7/18/11

When a picture is worth much less than a thousand words

A couple of days ago, there was a lot of talk at atheist blogs about the picture above. These are Muslim students in the Toronto school district taking a break from the school day in order to pray. The issue, though, is the girls in back--they're not allowed to pray because they're menstruating.  Non-believers who are sometimes at loggerheads for once agree: this is just terrible (see Ophelia Benson, Michael RuseJason Rosenhouse, and Jerry Coyne).

As it happens, I read all this just as I came upon this passage in The Diary of Anne Frank (I'm very excited that I'll be visiting Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam later in the summer)--
I think that what's happening to me is so wonderful, and I don't just mean the changes taking place on the outside of my body, but also those on the inside. I never discuss myself or any of these things with others, which is why I have to talk about them to myself.  Whenever I get my period (and that's only been three times), I have the feeling that in spite of all the pain, discomfort and mess, I'm carrying around a sweet secret. So even though it's a nuisance, in a certain way I'm always looking forward to the time when I'll feel that secret inside me once again.
Isn't that lovely?  Those poor Muslim girls--they're not allowed to enjoy menstruation in the same healthy way!  That's how everyone reads the picture.  For example, here's Heather Malick, whose editorial in the Toronto Star is the source of the picture--
Stigmatized, bleeding mysteriously and bewildered by maternal instructions, these girls are not allowed to pray (I am told other religions require this as well). You can see them in the Star’s photograph, the boys at the front, the girls hidden behind, flattened in prayer, and the girls with periods sitting cross-legged or kneeling.

These girls are in grades 7 and 8. OMG I am like totally remembering myself at that age and I would like have died of embarrassment except that I noticed even then that no one ever actually does. That’s unfortunate.

Now it’s different, of course. Menstruation should be a happy sexy thing, proof of femininity and non-pregnancy, and a harbinger of pleasure.

But here's the thing. You can't read a picture. You can only project--and here it's particularly difficult.  We can't even see the girls' faces!

Now, don't get me wrong.  If these girls consider prayer a privilege, then it's not fair that they are denied that privilege without cause.  If Islam considers menstruation unclean, this is one place where religion has to let itself be revised in light of evidence. And yes, it may very well be embarrassing for these girls to tell everyone they are menstruating.

But the picture does not tell us. We know what Anne Frank felt because she told us in her own words.  Malick (and all the atheist bloggers) are merely projecting when they suppose that the girls are dying of embarrassment.  There is not a single word in Malick's editorial based on what these girls have written or said about the matter themselves. 

"Oh, but it's obvious! They've been told they can't pray because they're unclean--so they've got to feel unclean!" No, that just will not do as a basis for presuming what these girls feel.

Think again about Anne Frank.  She had been living in the cramped annex with seven other people for over a year by the time she started her period, with no privacy and few modern conveniences. And this was a Jewish girl, too, a girl who often spoke about God in her diary, and must have know that in Judaism menstruation is considered unclean.  We would have no idea what she felt about menstruating if it weren't for the words she put on paper.  She did not feel what you might imagine she'd feel.

"But the girls have to sit there, advertising the fact that they are menstruating!  How awful, how embarrassing!"  But that's just how Malick would feel, within her own cultural setting.  In a cultural setting where girls regularly reveal that they are menstruating, it could be different.  It's not impossible, is it, that girls secretly enjoy broadcasting their sexual maturity to the group--they might even (if truth be told) like giving the boys something interesting to think about!  

As a parent, I have discovered over and over again that what you think young people must feel is not always what they do feel--especially on issues having to do with their bodies.  For example, sex education in Texas involves an absolutely batty curriculum, where each kid has to buy a 10 pound bag of flour, decorate it like a baby, and carry it everywhere for a week.  This is supposed to teach them not to have premarital sex.  I assumed kids would dread and resent this, and find the whole thing a burden.

The truth is that kids take this required class as soon as they can, because the flour baby week is so much fun. They decorate the bags of flour in hilarious ways, and have great fun throwing them around for a week. 

