Like most females, I am prone to that odd bit of judgment. With the exception of close friends’ birthdays, I forego trashy clubs in favour of nights out at great restaurants.
My fashion icons are from days gone by, so I’m more inclined to emulate the feminine styles of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly than look for dresses that barely skim my thighs. And although I love the odd cocktail, I am particularly cautious about how far I go for a drink, lest I wind up trashed anywhere – particularly on the internet.
Some would say I’m a little tightly wound, but after my latest social networking discovery, I couldn’t care less about their opinions. And that’s because my recent discovery had me questioning things I’d accepted as fairly concrete aspects of life in the modern day and age, and in the Australian society.
Most of us have already been warned of the perils of social networking, our photos and our private life. But with blurred lines about privacy controls for photo albums where sites like Facebook are concerned, certain attitudes are simmering to a point where we’d yet again need to debate how well our melting pot is cooking.
In fact, they beg the question of whether or not the underlying issues that may have contributed to the infamous gang rapes of a decade past are simmering once again, which could perhaps have them lead to events not unlike the Cronulla Riots.
I say this because I recently discovered a Facebook group devoted to mocking girls whose members do not classify as ‘marriage material’.
Given that we’re all entitled to our own opinions about what constitutes a good spouse, I am not going to dwell on a topic more fit for an individual than the community.
But my concern arose from the fact that the pictures used for the afore-mentioned mocking were of regular girls on their nights out, pulled from their own photo albums and catalogued for the criticisms of a minority who didn’t feel the privacy of those involved was worth protecting.
The group, which has now been deleted no doubt to various reports lodged by various Facebook users, featured an album of girls the (now absent) administrator classified as being unfit for marriage, based on their dress and mannerisms.
Let me attempt to paint a picture. A few of these girls clutched bottles of alcohol, some danced suggestively by poles. Some were in relatively skimpy clothing, while others suggestively pashed their boyfriends in the photos, with visible tongue for, no doubt, their personal viewing pleasure.
Despite the fact that I’d be wary of half of these photos involving myself, my sisters, or women I classify as my nearest and dearest, I’d accepted the fact that these were their personal and private photos and that it was not up to me to decide what the message they projected was.
Unfortunately, the admin didn’t share my opinion. That’s because he opened up the floor to his friends to comment on them as well, and, upon finding their pictures online, the girls in question begged the admin to remove them, only to be subjected to disgraceful taunts and sexually demeaning comments which myself and other users found simply mind boggling.
Some comments called for Arabic males to put these girls in their place or teach them a lesson about behaviour, while others even alluded to the fact that the women involved needed to be spoken to by Sheik El-Hilaly on the perils of ‘uncovered meat’.
As a doctoral student specialising in the (often radicalised) representations of Middle-Eastern people in the press and pop culture, I’m more than weary of attributing my discovery to Sheik El-Hilaly’s now infamous ‘uncovered meat’ sermon on the gang rapes and the dress of young women today, because it is not about that at all.
And despite the fact that the group contained a majority membership of males of the Islamic faith, I feel that the attitudes prevalent in the now defunct group reflect a bigger social problem.
I say this because a recent column by freelance journalist Anna Greer calling for some understanding into the issues of wearing the Burqa and the debate surrounding its ban in Europe, plenty of comments were those of disdain.
Most Australians questioned why they had to be accepting of an item of dress they felt to be demeaning to women/feminism, while others argued that it raised issues of security or protected the liberty of the wearer over those who didn’t wear it (for example, at a bank or when police pull you over).
The column received a number of comments but still, no issue was reached.
As a person who has lived in a multi-cultural, inter-faith community all her life, I can’t say I am utterly phased. I empathise with burqa wearers because I’d be crushed if I couldn’t wear my crucifix, but then again, I doubt I’d be able to do that in Saudi Arabia or Iran, so I can’t exactly blame those Australians who are concerned about its wear in their majority-western society.
And I can’t help but warn girls who don’t want their photos mocked or their honour ridiculed, to not paste them on the internet where privacy issues are raised every day.
But considering the comments I recently read in that recent Facebook group, there is a bigger debate at stake.
Before we even get to discussing the burqa’s presence in our society, we need to ensure that when it comes to passing judgment, we’re all on the same page.
And if we want to avoid rearing a generation of males (no matter their ethnicity) who feel a woman ought to be publicly condemned (or worse, sexually assaulted) for dressing in something deemed appropriate in her society, we need to ensure that we’re addressing that, before we start attacking the kind of dress that doesn’t even warrant a major percentage of women-wearers in our population.
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