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"‘World Hijab Day’ insults millions of women and girls"
- Thread starter Tammuz
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Her argument is that it insults those women who are forced to wear the hijab (e.g. in Iran). She suggests that women outside of such countries would do a better job of showing solidarity by rejecting the custom and removing their hijab.
There's a bit of discussion about it on the Wiki page that elaborates on her position:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Hijab_Day
@Tammuz
Please add an explanation next time you post a video OP. Some members (like Rhea) can't readily view video, plus video has a low information density (compared to text) which means we might not bother pressing play unless we have some indication of why it's worth watching. (I skimmed it with closed captions turned on.)
fast
Contributor
When will the tides turn? Women who can choose to wear it and chooses to take it off will be praised. When will the tides turn? If the show of solidarity strengthens and more and more woman with the choice to wear it chooses to take it off in global support, praises will be heard the world over. When will the tides change? When will the choice to wear it by those that want to wear it be ridiculed for their lack of support? And the tides will start to change.
How long before the choice to wear it and the wearing of it becomes topsie-turvie and be viewed in a light that those that wear it will be seen as support for traditions of old where they once had no choice? To those that feel it a badge of honor to wave their head-holding flag will be dismissed by the views of our future generation —with minds being filled by the negative.
Moving in a positive direction is a good thing, and the possibility of a bad thing around the corner is no great reason not to venture out in pursuit of the good, but a warning advisory should be issued and not go unforgotten.
How long before the choice to wear it and the wearing of it becomes topsie-turvie and be viewed in a light that those that wear it will be seen as support for traditions of old where they once had no choice? To those that feel it a badge of honor to wave their head-holding flag will be dismissed by the views of our future generation —with minds being filled by the negative.
Moving in a positive direction is a good thing, and the possibility of a bad thing around the corner is no great reason not to venture out in pursuit of the good, but a warning advisory should be issued and not go unforgotten.
ideologyhunter
Contributor
Religion is waning -- in some parts of the world. Not so much the Islamic world. It's around for the long haul. The climate disasters that are coming will give religions a lot more opportunity to present feckless anodynes to the masses, IMO. A lot of people, including a lot of women in Islam, embrace the chains that hold them.
Some women actually do wear it by choice. That's something few on my side of the issue will acknowledge. I'm very strongly anti-religious.
ronburgundy
Contributor
It says, "Hey, let's celebrate how wonderful this instrument of misogyny and oppression is, created by men to control women."
The fact that some women "choose" to wear it after being brainwashed since birth to accept the mental disease that is Islam and to identify the hijab as being a good Muslim, doesn't in any way reduce that fact that it is a weapon of subjugation. If people born into slavery felt "naked" without their shackles would we have a "World shackles day" to celebrate how great shackles are?
ideologyhunter
Contributor
Gotta love how the common saying in Muslim apologetics is that the woman is put on a pedestal.
I note also in the Christian tradition that I, as a man, am defined as "the image and glory of God" (I Cor. 11:7), but not the womenfolk -- they are the "glory of man", whatever that signifies. It sounds inferior to the glory of God.
I note also in the Christian tradition that I, as a man, am defined as "the image and glory of God" (I Cor. 11:7), but not the womenfolk -- they are the "glory of man", whatever that signifies. It sounds inferior to the glory of God.
Politesse
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They should express their freedom and autonomy by doing what atheist men demand that they do, not what Muslim men demand that they do. Nothing is quite so liberating as stripping your clothes off in public against your will because a man told you too. Freedom!
I really don’t understand hijab. Never have. I’ve tried to get explanations, but it just doesn’t really compute for me because the different explanations seem to contradict each other. I have friends who wear them, and I don’t ask about it because I don’t want to be inadvertently insulting, but I don’t feel like the explanations make sense. It feels like all of the explanations confirm that it is subjugation, or at best a blatant insult to others that “if you see my beauty, you will harm me,” and I just don’t see what they are seeing when they say that stuff.
So I watch and listen, follow news items like this one to hear the dialog from the people who support it, and I hope to be able to get what they are trying to convey. But so far it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Like stiletto 5” heels.
So I watch and listen, follow news items like this one to hear the dialog from the people who support it, and I hope to be able to get what they are trying to convey. But so far it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Like stiletto 5” heels.
J842P
Veteran Member
What is hard to understand? The hijab is part of female, Muslim, conservative dress.
The point of the dress code is modesty, to avoid arousing sexual feelings in people who you are not married to. The exact garb and the degree varies between different schools, but the underlying purpose is the same.
There is a male dress code, although it doesn't involve covering the hair, it would still be pretty conservative by our standards.
