In the name of Empowerment: Playboy and Hijab

I remember watching a show where a celebrated Indian choreographer and movie director shrugged at the notion that her provocative ‘item numbers**’ were to be blamed for fuelling objectification and sexualisation of women. She brashly declared that they are just creatives who were contributing to creating music and cinema and cannot be held responsible for the way people behave or respond to it. Sounds fair enough. However, when you combine obvious vulgarity folded in a rural, colloquial speech served by a woman covering the bare bits that would just about squeeze past the censors, it does beg the question: are the creatives completely devoid of blame?

Should we let this pass in the name of entertainment or should we legitimise the thoughts that tell us that sexism is never casual? It also leaves us struggling for an answer when the other side declares it to be empowerment for women to be able to allow this, what some may call, objectification.

Empowerment is a tricky word, fluid in its semantics because it is open to individual perspectives and biases. The roots of the word, however, is attributed to the civil rights movement and from then on, since the 60s, has been integral in defining the discourse in feminism, psychology and Gandhian teachings. Broadly, we can agree that the term intends to challenge the status quo by legitimising the needs of a minority. In doing so, it separates the empowerment seekers from the others by establishing their attempt to be recognised as a special act in itself. One does not need to achieve empowerment as such; the importance is in the attempt at it, which becomes the primary act of empowerment. It is also problematic to see empowerment as an end goal, end of the road of a quest; if anything, it is a long and arduous journey, constantly complicated with changing current affairs and circumstances.

These statements could not have been more apt when the issue of a Muslim woman and her empowerment are discussed. There are many problems that we face immediately: who speaks for whom? The dichotomy between wanting a representative voice for Muslims and the rejection of a binary perspective as the only single story is one that we face regularly.

When Noor Tagouri was interviewed by Playboy in their series ‘Renegades of 2016’, once again the empowerment debate was split open. Many were disgusted at a hijabi woman choosing to ‘sell’ herself for publicity to a misogynist publication, at the same time, violating the concept of a Muslim veil. Others saw it as a bold act with one commenter calling her “an epitome of feminism”. There is nothing new in the stand taken by these sides. When designer Anniesa Hasibuan promoted her work with all-hijabi models at the NY Fashion Week, many were ecstatic at the presence of a Muslim woman presenting a stunning body of work. Others were horrified at how the hijab had turned into a fashion token, bereft of its original, pious context.

The schism is between the individual and the community — robbing us of our individualistic mode of expression, in trying to conform to what our communities, and the larger global Muslim community expect of us. Should empowerment be experienced uniformly?

Islamic values in a small community are easy to manage but we are not limited to our ethnic bases and are now global citizens. We have to reconcile our faith values with the society that we live in. It does not necessarily mean to sell oneself to a foreign idea. We can have a Hasibuan and a Tagouri and both are judged for their work and contribution, independent from each other. We must not mistake them as representative voices that define a hijab or a Muslim woman, they do not always bear the burden of people’s response to how they should exist as Muslim women.

A friend complained that she could not buy the magazine to show Tagouri’s interview to her daughter. But, are all Muslim stories exclusively for Muslim consumption? When I speak at events, including TED, I am constantly struck by how little people know about regular Muslims and Islam. We have superb Muslim commentators in the media, yet our conversations are limited to certain categories of people who seek engagement and understanding. The challenge is, how do we normalise the Muslim presence? There is no need to live in chronic insecurity that our values and faith will be lost if we walked past a bottle of wine or had an interview published in Playboy.

We need to stop treating each media presence of a Muslim as it is the only one. We are a diverse, complex group and it is okay for that to come across. We do not want a homogenous identity because it does not exist. Others do not have to live with the choices we would make for ourselves.

It is incredible that Muslim women have tread spaces that have previously been unreachable. Eventually, their legacies are not confined to a single act of an interview but will spill into unprecedented spaces, opening doors for other women to experiment, challenge and eke their own paths.

** A single, sexually suggestive and provocative song in a Bollywood movie usually added to increase the movie and audio sales more than a storyline necessity