This week we talked with Nazife Şişman about the changed meanings of the human body, gender and childhood in the modern and post modern periods. Emphasizing the difference between the head cover struggle as a freedom movement and the freedom struggle created by the feminist discourse, Şişman held up a mirror to the manifestations of the secular social structure in human life.

 

 

Nazife ŞİŞMAN: Esthetic operations are an indication of the search for a flawless body. As you know Michal Jackson, who was the focal point of the media with his death, was both a symbol of the search for a flawless body and the post modern body. He was neither white nor black, neither an adult or a child, nor a man or woman… He reinvented himself with a mixed identity. The next step is a mixture that is neither a human nor a machine.

 

Today more than the threat of esthetic operations, we are under the threat of a number of developments that make the body into a commodity. The organ trade, surrogate motherhood, and experiments on the human body and biotechnologies that give permission to DNA patent… These technologies alienate one part of the body from the whole and define it independently from the other parts. In other words, one organ is defined as a unit independent from the body, from that person’s singularity, from that individual. All these are developments that prepare the opportunity to turn the body into a commodity, for if something can be exchanged for something else, then that means it has become a commodity.

 

This process ends by those who are economically powerful seeing the bodies of less fortunate people as a depot of body parts to keep them alive. You know that there is an organ mafia all over the world.

 

 

Today’s body technologies are a product of the West’s modernization and secularization. For this reason, it is necessary to place these developments someplace in Western modernization. In this case, it is necessary to remember Descartes for the modern version of separation of the spirit and body. As a result of Descartes’ separating homo sapiens into spirit and body, a complete “separation of powers” was realized with the spirit dedicated to the church and the body to science. Adopting the ideal of establishing dominance over nature since Bacon, modern science has proven itself in the medical field. Science is not just an adventure of diving into thought; it is a power. For this reason, medical knowledge has turned into a power that takes the human body under its control with “medical scientific knowledge.”

 

 

 

Treatment of epidemics, hygiene, inoculations, quarantines, etc. are reasons for taking the health of the body under control. These are subjects like health and gender that the modern state has put in the center of its power construct. M. Faucault takes up these construct technologies together with bio-power and anatamo-politics. The limiting of work hours for miners, local governments showing interest in garbage collection, the quality of water and food being tied to laws, determining the number of children a family can have… are all a result of the establishment of a direct tie between the health of the people and the health of the government. In other words, the body is the last fortress that the modern interventionist state has put its hands on.

 

 

Yes, there have been technological developments in the last quarter of the twentieth century that made this “choice” possible. The body gained both a plastic and a bionic character, for now many prostheses can be placed in the body like batteries, artificial heart valves, etc. Medical advances are not limited to these; due to organ transplants, the body has become communal at the same time. As a result of recent advances in gene technology and implementations like cloning, it is possible to talk about the body as a product of engineering. Most importantly, the body is now a matter of “choice.” By determining the characteristics desired from sperm and egg banks and by renting a uterus with the desired quality, it is possible to get a baby.

 

 

In the nineteenth century with the Darwin theory and the evolutionary biology that followed it, the difference between humans and animals was eliminated. Advances of bio-technology and gene engineering in the last quarter of the twentieth century have now made the line between machines and humans indistinct. Bionics, artificial intelligence, genetic copying, genetic intervention, etc. have brought a period of discussion on human limits. At this point there are serious matters like the body’s surpassing itself without any connection of “transcendent” and its reinventing itself with a claim to immortality.

 

Years earlier in her article entitled “A Cyborg Manifesto” Donna Haroway said that biomedical technologies would take us beyond modernity to a post-modern world of cyborgs and hybrids. Today we witness the implementation of what she said. There is a medium before us that has removed the body as a data of creation or a gift of God and opened a discussion on the limits of the body.

 

 

Of course, such a judgment would be unfair in some respects. We have to accept that medical technology found treatment for many illnesses. And people began to think that their control on life and death has increased. However, during this period of control it is necessary for Muslims, especially, to take up subjects like life and death with the approaches and terminology of their faith. For example, “trust” is one concept that definitely should be put on the agenda, for “trust” is a concept that comprises an answer to the questions of existence and man’s place in this world.

 

 

 

God entrusted man with the trust that the heavens and earth refused. This trust is a test for man as to whether or not he will use it in accordance with the will of the true owner of everything. In other words, the body is not property that man can do what he wants with, but a trust given to humans to use in accordance with God’s approval. In fact, the Quran tells us that on the Day of Judgment all of a person’s organs will make witness then. For this reason, it is necessary to discuss many topics from organ transplants to stem cell therapy and from esthetic operations to test tube babies not only on a practical level, but especially theoretically on the levels of metaphysics, philosophy, religion and ethics.

 

 

Throughout history gender and relations between the sexes have been a field fraught with tension. The organization of this field is one of the basic issues of religions and social systems. In the modern era the belief that God drew a line for men and women has been abandoned. Arrangements on this subject have been left up to society. The modern interventionist state has been the final determining authority for the social organization of gender.