It's pretty straightforward. The Abrahamic religions are obsessed with sexuality. This, I thought, was obvious.
I think it's that the hijab originally developed as a means of sexual control, much like Western notions of purity and the like. But over time these customs become disconnected from their original intent and become fused with a person's cultural identity. So the hijab is a means of subjugation, but that's not what it feels like to many women who wear it, and in many cases that's not even what it's doing.
So it's fine and well to argue from a Western stand-point, but one shouldn't ignore the cultural reality that these customs feel normal to the people who follow them; stripping them of the hijab is stripping them of their identity.
And if women in these cultures don't want to wear one or take part in the culture they can rail against it, or move. That's also a part of the process of humanity.
In my view women shouldn't be legally obligated to, or to not, wear a hijab, but cultural customs are much more complicated.
But that is oversimplified compared to what the women themselves say.
While I was not comfortable asking my hijab friends, I did seek out hijabi women online to ask (in places where they are offering to talk about it). hose answers were contradictory and confusing.
“I wear it to honor Allah and show that I am obedient to Islam”
“I wear it because it makes people see me as me and my worthy talents instead of judging me for my looks” (If I hide my looks, I can be sure people aren’t missing my engineering skills)
“I wear it to be modest and not flaunt my sexuality”
“I wear it to avoid creating temptation to men”
“I wear it to save my special inner self for sharing with only my husband”
“I wear it as an outward sign and celebration of my muslim culture”
The women who wear them do not give a single answer.
So far, I have found all of these answers unsatisfying, and doubly so when they contradict each other.
Many of them do convey the embrace of sexual control over themselves. Some of them embrace making sure everyone knows their religion or piety. Some of them embrace telling others they are judgmental and biased. And many of them seem to embrace the idea that they are in-group and the rest of us are out-group.
None of these feels friendly or companionable to me. So I have not yet found an explanation for any religious dress code that builds rather than divides.
It's likely that many people who follow cultural customs don't really understand, or have a concrete reason why they do it. It's just a thing they do and have always done that they've never questioned. If it doesn't bother them, they don't change it.
DBT
Contributor
Tradition, a lot of things are accepted without much question, the existence of a God or gods, what God wants from us as taught in the holy book, so wearing the Hijab just becomes part and parcel of the package. God's Will be done....
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
Catholic women at one time could not go into a church without something on the head. Girls carried around this tiny little thing with them to bobby-pin on just in case. Then Vatican II dispensed with the rule. Many older women continued to wear their little coverings for a while because they had all their lives.
Yes, it's a form of control and sexual harassment. Women who have an option and still do it are largely clinging to an abusive guardian.
Yes, it's a form of control and sexual harassment. Women who have an option and still do it are largely clinging to an abusive guardian.
ideologyhunter
Contributor
Anyone who wants the inside story -- really the inside -- on Muslim face coverings -- should read Betty Mahmoody's Not Without My Daughter, which was filmed with Sally Field. It's been a few years, so I forget if she was discussing the niqab or the burka (I think it was the burka), but her Muslim husband's female relations gave her one to wear after he insisted that she wear it, while they were in Iran. Not only did she find a loss of dignity, agency, and identity in the burka, she found a lot of old mucus from the previous wearer. I remember putting the book down and waiting for my head to stop spinning before I could read more. Time to blow a little plastic trumpet for heirlooms & tradition & all that.
Does one story really depict the multiplicity of perspectives coming out of the Middle East?
Obviously such cultures could be more progressive from a materialistic perspective, but I think Politesse was pretty much on point that it's somewhat patronizing to not default to the many opinions of those actually wearing the covering.
On the other hand, people railing against such cultural artifacts are how these cultures change, and that's fine too. But I don't know where I sit philosophically on this issue. Where do we draw the line between how we think the world ought to be and how it really is. And in which instances is our ought actually removed from human nature? Maybe a kind of passive-resistance is more appropriate than forcing your will on people who aren't asking for your advice.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
My take on all this is that originally men wanted to hide their property so it wouldn't attract rival males. It also said, "This is mine."
J842P
Veteran Member
Honestly, I think you are looking for a conundrum where there is none.
Those explanations are all compatible with what I stated. The ultimate explanation is that Islam proscribes a dress code, for men and women, that despite variations in specifics is always explicitly about enforcing modesty in relations between the sexes. This is pretty plain.
When you ask individual people why they choose to adhere to this dress code, you'll get various explanations like the ones you've given as examples, but I think all of those are totally compatible with "because it is conservative, Muslim dress and I am a Muslim."
Not sure why you would expect an explanation for a religious dress code that builds rather than divides.