So--take the picture with a grain of salt.  It does tell you about an injustice.  The girls are behind the boys, and the menstruating girls don't have the privilege of praying.  It does not tell you what it's like to suffer that injustice. An injustice is an injustice, however it feels, but we do respond differently, depending on the victims' experience.

For example, it's an injustice that girls don't get to put away the cafeteria tables at the elementary school my kids attended. The idea is that they're too weak.  Not fair, not true, not a good message, and I think cafeteria duty is considered a privilege.  But how strong a response is warranted?  You can't know the answer, unless you let the girls speak for themselves.  You cannot just look at photographs and pretend you understand.

16 comments:

Brett Hetherington said...

In my life as an atheist I once taught for several months at Islamic secondary school in Melbourne. Most of the teenage Moslem girls that I knew there would have been happy to not have to pray for a while and would have enjoyed being together, chatting with others who were having their period at the same time. I also taught Sexual Education and agree with you when you say: "...what you think young people must feel is not always what they do feel--especially on issues having to do with their bodies."

(Isn't it a tragedy that a brilliant, honest mind like Anne Frank was allowed to only live long enough to write just one great work?)

Jean Kazez said...

Yes, such a tragedy--a wonderful writer, and such a delightful person too. I'm so much enjoying reading her, and will have to read some other stuff too--since the diary raises many questions.

Ophelia Benson said...

Those poor Muslim girls--they're not allowed to enjoy menstruation in the same healthy way! That's how everyone reads the picture.

Is it? That's not how I read it, at least not in the post you link to or any of my comments in reply to other comments there. I didn't talk about that aspect at all.

I wasn't pretending I understand what it feels like; I was making claims about equality.

I was alerted to the story, by the way, by an update by Tarek Fatah at Facebook. I don't think he was pretending to understand either; he was outraged for other reasons.

I don't really agree that, as a generalization, you can't know how strong a response is warranted unless you let the people concerned speak for themselves. I think it depends. Some things (not a few things) are wrong in principle even if the people affected by them aren't much bothered.

Ophelia Benson said...

Follow-up - there's also

Malick (and all the atheist bloggers) are merely projecting when they suppose that the girls are dying of embarrassment.

Except that I at least didn't suppose that, so not "all the atheist bloggers" after all. I wonder if the others listed actually supposed that, but I don't care enough to find out.

"Oh, but it's obvious! They've been told they can't pray because they're unclean--so they've got to feel unclean!" No, that just will not do as a basis for presuming what these girls feel.

Well maybe it won't, but did anyone say that?

Looks sadly like another atheist gotcha!

I've been to the Anne Frank house, on two different trips to Amsterdam. It's quite something. For one thing it's so ordinary, so Amsterdam, so urban and familiar.

Jean Kazez said...

My focus in this post was on the Toronto Star editorial, but you do write--

"Sitting all the way at the back, yards from the other girls and more yards from the all-conquering boys. Separated out because they’re so dirty and filthy. Ewwwwww endometrium. Ewwwwwwwwww it might come off on me. Ewwwwwwwwww pollution."

I read this as commentary on what the boys feel, at the very least. It also strongly hints at what the girls must feel--sitting there being viewed as dirty, filthy, and polluted. But none of those feelings may actually be present in either the boys or the girls. The idea of uncleanness might be vestigial, and no longer part of what anybody's actually experiencing. I just think we should find out--I'm not saying I know what they're feeling.

I agree--there is an injustice here no matter how the girls feel, but the type and level of response does seem to involve how they feel. Why? Because there are really two responses--indignation about an injustice, and compassion for these girls' suffering. But they may not be suffering. So that's got to reduce the response.

Jean Kazez said...

That was in response to your first comment. So--no atheist gotcha!

Can't wait to go to Anne Frank house--I'm really curious what bothers her so much about her mother. Maybe I will find out.

Ophelia Benson said...

But you did say the bloggers said it too, and you said it more than once. (And I found the energy after all, and none of the others said it. They really didn't. I don't mean to pick a fight [for a change!] but it does look like a gotcha, since none of us actually said that.)

No it wasn't really intended as commentary on what the boys feel - it was meant to be the message sent.

