public/private
The film, readings, clips –all point out to the ability of the state to regulate women’s bodies. The message is that veil is not an ahistorical, unchanging tradition or duty but the norm constructed in alignment with particular political, cultural, and religious configurations (eg. Modern secular pro-Western state or Islamic modernist nationalism etc). However, the more nuanced readings point out that simply reducing politics of veil to the state power and political regime of the time is simplistic – it reinforces idea that women are oppressed and agency-less – the idea popular in the West, where any veil is seen as symbol of powerlessness, patriarchy and lack of “progress� in the realm of women’s rights. Even if somewhat sensitive feminists (as portrayed in the PBS Youtube clip) who accept that there are cultural differences, in the end very much reinscribe the notion of western superiority. For example one of them uses the language that can be read as imperialist/masculinist – “we asked the same question in several different ways to try to penetrate her safe (?) answers.� Western feminists trying to penetrate oppressed Iranian feminist to reveal the TRUTH?
I think the film and readings allows for more complex readings of public/private debates that has been some of the major feminist areas of inquiry. For example, we can think of constitution of “public� space as opening not only potential for subversion/resistance but also new possibilities for making “private� space more “public.� It is also too simplistic to make any divisions of what is public and what is private - the boundaries are quite blurry. Public space in the West has been increasingly privatized – its use is commercialized, restricted, and regulated. On the other hand “private� space has been increasingly (self)policed – since private lives are often regulated, legislated, normalized, people internalize “public� norms of what is allowed/normal, even without real threat of punishment/repression.