Scholarly record
SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE ARAB WORLD FROM EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE - REASSESSING ESSENTIALISTS EXPLANATIONS
Abstract
Because of some, ideological rather than scientific, reasons, explanations of human behavior referring to culture as an all-encompassing nomos and as an axionormative matrix shaping all individuals, let alone those accounts referring to the genetic influence, are treated by many social and cultural scientist as reductionistic, deterministic, depersonalizing and reifying. These epithets are subsumed under relatively new term essentialism which has become, as Steven Pinker notices, just about the worst thing you can call someone and is now a term of abuse hurled at anyone who tries to explain human thought and behavior rather than redescribe it (How the Mind Works, p. 325-326). And yet, evolutionary psychology which is based on premises that can be called essentialistic has shown over the last decades that, first of all, human culture is to a large extent a product of our universal evolutionary past, and secondly, that there is no meaningful explanation of social behavior that disregards evolutionary constraints. The present article demonstrates how evolutionary psychology can help us explaining the (un)surprisingly widespread sexual harassment in the Arab and to some extent in the whole Muslim World. It shows likewise that the common intellectual and political trend followed as well in Arabic countries and as in Europe, which aims at denying the influence of Islam and Muslim Culture on this behavior, not only fails to explain the behavior but also strongly limits the possibilities to cope with it, either by neutralizing it or by reinforcing some of its aspects. The paper argues namely that the phenomenon called sexual harassment has a twofold character and that the term covers two contrasting tendencies: on the one side the violent and aggressive assaults that are to be seen as a desperate strategy to eliminate women from the public space and to regain thus control over them, and on the other side the nonviolent and nonaggressive teasing that can be viewed as an opposite attempt, even if an extremely awkward one, to make strange women engage in flirting with unknown men in public, which is from the background of the dominant Muslim culture a genuinely revolutionary phenomenon. Condemning all sorts of mens activities towards women in public as sexual harassment makes it impossible to recognize the groundbreaking aspect of the second trend and thwarts thus the possibility to help the Muslim World to end the prevalent sex segregation which is one of the main obstacles to modernization.
Publication Impact Profile
Publication details
References21
KAMEL DAOUD „Cologne, lieu de fantasmes” (www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2016/01/31/cologne-lieu-de-fantasmes_4856694_3232.html, 31.01.2016);
„The Sexual Misery of the Arab World” (www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/the-sexual-misery-of-the-arab-world.html, 12.02.2016)
For details see www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2016/02/11/les-fantasmes-de-kamel-daoud_ 4863096_3232.html
and http://213-info.com/lettre-dun-journaliste-americain-adam-shatz-a-kamel-daoud/
See for example an article in Huffington Post “Neither Taharrush Gamea Nor Sexism Are Arab ‘Cultural Practices’” (www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-shams/sexism-isnt-an-arab-cultural-practice_b_9022056.html).
The examples come from sites like: www.facebook.com/Shoft.Ta7arosh;
http://harassmap.org;
www.facebook.com/Against taHarrush, Harassment & Violence towards Women- انا ضد التحرش ;
https://twitter.com/hashtag/تحرش ;
https://ar-ar.facebook.com/opantish;
NAWAL EL SAADAWI, The Hidden Face of Eve. London 1980, p. 146.
NONIE DARWISH, Now They Call Me Infidel. London 2006, (unpaged e-book edition, chapter “Growing Up in Cairo”).
An article from 1990 in the The New York Times „Cairo Journal; For Women Only: A Train Car Safe From Men” (www.nytimes.com/1990/01/15/world/cairo-journal-for-women-only-a-train-car-safe-from-men.html).
For details see for instance: TOSHIHIKO IZUTSU, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'an, Montreal & London 2002;
KECIA ALI, Sexual Ethics and Islam. Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and Jurisprudence, Oxford 2006.
There are many classical books dealing with the ideal of love and proper behavior towards women, for example: AL-WAŠŠĀʾ, ABŪ Ṭ-ṬAYYIB MUḤAMMAD IBN ISḤĀQ, Kitāb al-muwaššā, Leyden 1886;
IBN DĀWŪD AL-IṢFAHĀNĪ, Kitāb az-zahrah (The Book of the Flower), Chicago 1932;
IBN ḤAZM, ʿALĪ AL-ANDALUSĪ, Tawq al-ḥamāma fī l-ulfa wa-l-ullāf, al-Qāhira 2014.
ANNE CAMPBELL, A mind of her own. The evolutionary psychology of women, Oxford 2002, p. 165
HANNA PAPANEK, Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter, Comparative Studies in Society and History (15)3, 1973, pp 289-325.
MARTIN HINDS & EL-SAID BADAWI, Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic, Arabic-English, Beirut 1986, pp. 49, 106, 299, 376, 685, 720.
View or Download full articleAccess options
SWS access login
Login as SWS Scientific CommitteeLogin as SWS Scientific PartnerLogin as SWS AuthorAuthors and approved SWS contributors will read and export their own linked papers after identity matching by SWS profile, email and SGEM GlobalID.
For librarian assistance: [email protected]
Purchase Instant Access
- Article can be downloaded after successful payment.
- Article may be used according to SWS library access terms.
- Article cannot be redistributed.
