DOI: 10.1057/9781137487421.0001 The Veil in Kuwait
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The Veil in Kuwait: Gender, Fashion, Identity Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Gulf University of Science and Technology, Kuwait and Noreen Abdullah-Khan Gulf University of Science and Technology, Kuwait DOI: 10.1057/9781137487421.0001
THE VEIL IN KUWAIT Copyright Thorsten Botz-Bornstein and Noreen Abdullah-Khan, 2014. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 2014 978-1-137-48741-4 All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978 1 137 48742 1 PDF ISBN: 978-1-349-50396-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. First edition: 2014 www.palgrave.com/pivot doi: 10.1057/9781137487421
Contents List of Figures List of Tables Preface vii viii ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Significance of the study 2 1.2 Previous research 4 1.3 Kuwaiti society 5 1.4 Gulf University for Science and Technology 6 1.5 Methodology 7 2 The Survey 10 2.1 Survey measures 11 2.1.1 Target groups 12 2.1.2 Comments 12 2.2 Family background of students 13 2.3 Limitations 14 2.3.1 General difficulties 14 2.3.2 The East-West problem 16 2.4 Preliminary conclusion 19 3 Results and Discussions 21 3.1 The central question: why do you veil? 22 3.1.1 First findings: answers of covered girls 22 3.1.1.1 Selected data analysis 24 3.1.1.2 Covered girls comments 26 3.1.2 Second findings: answers of uncovered girls 27 DOI: 10.1057/9781137487421.0001 v
vi Contents 3.1.2.1 Comparative analysis of selected data of covered and uncovered girls 29 3.1.2.2 Compared weighted averages 31 3.1.2.3 Mann Whitney Test 32 3.1.2.4 Uncovered girls comments 32 3.1.3 Third findings: answers of male students 33 3.1.3.1 Selected data analysis of male students survey 35 3.1.3.2 Male students comments 36 3.2 The protect women from men argument 36 3.3 The feminist argument 37 3.4 Preliminary conclusion 38 3.5 Religion as a factor 38 3.5.1 Are our students religious? 39 3.5.2 Praying attitudes 39 3.5.3 Knowledge of the scriptures 40 3.5.4 The Qur anic passages 41 3.6 Social interactions and mutual perceptions 43 3.6.1 Culture and religion 44 3.6.2 Perception and self-perception 45 3.6.3 Respect and virtue 45 3.6.4 Different perceptions of male attention 48 3.6.5 Combining the hijab with Western clothes and veiling fashion 49 3.6.6 Does the hijab enhance the woman s beauty? 54 3.6.7 Preliminary conclusion: unequal perceptions and the question of tolerance 57 4 The Guilt/Shame Paradigm 59 4.1 Removing the hijab 63 4.2 Modesty and fitna 64 4.3 Shame and guilt in Islamic culture 66 5 Conclusion 69 5.1 The paradox of veiling fashion 70 5.2 Overall evaluation of responses 72 Appendix: The Questionnaires 75 Bibliography 83 Index 88 DOI: 10.1057/9781137487421.0001
List of Figures 3.1 Covered girls first rank answers 30 3.2 Uncovered girls first rank answers 30 3.3 Weighted averages of covered and uncovered girls compared 31 DOI: 10.1057/ 9781137487421.0002 vii
List of Tables 2.1 Male female ratio 11 2.2 Covered uncovered ratio 11 2.3 Three ways of covering 12 2.4 Educational level of parents 13 3.1 First rank options of covered girls 22 3.2 Second rank options of covered girls 23 3.3 Third rank options of covered girls 23 3.4 Fourth rank options of covered girls 23 3.5 Weighted average of covered girls 24 3.6 First rank options of uncovered girls 28 3.7 Second rank options of uncovered girls 28 3.8 Third rank options of uncovered girls 28 3.9 Weighted average of uncovered girls 29 3.10 T-tests results of weighted averages of covered and uncovered girls 32 3.11 First rank options of male students 34 3.12 Second rank options of male students 34 3.13 Third rank options of male students 34 3.14 Fourth rank options of male students 35 3.15 Weighted average of male students 35 3.16 Students answers to hijab and respect question 46 3.17 Students answers to hijab and virtue question 46 3.18 Students answers to Combining hijab with fashionable clothes question 51 3.19 Students answers to Hijab enhances beauty question 54 viii DOI: 10.1057/9781137487421.0003
Preface In April 2013, we conducted a survey on Islamic veiling at the Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) in Kuwait. The purpose of the survey was to view the veil through the prism of recent international developments that have transformed veiling, at least partially, into a fashion phenomenon. We received 1662 responses. It became obvious that most veiled students at GUST recognize that, in religious terms, hijab and fashion are incompatible. However, they do not solve the contradiction by transforming the hijab into a merely cultural item, thus fusing traditional veiling and contemporary fashion in order to create a new ethos of veiling fashion. Nor do they solve the contradiction by stating that the hijab has been forced upon them and that they are trying to soften its effects by combining it with modern influences. Instead, they separate the hijab as a religious phenomenon conceptually from the cultural phenomenon called fashion. By doing so, they hope to establish a moral justification of their engagement in fashion. Our results contradict those that have been presented by other researchers who conducted similar surveys in other countries. DOI: 10.1057/9781137487421.0004 ix