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The caption on the photo accompanying the May 13th New York Times article, "Love on the Girls' Side of the Saudi Divide," read, "Shaden, who is veiled at 17, spoke with her father as her younger sister looked on in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in March 2008." As I ate breakfast, I stared at the picture. My initial look revealed only a girl who was maybe nine or ten years old wearing a white shirt and black sweater and an older man with a silver mustache wearing white. Where was Shaden? I squinted, pulled the paper closer to my face, and finally noticed her. Covered in the shapeless black fabric of an abaya, I didn't see Shaden at first because to my Western eye she is an utter non-entity, a black void that fills the space between her dad and younger sister. Immediately, I felt sorry for Shaden for her lack of presence. Then I wondered how a different culturally trained eye would see the photo. Would someone from, say, Saudi Arabia notice Shaden first, then her sister and father? (And if so, does that make it OK that Shaden is not allowed to show her face in public, under any circumstances, ever again, because people there still "see" her?)
Melinda at Muslimah Media Watch brought my thoughts about cultural relevancy into sharper focus in her take on the photo:
Accompanying the article is a picture of “Shaden.” Her face covered in black cloth, she sits between her younger sister (whose face and head are bare, as though to contrast with her sister), and her father. Shaden is gesturing with her hands, and her sister looks solemn. Good way to make the father look like a bad guy right off the bat. The caption only identifies Shaden as “veiled at 17.” Interesting wording. First, “veiled” is imprecise. Not all women who “veil” cover all of, or even any of, their faces. (The only photo including a women’s face shows Sara al-Tukhaifi — looking depressed, of course. Unlike the slideshow of laughing men, there are no photos of happy women.)
Second, the photo makes it obvious what Shaden is wearing. What does the caption add by emphasizing her clothing? Well, the passive voice makes it sound like “veiling” was something done to Shaden, and the placement of “at 17” — instead of, say, “Shaden, 17, spoke with her father” — hints at the classic Orientalist tragedy. Veiled at 17, married off at 18 — you know the rest. (I don’t want to deny the reality of this experience, because it does happen. But as far as this article is concerned, it’s not Shaden’s story, so it’s not relevant.)
Cultural respect and relevance in respect to human rights is a very difficult issue. Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Despite the gender-specific terminology of "brotherhood," this is taken to mean that all men and women have "the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education." So how does this work if your cultural rights are in direct conflict with your other rights?
I understand very well how Western values are often shoved down the throats of people in other parts of the world, and most times it makes me cringe. Clearly, we have a looooooong way to go before we achieve gender equality, so it is a bit obnoxious for me as a white, upper-middle class woman living in New York City to sit in my dining room bristling at the rigid sex roles people willingly enforce upon themselves in Saudi Arabia. If the women in Saudia Arabia like wearing abayas, what right do I possess to tell them that they are just giving into oppression, particularly if I don't have the same cultural reference point as someone like Melinda? Should I sit back, mind my own business, and not speak out about I perceive to be injustice?
Abayas are only one example of cultural issues that throw my feminist values into a tizzy. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is another
