At least according to Naomi Wolf.

Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality

…

The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I travelled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women’s appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one’s husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling - toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.

…

Indeed, many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualising Western gaze. Many women said something like this: “When I wear Western clothes, men stare at me, objectify me, or I am always measuring myself against the standards of models in magazines, which are hard to live up to - and even harder as you get older, not to mention how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.” This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognisably Western feminist set of feelings.

I experienced it myself. I put on a shalwar kameez and a headscarf in Morocco for a trip to the bazaar. Yes, some of the warmth I encountered was probably from the novelty of seeing a Westerner so clothed; but, as I moved about the market - the curve of my breasts covered, the shape of my legs obscured, my long hair not flying about me - I felt a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.

…

I do not mean to dismiss the many women leaders in the Muslim world who regard veiling as a means of controlling women. Choice is everything. But Westerners should recognise that when a woman in France or Britain chooses a veil, it is not necessarily a sign of her repression. And, more importantly, when you choose your own miniskirt and halter top - in a Western culture in which women are not so free to age, to be respected as mothers, workers or spiritual beings, and to disregard Madison Avenue - it’s worth thinking in a more nuanced way about what female freedom really means.

All really good points.  So according to Naomi, apparently we should emulate this?  We should encourage women to hide themselves away?

I wonder… should we also do as Muslim men do, and force our women to wear them?  For the good of their feminist needs, should we  subjugate them, and beat them when they refuse?

Oh she makes the point that in Europe this is a choice.  Well, even there, not always.  But in Muslim countries there is little if any choice at all.

She had the choice in her “Muslim for a day” exercise, she could put it on and feel naughty and salacious or whatever, and then head to her hotel, take a bath and fly home in her tailored suit or designer jeans or whatever.

The reality is that many women in Muslim communities have no choice at all.  Is she trying to encourage those women to accept their oppression and make lemons out of lemonade?

I can’t even begin to express the irony of a feminist essentially supporting Shari’ah law in order to help women embrace their inner feminism.

Phyllis Chesler sets her straight:

Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times. A Westerner, “playing” Muslim-dress up, Wolf claims that hiding in plain view gave her “a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.” In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands.

Marabel Morgan lives! In the mid-1970s, Morgan advised wives to greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy clothing and/or transparent saran wrap with only themselves underneath. Her book, Total Woman, sold more than ten million copies. According to Morgan, a Christian, “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”

Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things.

Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police?

Most Muslim girls and women are impoverished and wear rags, not expensive Western clothing beneath their coverings. Only the pampered, super-controlled, often isolated, and uber-materialistic daughters of wealth, mainly in the Gulf states, but also among the ruling classes in the Islamic world, match Wolf’s portrait of well kept courtesan-wives.

Being veiled and obedient does not save a Muslim girl or woman from being incested, battered, stalked, gang-raped, or maritally raped nor does it stop her husband from taking multiple wives and girlfriends or from frequenting brothels. A fully “covered” girl-child, anywhere between the ages of 10-15, may still be forced into an arranged marriage, perhaps with her first cousin, perhaps with a man old enough to be her grandfather, and she is not allowed to leave him, not even if he beats her black and blue every single day.

Wolf claims that she donned a “shalwar kameez and a headscarf” for a trip to the bazaar. I suggest that Wolf understand that the shalwar kameez and headscarf that she playfully wore in Morocco are not the problem.

I wonder how Wolf would feel if she’d donned a burqa, chador (full body bags) or niqab (face mask) for that same trip; how well she would do in an isolation chamber that effectively blocked her five senses and made it difficult, if not impossible, for her to communicate with others?

And, by the way, the eerie effect, ultimately, of shrouded women is that they become invisible. They cease to exist. They are literally ghosts.

Wolf presents the West as anti-woman because it treats women as sex objects. Am I happy about pornography and prostitution in the West? Hell no and, unlike Wolf, I’ve fought against them–but to portray these vices as a “Western” evil, and one that the Islamic world opposes, is sheer madness.

It is well known that the Arabs and Muslims kept and still keep sex slaves–they are very involved in the global trafficking in girls and women and frequent prostitutes on every continent. You will find pornography magazines in every princely tent–those for boys as well as for girls. I am told that the Saudis fly in fresh planeloads of Parisian prostitutes every week. Perhaps they veil them before they conduct their all-night and all-day orgies. Or, perhaps they view them as natural, “infidel” prey.

Let me suggest that Wolf read a book that is coming out in September, written by a Christian-American woman, Mary Laurel Ross, whose American Air Force husband trained the Saudi Air Force. It is called Veiled Honor and is a timely, comprehensive, “nuanced” (Wolf calls for “nuance” in our understanding of “female freedom”) account of her approximately fifteen year sojourn in Saudi Arabia. I would also suggest that Wolf read the works of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel) and Nonie Darwish (Cruel and Usual Punishment) for starters.

Then again, I suspect that Wolf is not necessarily looking for any “nuanced” truths about “female freedom” but is, rather, fishing for Saudi gold and positioning herself within the Democratic Party. After all, what she has written in this brief article supports President Obama’s position vis a vis the Muslim world.

It is really a sad day when a feminist sells her feminism to politics.