 

However, in the late modern period the tie between sexuality and reproduction has weakened. The test tube baby which was first realized in 1978 was the first sign of this process. The coding of sexuality as an experience that had to be lived outside of marriage was a parallel development. The cliché  “Marriage kills love” is the most popular expression of this view. According to Bauman, as a result of sexuality without responsibility being given a central place, a divorce between sexuality and family occurred. This divorce removes one of the basic foundations of marriage and speeds up the disintegration of the family hearth. Even the terminology “inner family rape” being in circulation can be seen as related to there being no tie between marriage and sexuality.

 

 

 

Today gender is seen as an important tool in the process of self-discovery and interpretation of a person’s own truths. Today discovery of the ego has replaced knowledge of the self. Today in modern society sexual experimentation is the equivalent of the road of wisdom summarized by such phrases as “knowing” oneself ontologically and “the person who knows himself knows his Lord.” It is a means both for self-knowledge and self-actualization. For this reason, this search, which can be summarized as an experiment and an accumulation of pleasures, shows itself in areas that can be termed as marginal or perverse. It becomes understandable that modern man, wanting to discover and realize the self by accumulating pleasure and experience, sees homosexuality as an important means for establishing this discovery and realization.

 

 

The expression of the second wave of feminism, “our bodies are our own,”  was taken up for the sake of escaping from the necessity of bearing children. They considered escape from being judged for ending the life of embryos that they considered to be extensions of their own bodies to be a prerequisite for women’s freedom. They claimed that they should be able to make every kind of decision in regard to their bodies and that neither a patriarchal culture nor the state should interfere on this subject. Because they considered the embryo to be a part of their bodies, they claimed that only they could give a final decision about it. For the women’s movement abortion was literally a symbol of choice or, in other words, freedom.

 

Today those who become a parent by means of a sperm bank use the same argument. Because they accept the embryo as an extension of their own body, they say that no one else should have a say on this subject –not the father, the child to be born, society, the state, or mankind.  

 

 

 

As can be seen, this matter is not limited to abortion. An extreme individualistic approach has opened the road to a claim that reproduction, sperm fertilization or copying carry the “right to absolute freedom of reproduction.”  According to this claim, decisions related to reproduction are no one’s business and a person has the freedom to reproduce in any way he/she wants. This is a claim that says topics like cloning, eugenics, multiple eggs and sperm fertilization, mixing animal and human genes, etc. is of interest only to the individual person. Contemporary reproduction rights claim that people should be free to decide which child they want to parent and which one they do not want to parent in accordance with an individualistic understanding. However, in respect of this situation being of interest to society, the state and future generations, this is a moral matter.

 

As Muslims who believe that a person’s right to disposition over the body is limited by the principle of trust, we should think about the moral dimension of bio-technology and gene engineering in regard to contemporary reproduction rights because the new generations, lineage and health of human nature are entrusted to us.

 

 

While saying the modern period’s privileged age group is childhood, more than evaluating it as good or bad, I am trying to make an assessment aimed at understanding the environment we live in. Childhood being the privileged age period influences many things like the organization of the family, the role of women, the shape of the consumer economy, etc.

 

 

Today the family is not only child-centered. It has become an exclusive institution for fulfilling the desires of children. Now children in upper middle class and upper class families are a separate social segment. The family’s duty is to guarantee that this social segment can benefit from consumerism to the highest degree. There is a social segment formed from mothers and fathers slaving to provide them high standards. The understanding, “children deserve the best,” is placed in the family to enable children to speed up the gears of capitalism.

 

In the early stages of bourgeois societies the family was protective of the child and presented a soft environment; for this reason, it was defined as a structure that heavily emphasized women’s motherhood role. Today the family is not just an institution that provides the child a protected environment. It is an institution that nurtures the child’s “self” and “selfishness.”This is one of the results of childhood’s being the privileged age group.

 

 

The brutal face of capitalism shows itself via children. Middle and upper class selfish children raised in a protected environment and their families stand on one side. On the other side are children living in the streets, victims of war, children in their teens joining gangs, children addicted to drugs… But this scene is hidden from everyone’s eyes. For this reason, many people look at the world with a blindness derived from making being a good parent to their children into a fetish. Being a good parent is presented in a package program: providing good economic opportunities and inflating their child’s ego and selfishness in accompaniment to pedagogic instructions.

 

 

 

Your mentioning the secular head cover struggle is very appropriate to the subject. The language developed against the head cover prohibition displays serious deviations. In the last few years even women who do not define themselves as feminist are saying that the head cover is a woman’s right. In fact, this claim has come to such a point that some have said that only women should speak on this issue. The efforts of some male politicians and intellectuals to reap political power via the head cover of course deserve such a criticism. However, concluding that this is only a matter for women just because women are the ones who wear the head cover can only be explained with taking a sexist attitude.

 

However, since the head cover is a religious practice, it is relevant to Muslim men even if women are the only ones who cover. Because it is a demand for justice, it is relevant to both men and women, Muslim and non-Muslim or anyone who supports rights. For this reason, just as the head cover is not a “woman’s right” or “woman’s problem,” it is not a matter to be discussed only by women.

 

However, for some time there has been an effort to reap power from the “discrimination” discourse which holds an important place in contemporary culture, particularly the “discrimination against women” discourse.

 

Actually this is one area where the discourses of those who support the ban and those who oppose it get mixed up, because there are those who, starting off from an opposite point, defend the head cover ban for the sake of protecting women’s rights. Some groups defending women’s rights in the head cover debates in France emphasized the oppressive character of the head cover. They claimed that with the ban, the government protected women from an oppressive practice. In the eyes of Westerners who are eager to save Muslim women, the head cover is a symbol of many negative practices that have been related to Islam like women being accepted as subordinate to men, women being forced to stay at home, their being oppressed, and women being second wives. For this reason, these women and secular governments claim that by banning the headscarf they have saved Muslim women from all these negative things.

 

 

There is a similar discourse circulating in Turkey. Because defenders of women’s rights see it as a symbol of women being accepted as subordinate, they oppose the head cover. While supporters of the ban say, “this religion is discriminating against women by forcing them to cover,” opponents of the ban use the same discourse of discrimination and rights by saying, “the ban is not practiced against men.” In other words, it is not easy to defend the lift of the ban within women’s rights or within feminism.

 

In other words, you say that freedom to cover cannot be defended within feminism.

 

When the hierarchy represented by the head cover is taken into consideration, it is seen that this is impossible. To the contrary, feminism is a sexist politics that opposes hierarchy, particularly religious hierarchy.

 

When women emerged as a category in the post-industrial society and when they began searching for a place and position as a new social category, they entered into conflict with the system and hierarchies. While settling accounts with these hierarchies, they also took on religion. For this was a secularization process at the same time. For this reason, during this process “women and religion” began to be taken up together as if there was an implied opposition between them. An open claim began to be verbalized that religions – especially monotheistic religions- accepted women in a position subordinate to men; that religious practices and the traditional understanding based on this acceptance led to restrictions of freedom for women and prevented equality. Due to this pre-acceptance there was always a tense relationship between women’s search for their rights and religion.

 

 

When 19th century feminists began a struggle for women’s rights, they were based on the basic philosophy of the Enlightenment. In other words, according to them, the understanding that God showed a path for people to follow and that relations between women and men were arranged by a higher authority was unacceptable. While many who defended women’s rights during this process completely rejected religion, some, setting off from the idea that throughout history men had interpreted religion to the disadvantage of women, wrote a “Woman’s Bible.” A feminist literature emerged that gave precedence to Mary Magdalene and criticized God’s being represented as a son.

 

 

Yes, in a sense that is true, but it cannot be said that there is no such problem in Islam, so it does not conflict with feminist demands. The matter here is one of rejecting the belief that requires God to show a path for women and men.

 

Of course, when looked at from a theological perspective, this reaction to the Christian understanding that God is a male embodied by Hd. Jesus appears normal. However, the attitude towards other religions of the modern person who rejects everything celestial and tries to find himself with his own meaning is not very different from this. The understanding, “Religion is oppressive for women”  is one of the basic ideas accepted by the women’s movement. When Islam is the religion under consideration, there is a huge Orientalist corpus of works supporting the “oppression of women” discourse.

 

Whether it is called the women’s salvation or women’s freedom movement, the description of women drawn codes religion as a restraining, oppressive institution.

 

 

 

The head cover is seen as a practice that approves this oppression, one applied to women who have not yet gained the consciousness of being a woman and who have been tricked, and as a practice that will potentially make women subordinate. For this reason, Muslim women find themselves cross-examined on their female identity, for their attitude conflicts with the understanding of freedom developing over the last two-hundred years resting on ideology with a gender base. In view of an understanding placed in the center of women’s freedom that destroys hierarchies, Muslim women, who have accepted a hierarchy among the Creator and the created, fall outside of this gender politics from the start.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

Nazife Şişman was born in Gerede (1963). She studied economics at the Boğaziçi University. She made master studies in sociology. She has translated English works into Turkish. A few of these are Martin Ling’s  Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources and Seyyid Hossein Nasr’s An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Şişman’s work is concentrated on subjects like identity politics, cultural confrontation and daily life. Some of her published works are: Emanetten Mülke: Kadın, Beden, Siyaset (From Trust to Property: Women, Body, Politics); Küreselleşmenin Pençesi (Globalization’s Grip), İslam’ın Peçesi; Harf Harf Kadınlar (Islam’s Veil: Women Letter by Letter) (editor).

 

In Short History of Today Şişman took up the subject of how religion is lived in the secular world and daily life experiences. In her latest book, The Head Cover: The New Boundary of the Boundless World (2009), she analyzes the “head cover,” which is an issue in Turkey’s socio-politic, taking into consideration its global dimension.