Women’s Clothing

The clothing of world-class western female athletes has lately become a source of controversy. An athlete in the Paralympics was told by a female official that her outfit was inappropriate. On the other hand, the women’s team from Norway was fined for modest dressing at the European beach handball championship.

Sports historian, Johanna Mellis, shed light on the women’s clothing rules for the Olympics, “Rules are usually needed to ensure that sports are fair and safe but they are also about controlling how women look and how they are perceived.”

Mellis added, “Historians of uniform have shown that, when it came to female athletes, [the rulemakers] were so afraid that female athletes were going to look masculine that they wanted to ensure uniforms made women look feminine, appealing and attractive to men.”

Women were required to wear bikinis while playing volleyball, by a regulation that was in place until 2012. There once even existed a Lingerie Football League.

Women are objectified even in sports to gratify the male gaze. But the Western women are now fighting back.

German gymnasts were the first to take a stand in the 2021 Olympics against the sexualisation of women’s bodies in this sport by performing in so-called unitards, a full-body outfit.

From blaming a sexual assault victim for dressing provocatively to fining Olympic athletes for dressing modestly, the liberal western culture is full of contradictions about women’s dressing.

Most modern western women’s clothing is no longer modest. It is usually designed for ease of movement and sexual attraction. Fit older women take pride in being able to wear the styles and materials, which their 20-something counterparts wear to flaunt their bodies.

Almost 50 years ago, in 1972, the BBC produced a series on John Berger’s book “Ways of Seeing.”

Berger used European oil paintings to define gender roles and the underlying politics.

He said, “A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies.” He continued, “By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her.” According to him, “To be born a woman has to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men.”

He then went on to say, “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. Thus she turns herself into an object-and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”

Berger then stated the inconvenient truth, “In one category of European oil painting women were the principal, ever recurring subject. That category is the nude.”

Berger illustrated how nude women in European art were painted for the male spectator to flatter him and turn his desire into fantasy. This perfectly explains the rationale behind the rules made by men whereby bikini bottoms are the uniform for women’s first-class international sports competitions.

Berger’s thesis on the nude in European oil paintings could easily have been a doctoral dissertation on the Islamic hijab. His book begins with the centuries-old European oil painting tradition and ends with the visual culture, which is so dominant in our lives through print and electronic media. He devoted a section of his book to visually elucidate how publicity (advertising) is oxygen for capitalism. He said that advertising needs visual language. Advertising creates a fantasy for the spectator buyer to own. This can only exist when personal social envy is a widespread emotion.

Berger stated that true democracies are non-existent due to social inequalities. Advertising turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. In the absence of political choices, buying choices give the illusion of power. This is why the world changed drastically after the internet and social media arrived on the scene.

Up until the 1990s, electronic content was created by media houses and was subject to censorship and restricted in terms of viewership. Today, the internet and social media is now a click away on personal smartphones. Content has become easy to create and upload or share live with an audience. Television is now real-time and reality TV shows are popular.

Captive audiences are a fantasy now, so the visual culture has become extremely competitive. Since it relies primarily on the female form to peddle its wares, women are objectified to the hilt. Women’s clothing is designed to be ultra-provocative, and we are inundated with images of disrobed women. Pornography has entered every home. Fueled through sexual imagery, desires and fantasies are the main cause of rising sexual violence against women and minors. Consumption-oriented societies are guilty of greed, narcissism, social apathy.

It is no surprise that the greatest opposition to the veil comes from western societies, which view it as a symbol of oppression. The Muslim woman’s dress code disarms the nuclear weapon of the visual culture.

In strict academic terms, the veil has multi-layered meanings, which translate beyond the personal to the political, the social, the legal and the financial and is linked to social psychology.

Technically, the hijab grants a female personal power. Body shaming, slut-shaming, fat-shaming, and envious bullying is theoretically mitigated. These toxic female behaviours are fueled by the visual culture when personal social envy and resulting social apathy is widespread.

