| 26
November 2002
Women's bodies
and religious wars
RECENT violence in Nigeria, supposedly
over the Miss World Pageant, has once again focused attention on Islamic
fundamentalism, reinforcing popular perceptions of a "clash of
civilizations" between fanatically misogynist (anti-women) Muslims
on one hand, and "pro-women" Christians on the other.
But what happened in Nigeria is really another episode in a war that has
been going on for centuries, a war fought in the name of religion over
women's bodies. It is a vicious war that has not been the monopoly of
conservative Muslims. Today, all over the world, Christian
fundamentalists also seek ways of controlling women's bodies.
The violence in Nigeria is depicted mainly as a protest against the Miss
World contest. No doubt, this was a main triggering factor, with
religious conservatives seeing the contest as a violation of standards
of female modesty.
But there was more. There was a series of culturally insensitive gaffes
on the part of both Miss World organizers and the Nigerian government.
The Miss World activities, including, originally, the pageant itself,
were scheduled in the middle of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and
reflection. I would think Christians would have reacted, too, if a Miss
World pageant were held during Holy Week.
Eventually, what precipitated the violence came from within Nigeria
itself. An article in a Lagos daily, This Day, suggested that the
prophet Mohammed would have married one of the beauty contestants if he
had seen the contest. Remarks against the prophet Mohammed, whether
sex-related or not, can evoke violent reactions, but again such
sentiments are not exclusive to Muslims. More conservative Christians
express outrage whenever a "human" side to Jesus Christ is
portrayed, especially if there are suggestions that he may have been
sexual.
We also need new perspectives when we look at the opposition to beauty
contests. Such sentiments certainly aren't limited to conservative
Muslims. Feminists and people on the left of the political spectrum see
those beauty contests as exploitative, a commodification of women's
bodies. In many Western countries, particularly in Europe, the beauty
contests mean little, a quaint American anachronism that deserves only
passing press coverage in the form of brief articles buried inside the
papers.
At first blush, the opposition from Muslim conservatives may seem to
converge with this idea that women's bodies are being commodified. But
the opposition is very different here, taking on a tenor more similar to
our anti-pornography crusaders. It is the "shameful" exposure
of women's bodies that is being protested. Here, they share the view of
Christian fundamentalists who see women as dangerous, tempting men to
sin. Women are meant for the pleasure only of their husbands, and are
preferably kept shielded from the public, or more specifically, from
lustful eyes of men.
It took the Miss World controversy for the world to perk up and look at
the problems of religious misogyny in Nigeria. Several months before the
contest, groups fighting for women's rights had been desperately trying
to drum up the protest against Nigerian sharia (religious law) courts
that had sentenced women to death, in one case allegedly for premarital
sex and the other for adultery. The controversial death sentences
weren't quite newsworthy until the violence erupted over the Miss World
contest. In a paradoxical twist, some Miss World contestants themselves
had threatened to boycott the pageant to protest the death sentences.
Western protests against Muslim religious fundamentalism are notoriously
opportunistic. For years, Afghan women suffered under the Taliban's
religious police, but the world didn't care until US President George
Bush used the women's rights issue as one of his many excuses to invade.
These days he's suddenly become a defender of women's rights again, this
time in Iraq, as he prepares for another invasion.
But Bush is himself a Christian fundamentalist, with a terrible record
against women. He has vetoed funding for international family planning
programs, supposedly to preserve the sanctity of human life. Yet the
slash in funding now endangers many reproductive health programs that
have precisely tried to counteract religious fundamentalism, including
the versions from Muslims, to advance women's rights.
The global trend is alarming, with the last decade's gains in women's
rights slowly being reversed. During a recent international conference,
US government delegates proposed the deletion of terms like
"reproductive health," "sexual health" and
"reproductive rights" from international documents, supposedly
because such terms mean abortion. We hear these voices in the
Philippines as well, as in the opposition to a reproductive health bill,
again using the abortion bogey as an excuse.
It is in this context that we can understand what happened recently in
Bukidnon province, where 24 women were said to have had their
intrauterine devices (IUD) removed out of fear of excommunication by the
Catholic parish priest. Eleven have reportedly become pregnant since the
IUD removals.
Catholic Church officials deny having forced the women, but think hard
about what the threat of excommunication, exemplified by a denial of
Holy Communion, means in a rural community.
The opposition to beauty contest from religious fundamentalist isn't
about the exploitation of women. It stems from fear that women might
become too independent, too sexual, as exemplified by the display of
their bodies. In the same token, the opposition to contraception by
conservative Catholics can be deceiving, couched in such terms as
"protecting women's bodies from chemical poisons."
In reality, the conservatives are fearful of the potentials of women's
power. When women become aware of the power they have over their bodies,
over sexuality and over reproduction, they will begin to question the
power of religious authoritarianism, including the patriarchal
institutions that propagate that authoritarianism. That is what is so
frightening to the conservative, whether in Nigeria, the United States,
or the Philippines.
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