Bali Expat Forum - Bali Travel Forum

BaliLife wrote:Any man who asks his wife or his daughter to wear a hejab or chador should be put to death by firing squad. Any society that makes a young girl feel obligated to wear such is a sick society, and any government that perpetuates religion over secularism are committing crimes against humanity.

Ct

Jeez Balilife there is no need to be so agressive toward a form of dress. I could play the devils advocate and argue that men wanting women to dress sexy is just as bad. How many times have I seen very young girls in western countries look more like hookers than teenagers - and it is just fashion - they really have no idea what they are saying by they way they are dressing.

And don't tell me men in the west don't want women to dress sexy. Some might argue that in the west women dress sexy for other women. Rubbish. If women dress sexy for other women, it is only because they are competing with the women for the attention of men.

From my personal experience, there is a freedom in Islamic dress. It sounds perverse, but the pressure to look good is removed - no-one can tell if you are having a bad hair day, or if you body is a perfect shape, and (good or bad) men in Indonesia treat you with more respect. But I don't want to have to dress that way. It needs to be by choice. I choose not to.
(and by Islamic dress I don't mean a jilbab and a tight pair of jeans and t-shirt or body hugging dress - that is NOT Islamic dress and in fact is more of an insult to Islamic modesty)

Just a question FreoGirl, why is it ok for men to dress as they wish, but not women. Where I come from most teenage boys dress to make themselves attractive to females, just as the girls do, as a part of the mating ritual that goes back to the beginning of time. It seems to be both a double standard and a strange way, for the girls at least, of denying human sexuality.

Wander down Kuta Beach and tell me the guys are not strutting for the girls. Myself, I think there is something healthier in that than covering one sex from head to toe and attempting to stifle the urges.

I won't go as far as BaliLife but I find a moral repugnance in one sex being told to cover up to lessen the urges of the other sex, far more so than attempting to attract the other which is pretty healthy 99% of the time and thoroughly human (and if you are so inclined, intended by whichever creator you buy into) in it's nature.

freo, if a muslim woman was truly free to make the decision without intimidation, without pressure, without society's glance then i'd agree.. the fact that this discrimination has been perpetrated in the name of religion is what makes it so heinous.. it is no different than the KKK using the bible and the cross to discriminate against blacks - it just so happens to be more politically acceptable at this crossroad in time..

as for women dressing sexy - that is their choice and their choice alone.. their is no religious reference that says, if you wish to be of good character, then you need to throw on a g-string and a boob-tube - but no doubt young girls today face much pier pressure.. i believe the majority of muslim women who stand in defense of islam are suffering a form of stockholm syndrome - a psychological condition observed when captors and hostages have affection for, and defend their captors..

womens rights and liberties are not protected by chadors and hejabs - their owner's rights are and in this culture their owners are the men that have dictated the rules over many centuries..

ct

SG & Balilife, I agree with what you are saying - (except the bit about being put to death by firing squad in CT's earlier post).

SG you asked

Just a question FreoGirl, why is it ok for men to dress as they wish, but not women

I'd like to know myself - been asking it since I first noticed a difference between girls and boys, (and it extends to why can men go where they want and do what they want and women can't.) . the answer I've been told is that women have to take care of how they present themselves otherwise they can put themselves in a bad situation - meaning, if I dress in a certain way I might be 'asking for it'. That type of attitude is prevelant in western society. Women can't dress how they wish in any society for fear of it being misinterpreted by men. I could go on with examples of how this applies in the workplace too, but I have to pass on the soapbox as I've got to go and do the weekly shopping. Perhaps later.

Hi freo, I think a point you make that I agree with is that religion (not just islam, but many if not most) has not been the only cause of discrimination against women - it has certainly been a major one though..

Ct

Freo,
In the society I come from, NZ, I think it's pretty much ok for a woman to go wherever she wants dressed as she wishes to without fear, within the bounds of societal decency. As a male I can't go certain places without a shirt including the workplace or most shopping areas.

My wife contends the only place where she feels the need to adjust her dress is in Muslim nations.

Sure, sitting in a redneck bar in the Western Suburbs of Auckland in a bikini might get a raft of comments or worse, but hell, as a wussy non-Westie male in the same place I'd be open to the same.

Most attacks on women are not of a sexual nature, as in that is not the driving force. They are primarily violent acts with sex as a weapon. Dress rarely comes into it except when defence lawyers try to use such as an excuse, which, is now pretty much forbidden in Western society (but sadly not in some Muslim societies where the victim is also often the accused).

However, just to flip that all around, you, as a woman, are far more at risk of rape in a western nation than in a Muslim state, but I think that comes back to the greater one-on-one ingrained violence in western nations rather than assault because of dress.

And booze.

SG wrote:But I wonder who is going to tell the vigilante squads empowered by this law that, Jimbo?

In all honesty there are always going to be fanatics law or no law. I believe for the majority of Indonesians commonsense will prevail but only time will tell.

Just a quick follow up on the condition of this legislation, last week it was decided to submit this bill for a judicial review which supposedly means that it will be examined by the top Indonesian justices (the RI supreme court) to see if it falls within the framework of the constitution of the RI.

I’m guessing…but only guessing, that they may well conclude that certain vague aspects of this bill need further work and clarification before it can be ratified and subsequent administrative regulations prepared.

Hating to see the baby tossed out with the bath water, IMHO, there is a very valid need for a stronger law to protect the youth of Indonesia from child pornography and preying pedophiles. As Jimbo pointed out, I too have great faith in the common sense of the Indonesian people, and also that same characteristic often seen demonstrated by its legislatures.

Compared to what the Malaysian Fatwa Council, (Malaysia, truly Asia?) just did regarding Yoga…one could see Indonesia as a bastion of common sense and reasonable tolerance.

And here you go...brother Jack just wrote about this...

http://www.balidiscovery.com/messages/message.asp?Id=4876

Compared to what the Malaysian Fatwa Council, (Malaysia, truly Asia?) just did regarding Yoga…one could see Indonesia as a bastion of common sense and reasonable tolerance.

For all that, as someone who spends a lot of time in Malaysia, it's done pretty well for it's population, with massive education spends, and phenomenal infrastructure (put the new road out of the Cameron Highlands next to the mickey mouse new road to Soekarno-Hatta which is the most appalling piece of infrastructure construction I've ever seen). And is very, on a day to day basis, tolerant of all religions. It's a pretty modern nation that Indonesia could well take some advice from.

Those sorts of laws in Malaysia tend to go into the same box that we are hoping the Porno law goes into.

There are plenty of laws on the books to cover porn and pedophilia already in RI, they're just ignored as the case of the guy with the 12 year old bride, and the porn DVDs on sale everywhere are evidence.

The Porn law is massive overkill and there is far more than a review of various vague provisions needed. It needs to be tossed out completely IMO.

It needs to be tossed out completely IMO.

Privately, I'm nodding my head up and down. Publicly, I’ve gone as far as I comfortably can.

Roy wrote:

It needs to be tossed out completely IMO.

Privately, I'm nodding my head up and down. Publicly, I’ve gone as far as I comfortably can.

I was talking to a friend who's involved in fighting the law and he was saying that lawyers looking at the law are aghast that it made it out of the committees. On several levels, beyond the breaches of the constitution, it should never have got beyond that stage. One of the more crucial is that it's mostly legal gibberish in the way it's written and constructed and any half decent law student would be able to drive a train through the holes in it in a court of law.

Assuming of course the 'judge' who oversaw this caseisn't assigned the case..