However, Muslim scholars and the clergy use the Quranic verses on the hijab to establish male dominance. Perfectly in line with Berger’s thesis of the subconscious processes behind the male gaze, our male clergy wishes to restrict the viewership of Muslim women. This is why they advocate a face veil and a burqa. Dressed as such, a woman is only ever seen by a select few individuals in her lifetime. She is additionally denied public space by the Muslim clergy, who asserts that she must stay home or step out with a Mehram male. There is a rising trend of religiosity amongst Pakistani women, who toe the line of the male clergy. The capitalist cultures objectify women through sexual images, the Muslim clergy infantilises and objectifies women with the imposition of the face veil, burqa and restricted mobility. This has profound consequences for public space and human rights.

In general terms, Muslim women’s motivations about the veil vary greatly. In varying modes, hijab is seen as obeying God’s will; protection against sexual harassment; a cultural practice imperative for belonging; a symbol of male authority over her–which, if violated–may even result in death; a tool to either project non-existent piety; and finally a cover for immorality.

The denial of agency to a woman on a false religious pretext leads to human rights violations. It is fairly common in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for a man to cause his wife’s death by denying her access to medical treatment. In such societies, women are denied all human rights. These include inclusion in public life in any way, shape or form, including the right to education, access to public health services, the right to vote, the right to partake in economic activity and finally, the right to marry and divorce, of her own will. These circumstances are a reality for many Pakistani women.

The hijab should be a woman’s personal choice, in obedience to God. Any other rationale is the exact reason why the hijab disempowers instead of empowering.

To non-hijabi women, the veiled women come across as a threat to civil liberties and inclusion in public space. She is also a visual assault of sorts, as the veil is perceived as a holier than thou expression of piety, which can provoke a reaction against it.

There is a growing trend of Pakistani feminism, where women are opting to wear western clothing and pursue careers.

Women’s western clothing is not accepted by the general public. Sexual harassment of women dressed as such is common. Women are fighting back, by making videos of such incidents and sharing them on social media. Given the Pakistani society’s propensity to make sexual harassment themes videos go viral, this is proving to be an effective deterrent for street incidents.

Morality cannot be enforced and clothing cannot be policed. Every female citizen has a moral obligation to dress modestly in public, as we live in an Islamic state. Even western female tourists dress modestly in Pakistan, out of respect.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “There are two types of the dwellers of Hell whom I did not see… Women who would be dressed but appear to be naked, who would be inclined to evil and make the men incline towards it. They would not enter paradise and they would not smell its fragrance, whereas its fragrance would be smelt from such and such distance,” (Sahih Muslim 5310). Prophet (PBUH) did not see such women, so this hadith should be the biggest motivator for modest dressing.

That said, the burqa was also not seen in the times of the prophet (PBUH) and neither was the face veil a requirement.

Abdullah bin `Abbas narrated a hadith: “Al-Fadl bin ‘Abbas rode behind the Prophet (PBUH) as his companion rider on the back portion of his she-camel on the Day of Nahr (slaughtering of sacrifice, 10th Dhul-Hajj) and Al-Fadl was a handsome man. The Prophet (PBUH) stopped giving the people verdicts. In the meantime, a beautiful woman From the tribe of Khath’am came, asking the verdict of Allah’s Messenger (PBUH). Al-Fadl started looking at her as her beauty attracted him. The Prophet (PBUH) looked behind while Al-Fadl was looking at her; so the Prophet (PBUH) held out his hand backwards and caught the chin of Al-Fadl and turned his face (so that he should not gaze at her). This hadith teaches the hijab commanded to men.

No cleric or male role model tells our men to lower their gaze. Staring at women is the national sport of Pakistani males, of all ages even those of single-digit age.

Friday sermons urgently need to preach guarding the eye against what is unlawful-especially online pornographic content.

The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist. She can be reached at aliya1924@gmail.com