said. "It's the way girls dress that makes guys come on to them. The girls came wanting it - even women in niqab."

One of his friends told me the boys were not to blame, and that there was a difference between women who wore loose niqabs and tight ones.

A woman who wore a tight niqab was up for it, he added.

But attitudes like these horrify many Egyptian men - like Hamdy, a human rights activist.

"I really feel very upset myself because I think about my family, my sisters and my mother," he said.

"Before Eid [the festival at the end of Ramadan], I was downtown and I had my sisters with me. It gets very crowded and I had my eyes everywhere, looking around and I shouted at a pedlar who got in their way. In our religion this is something that is not allowed."

The new government says it is taking the problem seriously - although many campaigners argue it is not a priority yet.

For women - like Nancy, who lives in central Cairo - it is a question of freedom.

"I want to walk safely and like a human being. Nobody should touch or harass me - that's it." Source

Egypt: Samira v. the Military One woman dares to sue after enduring a "virginity check" at the military's hands.

CAIRO – Samira Ibrahim likes pink, Che Guevara, and old revolutionary songs from the '50s. She doesn't like people picking on her younger brother. When she was a little girl, she landed a punch on a bully who was pushing him around.

She hasn't stopped fighting since. On a recent October afternoon, the 25-year-old traveled nine hours by train from her home in southern Egypt to Cairo to meet with her lawyers in a case she filed against the Egyptian military for what she claims was sexual assault in the administering of a so-called “virginity test” after she was arrested in Tahrir Square along with other female protesters.

On the ninth floor of a dingy hotel room in central Cairo, she recounted her ordeal for GlobalPost, sharing the details of what happened on March 9 when she was arrested along with 172 other protesters, including 17 women, as part of a crackdown on demonstrations that reignited in Tahrir Square one month after President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down.

The women in the group were herded into police vans, taken to a military detention center on the outskirts of Cairo and ordered to separate into two lines — one for “virgins” and the other for “non virgins.” Then they were forced to undergo the so-called “virginity tests,” a controversial, some might even say ‘medieval,’ procedure in which women are forcefully penetrated in order to document blood from the hymen as proof of virginity. The invasive, painful, and often unreliable practice, which in some traditional societies in the Middle East and Africa has been used to ensure the virginity of a bride before marriage, has been condemned by Amnesty International as a form of torture.

“In the virginity test case, I was forced to take off my clothes in front of military officials,” says Samira, whose lip gloss matches her bold pink headscarf, a tradition of modesty for women in the conservative southern Egyptian region, where she was born and raised and still lives with her parents.

“Secondly, the person that conducted the test was an officer, not a doctor. He had his hand stuck in me for about five minutes. He made me lose my virginity. Every time I think of this, I don't know what to tell you, I feel awful. I don't know how to describe it to you, ” she adds.

“I know that to violate a woman in that way was considered rape,” she says. “I felt like I had been raped.”

Before her March 9 arrest, Samira was the general manager of a prominent marketing firm. Her four-day detainment prompted a military investigation at her office that cost her her job. She still can't find work.

Samira's decision to single-handedly challenge the military in court is rare for any woman, but particularly for a young woman from a traditional background. That her case has the support of her openly Islamist father is even more unusual, and her mother has been strongly behind her as well.

Her father, Ibrahim Muhammed Mahmud, a veteran political activist released from jail right before Mubarak was overthrown, says, “She's so much like me in her nature, so much like me. If we're doing the right thing, then we shouldn't be scared.”

“She has the right to file that lawsuit and demand her rights,” her father adds. “But you know, I'm skeptical of the judicial system.”

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Samira's case against the military protests the use of “virginity tests” while she and the other women were held in a military detainment center.

So far, Samira is the only woman who has filed an administrative case in Egypt’s civil court against the military over the virginity test incident.

Mona Seif, the founder of the group “No To Military Trials Without Civilians,” said Samira's decision to file the court case “takes a very strong woman” and “a supportive family.”

“Samira is very strong and her family is behind her,” she says. Of the women who have come forward publicly, Seif says only Samira has filed a lawsuit because many victims fear reprisals from the authorities.

But other women have spoken out about the alleged so-called “virginity testing” believed administered to Samira and others. Victim Salwa El-Houseini described her experience to reporters at a “No To Military Trials Without Civilians” press conference in mid-March but can't file suit because she has no national identification papers.

“If I, Salwa El-Hosseini, had filed a lawsuit, I would not have been like Samira or others,” she says. “People don't even know how far I would have gone.”

Other victims are impressed by Samira's fortitude. “She is a true warrior and really loves her country,” says another victim, Rasha Abdelrahman, a 28-year-old seamstress. Abdelrahman initially filed the equivalent of a police report on the issue, but has not followed up due to emotional problems. Samira, she says, “dreams of freedom.” The two sat next to one another on the bus after they were arrested and Abdelrahman recalls how they shouted political chants through the windows in an effort to reach the people on the streets. “We kept each other strong, and told each other that freedom has a price,” she says.

The Egyptian military is reportedly investigating what happened to the women following their arrest on March 9. Officially, Samira was charged with assaulting authorities, taking part in an unsanctioned gathering, and breaking curfew. She was detained for four days and released with a one-year suspended sentence.

