Reply to Muslim women speak out against the hijab as an element of political Islam

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Muslim women speak out against the hijab as an element of political Islam"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was googling and I found this preview by Mona Eltahawy, page 32 starts to talk about hijabs and brings up a lot of the points brought up in this thread:

https://books.google.com/books?id=0v-cBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Most importantly to some pps, she's not white!

It's not "neocolonialism" to look at a backwards practice and decide it's backwards.  Being white does not mean you are precluded from making any observations ever.

-non white person[/quote]
Aren't you curious at all about why women who cover continue to cover, in their own words? Why are you only seeking out opinions that match your own? [/quote]

This is fair, so not having a hijab-wearing Muslim woman handy this weekend, I decided to google "Why I wear hijab."  One of the first articles is this one, from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/opinion/the-freedom-of-the-hijab.html

As I have always thought, this is an intense and very personal decision, but I found her logic weirdly circular.

[quote]In a society that embraces uncovering, how can it be oppressive if I decided to cover up? I see hijab as the freedom to regard my body as my own concern and as a way to secure personal liberty in a world that objectifies women.  I refuse to see how a woman’s significance is rated according to her looks and the clothes she wears. I am also absolutely certain that the skewed perception of women’s equality as the right to bare our breasts in public only contributes to our own objectification. [/quote]

[quote]In a world besotted with the looks, body and sexuality of women, the hijab can be an assertive mode of individual feministic expression and rights. I regard my hijab to be a commanding question of “I control what you see, how is that not empowering” mixed with a munificent amount of authority emanating from the “My body is my own concern” clause. [/quote]

I found this whole article to be mostly buzzwords strung together to form sentences.  Are the choices really walking about half-naked or covering every inch of your body except for your face and hands?  If I walk down the street in a sleeveless shirt, is my body no longer my own concern?  How does covering hair secure personal liberty unless I am literally unable to walk around without covering my hair?  I feel like fighting the objectification of women by wearing uncomfortable clothing to be a poorly thought out method.  If all women walk around completely covered, this only fetishizes women's bodies further.  I have seen this for myself in countries where women cover.[/quote]

This is the Islamic feminist rationale for wearing hijab.  You are right.  This rationale is very much based on how others view one and gives short shrift to the fact that what one can physically do is quite limited in the hijab plus cloaking garments.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics