Theresa May, Islam, and the Illusion of Choice

Theresa May, the Home Secretary in Britain said that the government should have no right to tell women to wear a veil or not. May states this should be a women’s choice alone.

Telling The Guardian:

“I think it’s for women to make a choice about what clothes they wish to wear, if they wish to wear a veil that is for a woman to make a choice.”

“There will be some circumstances in which it’s right for public bodies, for example at the border, at airport security, to say there is a practical necessity for asking somebody to remove a veil.”

The problem with May’s statement is two fold. First, you cannot first endorse a religious choice that allows women to chose to cover up and then use legal tactics such as border security to forcefully remove these veils.

Second, and rather unrelated to May’s argument is that this is a larger problem than the British governments desire to allow women to make this choice. So larger issue at stake here is a women’s right in an Islamic religion. In any Islamic country with Sharia Law you are dealing with women’s rights being almost non-existent. So while May is worried about women’s choices in Britain, she should be more concerned with women’s rights around the world. Even outside of Sharia Law, the fear of breaking with ones religious beliefs has women walking down Times Square in New York City covered from head to toe. Afraid of what consequences may await them if they so chose, or dare show the hair on their head.

Philosopher John Rawls argued that morality must begin from the original position, or as many would call it a veil of ignorance. In order to take a moral position, one must begin from a point of not knowing their status in society. Meaning they cannot know their gender, skin color, economic class, etc. If you were to create laws that restricted the clothing options of women, then lifted the veil of ignorance to discover you were in fact a woman, how would those laws affect you?

If you apply this thought to the Islamic practice of forcing women to cover their faces and bodies, it fails the moral test. Forcing women to wear a veil does nothing to improve their quality of life, and in many cases it has been shown to diminish it.

As Humanist, one duty is to educate society on the differences between choice and doctrine, and help free “God’s Hostages”, as Sam Harris called them in his 2007 essay in the Washington Post. God’s hostages are predominantly women, of many faiths whose value is seen as nothing more than a breeding machine meant to serve their husbands. Their purpose is viewed as only to serve their husbands, and before their husbands, their fathers. This is a demeaning view of women and modern society should be moving past such ideas.

As Harris writes in his essay:

“Recall the blissful lives of Afghan women under the Taliban, or reflect upon how many Muslim girls throughout the world are still obliged to wear the veil, and you will understand that this type of thinking has consequences.

The net effect of religion (especially in the Abrahamic tradition) has been to demonize female sexuality and portray women as morally and intellectually inferior to men.”

So humanist of the world should be taking action and reaching out to those living as God’s Hostages and offer them your support. Show them they are more than servants to a man, they are autonomous and worthy of full respect and equality.