Warning: There’s some really fucked up shit about rape included in this post, be aware.
So, this has been a rough week.
We had this guy who flatly said that lack of hijab infringes upon men’s “right” to rape women.
Yes, seriously. The link is here, in case you are familiar with Persian.
Oh, and he’s not a nobody righting for a blog which belongs to a fringe. Tasnim is a far-right website which belongs to the Revolutionary Guard, one of the most powerful branches of the regime, if not the most powerful.
Now, I’m an Iranian. This means that I frequently hear really really fucked up arguments about hijab. But this guy has his foot so far up his mouth that he can tickle his prostate with his toes.
He begins by asserting that “no one is forcing women to wear hijab in Iran, so if they are wearing it it’s cultural pressure not governmental force”. So as you can see, we’re not off with a good start. But it gets worse.
He says that people disagree with hijab argue that women have a right to choose what to wear and what not to wear. He says that this is not the case because not wearing hijab is an “oppression of the self” and therefore not a “right”, but this is an “argument” we hear a lot. It gets worse.
He says if women go outside without hijab, men are sexually aroused. And men have a “right” to have “their sexual needs fulfilled”, and then they can rape the woman, because the woman has not asked the man’s consent to show him her body and to turn him on, therefore the man doesn’t need to ask her consent either. And if the man controls the urge to rape her, he is emotionally harmed, so he is oppressed.
Ergo, a woman who doesn’t wear hijab is oppressing every man who is not raping her.
Then the writer asks, what about that argument which says “men should control themselves”? He says the woman has shown no restraint, but the man has to show restraint, so the man is being oppressed.
And for the rest of his article, he goes on to list the rape statistics in USA, because why not.
And remember, all of this is about showing hair. Yes, hair. Not even the naked body. Hair.
I feel so disgusted. I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted. This is a website which belongs (not officially but come on we’re not children) to a second army with its own navy and air force which owns the majority of our “private” industry and controls more than its fair share of our economy, has massive political influence, and it is responsible for most of the political arrests.
I don’t know what to say.