A spokesman for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military body now ruling Egypt, declined to comment on the details of the case.

According to documents provided by an attorney on her case and translated from Arabic, her court filing to the Chief Justice of the Administrative Judicial Court and the Deputy Chief Justice of the State Council states that Samira “was exposed to the ugliest forms of humiliation and torture and a violation of the sanctity of her body that included being given a virginity test before the eyes and ears of the workers in the military prison during the period of her detention from March 9, 2011 until March 11, 2011.”

She demands that those responsible be held to account and punished. She also says she was not informed of the charges on which she was being held. Her case requests compensation for all legal fees but does not demand any other restitution as part of the case. In a parallel legal action, Samira has also filed a case against the military for referring her to a military court even though she is a civilian and for refusing her request to see a lawyer. She is due in court Tuesday, but her attorney said her case may be postponed because cases related to the upcoming parliamentary election have been given top priority.

Rights groups representing Samira and other victims are not hopeful. “We really have a very weak case,” says Ibigan Hassan, a lawyer working pro bono with the El Nadim Center for the Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, one of the rights groups working on Samira's behalf. Hassan predicts the court will close the case due to lack of evidence.

Even veteran rights workers in Cairo are impressed by the Samira's determination to use civic channels like the judiciary despite their reputation for corruption and lack of transparency.

Heba Morayef, the director of Human Rights Watch's Cairo office, describes her as someone who “wants to continue to fight the system because what happened to her was sexual assault and she wants justice.”

“Compared to the other people detained and the girls that I saw in relation to this case, Samira has the clearest concept of violation — she understands what it means to be violated physically as a girl,” says the El Nadim Center’s Hassan.

For Samira, the case is about making sure this never happens again.

“If any woman is violated and she files a lawsuit against her perpetrators, then this is going to eventually stop, and they're not going to put pressure on political activists by threatening to violate their wives or daughters,” Samira says.

She insists that if her case fails in Egypt, she'll take it to international bodies like the United Nations.

Morayef believes the so-called “virginity testing” was done as part of a new strategy being pursued by Egypt's ruling military, describing them as having gone “on the offensive” in recent months. Hassan thinks the crackdown on March 9 was intended to break the spirit of the revolution by systematically targeting individual political activists, such as Samira.

“Civilians were clearly planted within the protests as spies early on,” Hassan says, “to identify key leaders of the revolution.”

"They said, 'get her,'” Samira recalls hearing military authorities saying as they swarmed Tahrir Square on March 9. The attack that day marked a particularly violent departure for the ruling military authorities. Human Rights Watch issued a strongly worded report condemning the violence.

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Samira was first arrested for her political activities at age of 16. But her rebel streak showed itself much earlier — her favorite childhood game was cops and robbers.

“She comes from a politicized background,” Hassan says. “She is someone who understands her rights and she went out to fight for her rights, she knows exactly what she is fighting for and understands what it is like to be in the kind of position she was in.”

Her mother, who hails from a small village and cannot read or write, comes from a family of dissidents.

“Samira has always been brave: ever since she was a little girl,” she says. “A guy once hit her brother, so she hit him, even though he was older than her, she beat him up.”

She was kicked out of university three years ago for taking part in a protest with the key April 6 opposition group.

"They arrested me, but you know how they arrested me?” she asks, reliving the events of March 9. “They pulled me from my hair. They dragged me on the ground and my stomach was kind of showing.” She was so humiliated by the exposure that she's still taking preventative measures. “Since then,” she says, “I've been wearing a swimming suit under my clothes so if something like that happens again, that won't happen.”

“There was a military general [standing nearby] and he started to accuse me of being a prostitute,” she says. “I was extremely surprised, thinking, why is he accusing me of that?”

The prostitution charge emerged from a public campaign suggesting that orgies were being held and immoral behavior was the norm among activists camping out in Tahrir Square, rumors activists believe were encouraged by security officials. The military told Samira’s legal representatives that these rumors were the basis upon which the military created a rationale for administering the “virginity tests” so that the women could not later accuse officers of rape.

Samira had briefly studied law and knew what was happening to her during her four-day detainment was illegal. “It occurred to me to ask for an attorney, and when I first went to the prosecutor I asked for an attorney and he sort of looked at me and said, 'You ask for an attorney? You all deserve to be shot.'”

The kinds of problems facing young people like Samira are part of a larger narrative of disillusionment unfolding in Egypt, with once-united opposition parties fracturing ahead of the November parliamentary elections and military leadership actively discouraging dissent. Authorities are also pressuring rights agencies, raiding their offices, confiscating files on key opposition figures, and threatening to adopt restrictive funding laws.

Many believe the revolutionary honeymoon is over.

Her headscarf flapping in the wind, Samira is standing in the middle of Tahrir Square. Just months ago the area had been a bustling center of political activity — the protesters' home base, code name “tent city.” Today, it's an empty ring of dirt with only a few scribblings political graffiti hinting at the historic events that took place there. But Samira says she's “still optimistic” about Egypt's future.

“Even if there's just one revolutionary, he or she can start the revolution all over again,” she says.

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