Iran's National Dress Code

[adios]

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This is what you got, a proposal by convicted criminal Oliver North? ....

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A small point, I believe that his convictions were vacated on appeal and the case was dropped. So actually he is not a convicted criminal.

[vhawk01]

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We have government enforced dress codes most places in the States as well. As an obvious example, Men can walk around topless and women can't. That standard is based on the social mores of the society. That Iran's standards are more strict is just a matter of degree.

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This is a bad analogy. US and Western clothing laws are based on the gender-neutral principle that "sexual" body parts should be covered. The fact that men and women have different sexual body parts is just the way things are. By contrast, the Iranian dress code is explicitly gender-discriminatory in ways that have far less to do with real physical differences and everything to do with the role and rights of women.

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So if their law says that all people must cover up their sin-inducing body parts, and it just so happens that only women have such parts, thats just the way things are?

[bobman0330]

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We have government enforced dress codes most places in the States as well. As an obvious example, Men can walk around topless and women can't. That standard is based on the social mores of the society. That Iran's standards are more strict is just a matter of degree.

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This is a bad analogy. US and Western clothing laws are based on the gender-neutral principle that "sexual" body parts should be covered. The fact that men and women have different sexual body parts is just the way things are. By contrast, the Iranian dress code is explicitly gender-discriminatory in ways that have far less to do with real physical differences and everything to do with the role and rights of women.

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So if their law says that all people must cover up their sin-inducing body parts, and it just so happens that only women have such parts, thats just the way things are?

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I'm not sure what you're getting at. If that was really true, maybe that would be an appropriate law, but it seems very improbable. If I saw a law like that, I would strongly presume that it was just a made-up or exaggerated pretext to justify discrimination against women.

[vhawk01]

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We have government enforced dress codes most places in the States as well. As an obvious example, Men can walk around topless and women can't. That standard is based on the social mores of the society. That Iran's standards are more strict is just a matter of degree.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a bad analogy. US and Western clothing laws are based on the gender-neutral principle that "sexual" body parts should be covered. The fact that men and women have different sexual body parts is just the way things are. By contrast, the Iranian dress code is explicitly gender-discriminatory in ways that have far less to do with real physical differences and everything to do with the role and rights of women.

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So if their law says that all people must cover up their sin-inducing body parts, and it just so happens that only women have such parts, thats just the way things are?

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I'm not sure what you're getting at. If that was really true, maybe that would be an appropriate law, but it seems very improbable. If I saw a law like that, I would strongly presume that it was just a made-up or exaggerated pretext to justify discrimination against women.

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I think that is exactly the reasoning behind their laws. So, this means their laws aren't discriminatory in the same fashion as our laws aren't discriminatory, they simply reflect facts of biological reality. Women have large breasts, and women have sin-inspiring curves and features. Men have neither. So, women must wear shirts, and women must wear burkhas.

[bobman0330]

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I think that is exactly the reasoning behind their laws. So, this means their laws aren't discriminatory in the same fashion as our laws aren't discriminatory, they simply reflect facts of biological reality. Women have large breasts, and women have sin-inspiring curves and features. Men have neither. So, women must wear shirts, and women must wear burkhas.

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This analogy is really dumb. Let's count the differences between Western public nudity laws (even assuming, contra Noah, that they actually are enforced in a gender-unequal manner) and the Iranian dress code:
1. Western laws - made with subjective good faith to prevent public indecency; Iran - made by not-freely-elected religious zealots with the intent to oppress women.
2. Western laws - reflect actual social consensus that genitals and female breasts should not be exposed in public, which would be violated only rarely in the absence of a law; Iran - reflects no such consensus, as evidenced by widespread violations.
3. Western laws - attempt to strike a reasonable balance between individual rights and public purpose by requiring only minimal covering; Iran - no balance whatsoever, women required to wear complete bulky covering.
[EDIT: Oh, yes, and:
4. Western laws - since developed breasts are a prominent secondary sex characteristic of females, breast taboo has a firm basis in biology (though culture obviously plays a big role too); Iran - "sin-inducing curves" is a purely religious and social concept.]
Furthermore, if you conducted an actual study of the Western response to the public display of male or female breasts to the Iranian response to male and female hair, I'm quite certain that you would find a much more pronounced difference (and a much more pronounced sexual response) in the breast case than in the hair case.

[vhawk01]

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I think that is exactly the reasoning behind their laws. So, this means their laws aren't discriminatory in the same fashion as our laws aren't discriminatory, they simply reflect facts of biological reality. Women have large breasts, and women have sin-inspiring curves and features. Men have neither. So, women must wear shirts, and women must wear burkhas.

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This analogy is really dumb. Let's count the differences between Western public nudity laws (even assuming, contra Noah, that they actually are enforced in a gender-unequal manner) and the Iranian dress code:
1. Western laws - made with subjective good faith to prevent public indecency; Iran - made by not-freely-elected religious zealots with the intent to oppress women.
2. Western laws - reflect actual social consensus that genitals and female breasts should not be exposed in public, which would be violated only rarely in the absence of a law; Iran - reflects no such consensus, as evidenced by widespread violations.
3. Western laws - attempt to strike a reasonable balance between individual rights and public purpose by requiring only minimal covering; Iran - no balance whatsoever, women required to wear complete bulky covering.

Furthermore, if you conducted an actual study of the Western response to the public display of male or female breasts to the Iranian response to male and female hair, I'm quite certain that you would find a much more pronounced difference (and a much more pronounced sexual response) in the breast case than in the hair case.

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I don't get it. You use the word 'indecency' as if it somehow makes your case, when BOTH sets of laws are aimed at preventing indecency. I have no idea what the differences in 'consensus' are, but Phil, at least, has intimated they aren't that far apart.

Your point that bikinis are more reasonable than burkas is probably true, but it also may just be status quo fallacy. Everything seems more reasonable when you are used to it.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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But I'm more than willing to listen to and consider counter-arguments. Even reactionary and intentionally stupid ones.

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Andy, you either have the patience of Job of way too much time on your hands [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

~ Rick

[Seether]

I think a lot of you are really missing the scale on which the crackdown is occurring. Regardless of male or female, clothing with items deemed as "Western" symbols are banned. As well as men and women having their hair cut in styles that are not deemed "Islamic". Everyone who seems to be supporting the Iranian's governments laws for some crazy reason just seem to point that they do not want their women dressing in revealing clothing. However, people are being sent to jail simply for having certain designs on their clothing and I feel that for this reason all of you arguing on the basis of sexual decency are far off.

[vhawk01]

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I think a lot of you are really missing the scale on which the crackdown is occurring. Regardless of male or female, clothing with items deemed as "Western" symbols are banned. As well as men and women having their hair cut in styles that are not deemed "Islamic". Everyone who seems to be supporting the Iranian's governments laws for some crazy reason just seem to point that they do not want their women dressing in revealing clothing. However, people are being sent to jail simply for having certain designs on their clothing and I feel that for this reason all of you arguing on the basis of sexual decency are far off.

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I think you are a little mixed up. I don't think most people are supporting what Iran is doing. Rather, they are trying to capitalize on the obviously negative emotional reaction to the Iran situation to score points with a different agenda.

I'm only interested in defending analogies, since a pet peeve of mine is the dismissal of perfectly good analogies out of laziness.

[Nielsio]

C-SPAN caller gets cut off talking about Bush executive order which states that protesting is illegal etc..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug3sjs6OwgI