Iranian chess champion expelled for not wearing a veil

[Orignal Earl]

Yep, I've heard numerous reasons and rationales trying to excuse the practice including the fact that some women "want" to wear it. There were tons of excuses for institutionalized racism in the US as well, but ultimately it was still disgraceful and wrong. The hijab has no place in a civilized world.

In the mid-1930s, pro-Western ruler Reza Shah issued a decree, banning all veils.[50][48][60][61][62] Many types of male traditional clothing were also banned in order that "Westerners now wouldn’t laugh at us",[63][64][65] the ban humiliated and alienated many Iranian women.[49][54][58][60][49][63][64][65] To enforce this decree, police were ordered to physically remove the veil off of any woman who wore it in public. Women were beaten, their headscarves and chadors torn off, and their homes forcibly searched.[49][50][58][48][60][63][64][65][66][67] Until Reza Shah’s abdication in 1941, many women simply chose not leave their houses in order to avoid such embarrassing confrontations,[50][58][63][64][65] and some even committed suicide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab_by_country#Iran

 

[bshole]

I get that you're trying to be snarky but I agree. Women should be allowed to go topless just as men do, and in many places they're allowed to.

Not being snarky.... being a horny old man....

 

[agent00f]

Yep, I've heard numerous reasons and rationales trying to excuse the practice including the fact that some women "want" to wear it. There were tons of excuses for institutionalized racism in the US as well, but ultimately it was still disgraceful and wrong. The hijab has no place in a civilized world.

Just because you can't understand something doesn't mean it makes no sense, and in fact in the case of dummies the opposite is arguably true.

Meh...don't care. She KNOWS the Iranian position on this...yet she chose to attend the chess match anyway. Was she trying to make a point?

While I don't support the idea of forcing women to wear burkas, if that's the national custom...don't be surprised when they object to someone NOT wearing one.

(and it's sad...once upon a time, Iran was pretty progressive for the region)

As with all symbolic matters, what the symbol means is what matters. To a majority of iranian women, the scarf is supposedly in opposition to/defiance of western objectification of women (hair being a key aspect of that objectification). Others involved (not the dumbshit onlookers here) like this woman might not take that the same way, perhaps in support of western norms, but that's how it goes.

Of course there's arguable/questionable rationale to force all women to wear this or that, but it's not as if they're any less progressive on this per se than the US which forces women to cover their breasts or whatever, and their reason is at least less stupid.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

A hijab is not a veil, it's a head sharf that covers the hair and not the face. Yes, some women in countries where it's not required wear them because they chose too. Many choose to do so because they have jet black hair and wearing the sharf helps reduce the heat.

 

[momeNt]

I get that you're trying to be snarky but I agree. Women should be allowed to go topless just as men do, and in many places they're allowed to.

Gravity is a bitch though. Some of the modesty laws are for their own good.

 

[soulcougher73]

I know its just the one pic, but she looks like she is very attractive. Why youd want to cover that up is beyond me.

 

[PokerGuy]

Iran/Persia has been one of civilization's beacons of progress for over two millennia, if not longer. Fundamentalist Islamic control is just a hiccup in the grand scheme of things. As long as we stop interfering with them and playing Israel's puppet, they'll probably rescind laws like these veil requirements on their own within a couple generations.

Doubtful, we've seen religious fundamentalism harden and grow stronger in much of the world. In civilized countries people reject much of the fundie doctrine, but I'm not too optimistic about the fundamentalist religion losing power around the world.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Doubtful, we've seen religious fundamentalism harden and grow stronger in much of the world. In civilized countries people reject much of the fundie doctrine, but I'm not too optimistic about the fundamentalist religion losing power around the world.

Entirely due to Western intervention though. If fundamentalism is a basic tenant of Islam, there never would have been the move towards modernization seen in the first half of the 20th century, for example. Every Muslim nation would just be herding goats and beating their four wives if that was the case. Guys like Nasser were on the verge of moving the Middle-East in the secular direction nations like Turkey now occupy. Iran had its own democratically-elected, socially-moderate president usurped by the CIA. It's doubtful that ISIS would have amounted to anything if Saddam was kept around. Islamic nations far from our oil interests, e.g. Indonesia, Malaysia, etc managed to mellow out entirely on their own as they saw the success of the West and didn't feel as much antipathy towards us. Islam, just like any religion or political ideology, will operate at its most violent if it can be used as an area of common ground by its adherents. That's unfortunately a basic part of being a human/pack animal, we tend to display tribal behavior and stick to those that we have things in common with to unite against those that don't resemble us.