Cultural Relativism and the Hijab

"We agree that we shouldn't eat Grandma; we simply disagree about whether the cow is (or could be) Grandma." I found this article (The Challenge of Cultural Relativism by James Rachels) to be extremely fascinating. In this essay, Rachels speculates on the theory of Cultural Relativism: how it is implausible and how it is beneficial. The basic idea of this belief centers around appreciation for different cultures, and how one region's moral compass may be drastically different from their neighbors'. At first, I thought this was a really good idea because it seems to develop a deep respect for other cultures, something that I believe most people have trouble with. For example, there is a great misconception that all Middle Eastern women are oppressed, they have no rights, and they are socially inferior to men in their culture. I know this is not true, and that while there are extremist groups of individuals like Jihadists and the Muslim Brotherhood that distort Western perspectives of the Middle East, there are great women who emerge from these cultures. In America we say that we are so progressive, that we are so much better than the Middle East, but Pakistan has had a female Prime Minister whereas the United States can't even get a woman Vice President. We have a subculture of women in America who chose to dress in a fashion from their country, be it a burqa, a niqab, chador, or hijab, and face large amounts of discrimination for "blindly representing a culture that oppresses women." Most Americans have no understanding of the religious significance associated with this type of dress, and merely choose to label it as a symbol of Middle Eastern inferiority. Most of the time, women choose to wear this headgear not because a man forced them to, but because it is a personal choice for the individual that represents modesty, faith, and virtue. However, in our society the hijab has negative connotations in Western minds. With Cultural Relativism, different cultures would no longer be able to criticize each other because there is no inherent good or bad moral code. In the case of Middle Eastern woman, this would disallow generalizations that spread negativity with cultural headgear. Within each culture, the morals differ and therefore cannot be compared because there is no universal scale to compare it on. Women over there wear scarves on their heads, most women over here don't; the scarf is seen as good or bad depending on the region and therefore neither culture is correct.

Cultural Relativism reminded me a lot of Things Fall Apart because there were so many aspects of that specific African culture that shocked me. Men had a lot of wives, everyone was obsessed with yams (I still don't understand what a yam is, but everyone says it's just a sweet potato), people cut up their dead babies and (surprise) women were expected to do everything for their husband. According to Cultural Relativism, this is all okay. A culture that cuts up dead babies is just as equal as a culture that does not do that.

In the end, I found myself opposed to the idea of Cultural Relativism, although I could see it had good intentions. I do strongly believe that cultural appreciation is one of the most important things for a well-rounded individual, and it is a familiar topic to me because I am considering a cultural studies minor in college. While I agree with some of what Rachels is describing, he makes very good points about the flaws of Cultural Relativism. Cultural Relativism does kind of scrape away any negative parts of history (even the Holocaust or slavery) by stating it was appropriate in the culture of the time. I disagree greatly with this ideal because to me, the entire purpose of society is to make it better and more fair for those involved, but to simply disregard historical downfalls is wrong. We have to learn from history. If people pretended that Hitler was kind of a chill guy or slavery was cool, first of all they're wrong, and second of all society could be sent back a few years of social progress if those select groups gathered a large enough following. So, while Cultural Relativisim promotes respect of other cultures, it also inherently supports ignorance.
Ultimately, the article was worth reading and I learned a great deal from it.