диссертация (1169135), страница 33
Текст из файла (страница 33)
Meanwhile, as an exclusiveattire of female sex, veiling reinforces heterosociality. Practice of veiling identifiesan individual as female and segregates the binary pole of male and female genderidentity. Veiling, performed by Muslim women reminds one the drag metaphorused by Judith Butler to refer to performances that produce one’s gender identityVeiling as the cultural label of Muslim societies produces Muslim female identity.433Ahmed L. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate.
New Haven: Yale UniversityPress. 1992. P.56.140Therefore, veiling seems a proper case whereby we can examine gender andreligious identity of Iranian women.This section seeks to bring to light the meanings that veiling has symbolizedin different eras. It represents the alteration of Iranian women’s dressing code andits association with transformation of their cultural identity. It applies theperformative theory of Judith Butler to the issue of veiling, which is regarded as agendered action.
The structuration theory of Giddens, which is some levels similarto butler's ideas, is also invoked to discuss the dynamic relationship of thediscursive structures and women's agency.Iranian Women’s Dressing Code before ConstitutionalismTraditionally, Iranian men protected their wives and daughters believing thatprotecting and controlling women is protecting their honor and reputation andproperty. They would not let any stranger encroach the borders. To fulfill theirresponsibility, they secluded women inside houses or assigned women with strictveiling codes in case of women's necessary presence outside the house.A three-piece dress packed all Iranian women at public. It consisted of a“chador that covered them from head to toe, a ruband a short veil that masked theface, and the chaqchur (very loose trousers)”434.
All women uniformly appeared inpublic in this three-piece veiling dress that was common among all social classes.The veiling gave them a common gender and religious identity.434Sedghi H. Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling. Cambridge University Press, 2007.p.26.141Fig. 5. Veiled Iranian Women of Qajar DynastyThe packing dress produced intelligible female gender in public, and eachlayer of the cloaking dress signified the portable walls of their isolated world. Theword chador in Persian language refers to a dress wrapping the female body, aswell as to tent those shelters and protects individuals in conditions that there is nohouse wall. Chador played a tent-like role in isolating women.
Veils walledwomen's bodies, sealed their mouth and mind as well. Being shaped in a maledominated discourse, the mind of female sex accepted to be a submissive subjectand her mouth was silenced in case of resistance. The veils worn uniformly by allwomen identified them not as individuals, but as the group of secondary sex to beomitted from the social world of dominant male sex.
Veils represented thecontrolling force that obstructed the way to gaining knowledge. Ignorant femalesex, walled away from social arena had neither a body, nor words to express. Herpotential words and bodies were veiled so that the male domineering discoursecould continue435.The long established performance of veiling had naturalized the norm ofveiling as a part of women's gender identity. As the products of religious andtraditional regulatory discourse, women in order to have an intelligible genderidentity, had to be veiled and secluded. Referring to Butler, we can compare thepractice of veiling to "sustained set of acts" that our gendered body produces as aresult our internal essence of gender.
She writes, "what we take to be an “internal”feature of ourselves is one that we anticipate and produce through certain bodilyacts, at an extreme, an hallucinatory effect of naturalized gestures"436.Invoking to the ideas of Giddens, we can say that women who weredeprived of any resources such as knowledge failed any reflexive consideration ofthe construction of their identity, and continued the pre-given traditions provided435Milani F. Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers. Syracuse University Press, 1992.Pp.21-23.436Butler J. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
P. xv.142by the precedent generation. Their particular place and time of birth offered them avery limited choice among the traditions that were already existed. Veiling was"ritualized and handed to them by the long-established traditions. According toGiddens, "In such cultures things stayed more or less the same from generation togeneration, [… and] the changed identity was clearly staked out"437.For ages the patriarchal rules had put forward the idea that veil would curtailwomen's mobility in order to restore the domestic-bonded sphere of women.Women were taught that a woman to observe Islamic rules must be veiled,believing that the veil enveloping them would restrict their mobility.
Therefore,they remained secluded. Indeed, veil did not chain women within houses deprivingthem of education and social place. Harsh patriarchal convictions had definedfemale gender as veiled, packed and secluded to dominate the society as theprimary sex. Otherwise, Islamic rules never promote women's seclusion; ratherthey encourage both men and women to gain knowledge. The elites' cry foreducation of women that coincides with unveiling of women was in fact a cryagainst patriarchal traditions that restricts and deprives women, not only againstveiling438.The oppression of women in Muslim societies has always been politicallyassociated with Islam, regarding Islam as the main cause of women's oppression.However, Ahmed, while assuming the oppression of women in these societies,places the origin of this idea in the patriarchal colonists' inaccurate understandingof Muslim society.
According to this Arab-American researcher, emancipation ofMuslim women from chain of androcentric subjugations does not equal withabandoning their native culture and adopting western culture. She insists on"reforms pursued in a native idiom and not in terms of other cultures 439. Iranian437Giddens. A.
Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford University Press,1991.p.33.438Hoodfar H. The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads: Veiling Practices and Muslim Women. In: Castelli E.A.(eds) Women, Gender, Religion: A Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2001. 576p.439Ahmed L. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress. 1992. p. 166.143women remained veiled and uneducated and this oppressed female identitylingered stable with mere transformation almost to the early phase of women'sawakening during the constitutional revolution.Veiling and Iranian Women's Cultural Identity after ConstitutionalismTransformation of Iranian women's dressing style and the establishment ofunveiling coincides with the rise of constitutionalism.
While, at that time Westerncountries, especially Britain and Russia, economically and politically hadestablished a predominant status over Iran, they would strive to impose thesupremacy of their cultural ideologies and values on Iranians as well. Along withthe advancement of Western diplomats, visitors, and goods to the country, theirlifestyle such as dressing, and European restaurants and cafes, entered the country.Besides, the expansion of press as well as the Western journeys of some eliteIranians, public officials and the king familiarized them with western culture andsociety.
Encountering the progress of Western countries, Iran was inspired to bemodernized as well. Being impressed by Western countries, they equalizedmodernization with Westernization. Iranian elites impressed by Western progressregarded all cultural differences as signs of advancement and modernization.Among these signs, European women's dressing fashion was noticeably eyecaptivating.
It conspicuously varied from Iranian women's style that was coded bytraditions and Islamic culture. Both the reformer elites and the state were enthusedto include policies concerning Iranian women's dressing style. Naser-al-din shah,in his trip to Russia in the last decades of the nineteenth century, was impressed byRussian ballet dancers' skirts and immediately after his arrival to the country, thelength of court women's skirt decreased in that style and gradually this style144permeated beyond the court (see Fig. 6).
To adopt a modernized and Europeancultural identity, some women embraced those modern styles440.Fig. 6. Iranian court women wearing short skirts in the late 19th centuryUnveiling among Iranian women was initiated by Tahira Quratulain, afemale poet, (1815-1851) in a meeting in Qazvin city. However, this abnormalaction shocked men and provoked their anger441. According to Milani, Quratulain"publically unveiled herself, as she unveiled her voice in her poetry". Milaniappreciates the poet's transgress from social, cultural and religious norms,believing that this distinctive woman challenged the social absence of female bodyand female voice442.
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