It is true that the picture creeped me out, as it was meant to. But then, I think it ought to, even if the girls don't in fact mind. I think if they don't mind they ought to.

This was part of the argument of Does God Hate Women? We had to bite that bullet - yes if women choose this, then we're disagreeing with their choice.

Ophelia Benson said...

The newer, de-expurgated Diary restores stuff about Anne v. her mother, if I remember correctly. If you're not reading that one, I recommend it.

Jean Kazez said...

You used all that visceral language--"filthy", "dirty", etc--which does suggest real-time emotions of disgust. In reality, the governing concept is "unclean," and that's not necessarily anything visceral. It might be, but it might not be--you'd actually have to get inside the heads of those boys and girls to know. Analogy--a ham and cheese sandwich is unclean for religious Jews, but I think for most there is no visceral disgust. You're not going to know that if you don't interview some Jews about ham and cheese sandwiches.

The others didn't use those terms, but I would think they made some very negative assumptions about what the girls feel, or they wouldn't have called the situation "outrageous" and "mind-boggling" and "shameful" (that's all Ruse). And he uses the picture and links the editorial. The columnist clearly does think she knows what the girls feel.

But yeah--I do agree. It's not all about what they feel. There's a problem even apart from that, but I do think if ethics is about care, compassion, and the like (among other things) then you do have to know what the object of your concern is feeling before you can have the right level of concern.

*

Yes, I'm reading the new version. Maybe the period passage is one of those newly published parts.

Jean Kazez said...

Actually...wait. Is the notion of uncleanness that pertains to periods the same as the one that pertains to ham and cheese sandwiches? Do you know?

Faust said...

Always a good time:

http://bibleorqurangame.blogspot.com/

J. J. Ramsey said...

One thing I find curious is that atheists are concerned about menstruating girls being left out of prayer, an activity that atheists are usually not in favor of. It would be one thing if menstruating girls were left out of activities that were secular in nature, such as going to class, or getting rides to and from school. It would also be a serious issue if menstruating girls were segregated in general, not just during a ritual that is arguably a minor waste of time. For atheists, though, to complain about groups being left out of a purely religious activity seems a bit odd.

Jean Kazez said...

Yes--nobody's going to get too upset, on feminist grounds, that women don't get to participate in shiite self-flagellation rituals. If some were exempt on grounds of menstruation, me might say "lucky for them."

So the critics are suspending skepticism about prayer--going along with the idea that it's a good thing to be able to participate, and objecting to (1) menstruation being used as a reason to disqualify girls, and (2) the girls having to sit on the sidelines, publicly revealing that they are menstruating.

My point is--if you're bothered on behalf of the girls (especially for reason 2), there's no excuse not to ask what they themselves are feeling. This is one of those times when it's important to know what you don't know...Socrates-style.

Jean Kazez said...

"we might say" not "me might say"!

Brett Hetherington said...

JJ Ramsey makes an interesting point that it is "curious that atheists are concerned about menstruating girls being left out of prayer, an activity that atheists are usually not in favor of."

It shows that some/many atheists are sensitive enough to overlook the nature of the activity and are more concerned about a natural body function excluding some young people from what is, as Ramsey also says," a minor waste of time."

Atheists tend to be more tolerant than your average religous zealot because they don't rely on the idea of a god to justify their opinions.

Deepak Shetty said...

Not fair, not true, not a good message, and I think cafeteria duty is considered a privilege. But how strong a response is warranted? You can't know the answer, unless you let the girls speak for themselves.
In India we have a lot of poor people. Some of them complain about the injustice of it all, are frustrated etc at being denied opportunities and at the vicious cycle. A good number of them however are resigned to their fate. Perhaps it was their sins in the previous lives, Perhaps it is fate, Perhaps the poor get a better afterlife. If you are going to go based on what people say - you'd assume that a good number they are alright with their current state. You are also missing how they got there.
It's quite possible a girl in the picture feels that the scene is all right, it's what her religion teaches after all - It doesn't make it so , as well as it doesn't make it so for all the girls.