Burqa Slut, Product Placement and Idea Sex

As the city’s major protective service, the Toronto Police have perpetuated the myth and stereotype of ‘the slut’, and in doing so have failed us. With sexual assault already a significantly under-reported crime, survivors have now been given even less of a reason to go to the Police, for fear that they could be blamed. Being assaulted isn’t about what you wear; it’s not even about sex; but using a pejorative term to rationalize inexcusable behaviour creates an environment in which it’s okay to blame the victim.

Following last month's call by the Muslim Canadian Congress to ban the face-covering niqab, or burka, about 30 Muslim groups across Canada denounced the proposal. Their basis: The state has no business dictating what a woman should wear, nor infringing on individual freedoms.

I'm hardly the first person to draw a line between, on the one end, women being told to cover up and on the other, women being told to hide less.  I can't say I've ever heard an argument being made one way or the other with any seriousness about men.

That's something we should really dwell on for a second.  It's a sad fact - we still live in a male-dominant society, though women are slowly gaining in access and influence (funny enough, that rise is paralleled by a decrease in violence and an increase in productivity and qualify of life).  Men are still looking to make decisions and comment on female sexuality even when an attempt to bring male sexuality to the limelight was viewed as distasteful and inappropriate.

Absent from this conversation is the concept of self-control for men.  Look at it this way - do we tell store owners who face theft they should lock all their goods behind glass to keep away petty thieves?  Do we chastise property owners for having walls that get grafittied?  No.  We expect people in a society to treat the property of others respectfully. 

A woman's body is her own property.  What happens within her body is her responsibility, too.  We don't force parents to give their children innoculations, even when the broader social consequences (illness for the child, illness spread to others, healthcare costs, etc) are well-understood. 

There's an imbalance, here; people need to have freedom of choice, but those choices happen within a social context; ideally, we want people to think about the impact of their choices on others, too.  Displays of the female body are one example - driving habits, smoking in public, hiring and firing practices all fit within the same ruberic.

You can't have complete, individual freedom without society being damaged; you can't have strict social rules without atrophying individual differences, which are what society builds on in the first place.

How do you square this circle?

With education.  Broad, empowering, engaging and fun learning.  Sex ed, language ed, history, society, gender, gender politics, religion, ethnicity, all of it.  Do some in school, do some after school, do it in your free time, at home - you can even do it in public.

Funny enough, the more you understand things and the ways you react to them, the more self-control you have.  The more you absorb on multiple levels, the more likely you become to share.  That mixing of ideas is the propagation of society.  What is innovation, after all, if not just idea sex?  You learn more when you share with others than you do innovating all on your own.

We always fear what we don't understand - and fear leads to suffering.  When you empower yourself through learning, you have nothing to fear.

Not even beauty.