Two people with what appear to be very different value and belief sets peacefully coexisting with neither trying to enforce their beliefs on the other? Yes, this is a future I want. The public transportation thing would also be great.
Asking this genuinely. Up until 70’ish years ago American women were relegated to the household. They were expected to dress modestly. Sex was taboo and many women were judged. They were expected to be reliant on their husband. And while many of the women at the time said they were perfectly happy following these traditional values, we still talk about those times as being oppressive and sexist.
So how does that jive with the Niqab and the way Muslim women are still largely expected to follow those values we consider to be oppressive? Women in some countries can get you arrestedfor not wearing it. Or killed. Sometimes killed en masse. If Evangelicals started making their wives wear face coverings it would be a pretty big deal wouldn’t it? Would we take a picture of her and say this is the future we want? Nobody would say it’s her choice to do so.
There were women in my college classes and at my graduation who wore Niqab. Those women now have bachelors or masters degrees in mechanical engineering.
This is a nuanced and complex issue and it deserves better than overgeneralizations like the idea that all Niqab wearers are forced to live like 1950's housewives.
They still wear the Niqab because it’s tradition that was created for very oppressive reasons. Yes there are women that wear a Niqab and have their own professional lives. But the Niqab as still a symbol of needing to appear “modest” in public.
You can see here a poll on what is considered “appropriate” for women to wear in public. The vast majority said some form of head covering. If this was a question posed to conservative Christian men about what is “appropriate” to wear and most men said no said no shoulders should be shown, we’d all consider that to be a big problem. Even if those women were still going to school or working.
But the Niqab as still a symbol of needing to appear “modest” in public.
And what is so wrong with a woman wanting to appear "modest" in public? How is it any of your business whether a woman wants to keep her body hidden or show it off to the world? How is it any of your business what her reasoning is? If she wants to do it to please her creator, that's her choice. If she wants to do it to please her husband, again her choice. If she wants to do it to make herself happy, her choice! If she says its her choice, then it's her choice, that's the end of that. Its not your job to psycho-analyze her decisions, figure out "where she went wrong" and then free her from her culture/beliefs.
Give her the right to choose, accept whatever choice she makes (even if you think she's 'brainwashed'), anything beyond that is oppression.
In Islam men do have to be modest. What you are describing is a western (Christian?) definition of modesty that Muslims don't agree with.
"Hijab" (modesty) is for both men and women, men aren't required to cover their hair but the rest of their body does need to be covered. So the concept of "women must be modest because they are the sexual property of men" doesn't apply to Islam's concept of modesty. Modesty is also NOT for fathers or husbands (if that were the case then the women would be told to not wear hijab if their husbands/fathers didnt allow it). You're assigning your western definitions to the traditions of a different culture, calling them oppressive, then demanding we abandon our culture because of your ignorance.
Its also extremely tone-deaf if you had any idea the kinds of things muslim women experience in our community today. Majority of muslim men today don't want their wives/sisters/mothers to wear hijabs, I've heard of muslim women who were forced to take off their hijab after they got married because their husband didn't want to be seen as a man forcing their wife (or because they just want their wife to appear more beautiful). I have friends who have been dumped by their partners because they refused to take off their hijab after marriage.
You sympathize with the women who are forced to cover their bodies but ignore the women who are forced to show their bodies. No woman should have to sacrifice her rights for the sake of upholding the rights of another woman, its not a competition and they all deserve to live the way they want to. THIS is equality, not the fake pseudo-feminist bigotry you're trying to normalize.
well thank god they have you to tell them what they should choose to do. as you apparently know, they're not fit to make such choices for themselves, ever, and so it should be uniformly banned
This is a nuanced and complex issue and it deserves better than overgeneralizations like the idea that all Niqab wearers are forced to live like 1950's housewives.
It really does not. It has sexist origins and it represents the necessity for a woman to be covered in order to protect against men. It can be liberating for women to perceive it as a choice, however let's extrapolate. Let's say you have a rule where women can't wear tank tops in school. Bare shoulders can distract teenage boys after all. So we have these systems set up where in order for girls to never show their shoulders, they have to wear a coverall. If they don't they get in trouble. In extreme cases they can be expelled from school. Generations of sexual repression go by and now these girls think it's normal, in fact they even say they feel sexually liberated by choosing to wear this coverall. Is it still okay?
Let's further extrapolate, let's say we have a protected class of people, children more explicitly. So they used to be used for real cheap labor at about 10 years old. We thought this was fine, and good. Then a bunch of bad things happened and we realized this is not good. We made laws stopping children from being used as labor. We enforced rules that stopped the employment of children. So if a 10 year old wanted to feel liberated and free, and go work in a manufacturing plant, would you let them?
I spoke to a Muslim woman recently and you actually learn that this is liberating to them, sometimes against the wishes of family who want them to 'dress normal' like everyone else.
Thankfully the younger generation is much more accepting of people's differences than trying to fit in.
It's interesting that people outside of the religion never seem to want to liberate themselves by becoming permanently covered in cloth. I'm starting to wonder if these people aren't actually becoming more liberated by wearing extreme modesty coverings but they say this to address concerns from people.
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u/CraftyArmitage Mar 14 '21
Two people with what appear to be very different value and belief sets peacefully coexisting with neither trying to enforce their beliefs on the other? Yes, this is a future I want. The public transportation thing would also be great.