As for the business suit guy, you’re reading way too much into him. This song is from a Bollywood movie called “Tumko Na Bhool Paayenge” (or “I Could Never Forget You”). The two “main” men are really good target practice shooters, and the business suit guy (aka the Commissioner of the Mumbai Police) wanted to hire them to assassinate baddies-that-get-away-with-murder. They turned him down. Hence their shock and surprise when they see him again after they very definitely closed that chapter. You can read more about the movie here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310254/

I think that adding complexity *helps* clarify an issue, and gives you a better idea what you’re up against when you’re trying to solve a problem. I think it’s better to say that some women in some circumstances are treated one way, while others are treated another, and then tailor the “solutions” to the individual situations, rather then say “all Muslim women are abused and constantly suffering!” and then be dumbfounded when we find one who isn’t. (And yes, they exist! :p)

As for Gwen making her posts less sophisticated and more “mean”: it’s pretty easy to point a finger, but it’s not useful to try and point that same finger at a billion people and then yell at them for all doing the same thing (which many of them don’t, in fact, even do). That kind of mass stereotyping/blaming gets ignored, and for good reason.

As regarding your answer, I see your point, but I’m still pretty convinced that presenting your students with a wider point of view is not such an advancement, at least in this case. I’ll try to explain this.

It’s very commendable to enrich one’s perception about a controversial subject. However – and I fear I might be getting a little bit nazi at this point – adding complexity to a matter like women being ostracized in Muslim countries doesn’t seem to help the issue. I think this leads to a reasoning like this: “People know that many women suffer oppression in a Muslim country. But, clearly, not all of them do. Thus we should stop saying that EVERY Muslim women suffers. We should make our speech more sophisticated.”

This only adds to confusion. Nothing is clarified, and nothing will ever be clarified like this. I, myself, am from Romania. Romania has a corruption issue. I know that Romania is a more corrupt place than the US, let’s say. I just know. I don’t need people to soften their voices when speaking about that. It’s true. I don’t need someone criticizing the Romanian legal system to be looking after my feelings because, possibly, I’m not a corrupt person. A discussion about corruption is – and should be – as simple as possible. It’s the only way to circumscribe the problem and – hopefully – offer a solution. A discussion about suffering Muslim women should be the same. As plain as possible, while trying not to oversimplify matters.

I’m sorry, I began to speak so wildly here, I forgot the subject was a Muslim Bollywood YouTube video! :)

I really think one could learn a lot from your blog. But, from time to time, I think the neutral (or sophisticated) part of your posts should allow itself to become more… how should I say… more mean…

I get what you’re saying there, but I think we’re driving at the same thing–which is that, much like among Christians, there’s a range of dress and behavior among Muslims, and different groups may disagree about what is appropriate for men and women to wear or do. My students often have the idea of Islam as a very monolithic religion where all women are oppressed, and always oppressed in the same way (that is, through clothing). Why wouldn’t we expect Muslim women to be sexualized just as much as, say, Christian women?

My intent was not to “praise” this group for not showing women in burqas or veils, but simply to say that, as with any other group, there’s enormous variety in the Muslim world, and that students often come in with a very limited view of what “Muslims” look like. You can still very much criticize sexualization, images of women on TV, etc. My point was simply that, for many students, learning that not all Muslim women are forced to cover their hair is, in itself, shocking (as is learning that most Muslims are not Arab). I find a similar tendency among my students to believe that all “African” women are oppressed, and their evidence is female genital cutting–a practice that a) is not universal in Africa, by any means, and b) occurs outside of Africa.

So I just meant that the video could be used to start breaking down students’ ideas that there is a single way that all Muslim women are/dress/act…which opens up the way for a more insightful, complex discussion about global gender inequality that looks at actual life experiences and economic and social conditions, not just whether or not a woman’s hair is covered.

What struck me was that, in commenting the video, the blogger didn’t emphasize the strict segregation of women and men. Men and women hardly come into contact, while men interact amongst each other in a very gay way indeed. And I don’t mean by “gay” homosexuality as viewed in the West. Men touching each other, but not interacting with women, is much more “gay” than men interacting with each other AND with women. By any standards.

So, please, put the ideology away and extract what is to be extracted. Thank you.