# Hijabs oppress women? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 7, 2019, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176 "2019-04-07T16:23:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/61 "2019-04-08T01:08:29Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Perhaps we can all agree that the hijab is in no way uniquely oppressive? And that the issue of gendered standards in appearance and dress is knotty and nuanced? Because what is amazing to me is how certain Americans, generally conservative ones, will cluck their tongues and express pity and scorn for woman in hijabs, or super-conservative bathing suits, and hold them up as symbols of how oppressive Muslim cultures are, while actively perpetuating all sorts of similar gendered standards in our own society. I dont know of any American woman who got attacked by a angry mob or were arrested by “morality police” from not wearing a bra, makeup or wearing flats instead of heels. > **[Iran’s morality police assault a woman for not wearing her hijab properly](https://observers.france24.com/en/20180423-iran-morality-police-assault-woman-hijab)** Even working in a non-client facing position in a conservative bank, most of my female coworkers didnt wear heels, they wore jeans and a top, etc. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/62 "2019-04-08T01:14:54Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > If hijabs are a sympol of oppression, why not all feminine religious head garments? Why aren’t conservatives rushing out to Pennsylvania Dutch country to liberate all the poor oppressed women churning butter against their will? This is what is confusing me. Just saying “It’s all oppression!” doesn’t answer the question of why one thing (the hijab) gets so much more hate than all the other things that fulfill the same purpose. This part seems easy to answer (IMO, anyway) - because most of the conservative “concern” over the hijab, or gay rights in the Middle East, or similar issues, is hypocritical and based on bigotry. They (many of them, at least, including the vast majority of the Republicans in office who bring up these issues) want a cudgel to beat up Muslims, rather than any particular concern about women’s or gay rights. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/63 "2019-04-08T01:20:38Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > We make some compromises to health and safety regulations. There are values to balance. > > As far as the Amish are concerned, I view their rigid conformism in female dress just as suspiciously as I do all such restrictions. Individually I can’t tell you whether each one is confirming out of free desire or oppression, but collectively they are all effectively supporting a sexist, misogynist, and oppressive institution. I believe you speak sincerely, yet your words haven’t convinced me to stop supporting my favorite donut shop. I also don’t have a problem supporting the bean-pie selling Black Muslims, even though the sisters are often decked out in abayas. But perhaps if one of the women in those groups reached out to me personally and let me know they were being victimized, I’d stop patronizing their businesses. I mean, you will never see me singing the praises of any religion. I think humans will always be stunted as long as we cling to religion, especially traditional ones. But I think focusing on what people wear on their heads oversimplifies a complex issue. Find me a country where women don’t have power and I’ll agree with you that it’s oppressive. But I won’t be looking at what the women are wearing to make that assessment. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/64 "2019-04-08T01:27:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Are they oppressed or are they just practicing a faith that places importance on traditional values and not being a rugged individual? It’s weird that I never hear people (Fox News pundits or otherwise) bashing Mennonite/Amish bonnets. While hijabs are seen as “scary”, bonnets are portrayed as “cute”. But presumably both are imposed on women by a patriarchical system. If hijabs are a sympol of oppression, why not all feminine religious head garments? Why aren’t conservatives rushing out to Pennsylvania Dutch country to liberate all the poor oppressed women churning butter against their will? This is what is confusing me. Just saying “It’s all oppression!” doesn’t answer the question of why one thing (the hijab) gets so much more hate than all the other things that fulfill the same purpose. You’re joking , right? Just in case you aren’t , it’s for the same reason that you will hear those same people outraged by the idea of using sharia law in arbitration who do not complain about arbitration based on Christian or Jewish rules. It’s because somehow, when Muslims do something , it’s different than when certain types of Christians and Jews do that same thing \* - I made that reference to “types” because an awful lot of “Christians” believe that Catholics and other groups are not “Christians” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/65 "2019-04-08T01:28:25Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > At least women in the military are allowed to have SOME kind of hairstyle. They don’t allow the men to have more than a tiny bit of hair. I don’t even understand why this is the case. Either they both should be able to grow their hair out - within reason, I mean…not excessively so - or neither should be able to, in my (layman, civilian) opinion. Okay. I don’t boycott such businesses either. I don’t see why these individual women—whether Amish or Muslim—should be punished for being potential victims of the patriarchy. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/66 "2019-04-08T01:31:36Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Why aren’t conservatives rushing out to Pennsylvania Dutch country to liberate all the poor oppressed women churning butter against their will? Because there are no Amish groups attempting to violently take over the world? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/67 "2019-04-08T01:39:09Z")
> [@](#): > > In an interview for the April issue of Vogue Arabia, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said, “To me, the hijab means power, liberation, beauty and resistance.” As two women who once lived with the mandatory hijab in Iran, we hope to bring another perspective to this complex matter by describing our experiences. > > There are two vastly different kinds of hijabs: the democratic hijab, the head covering that a woman chooses to wear, and the tyrannical hijab, the one that a woman is forced to wear. > > In the first kind, a woman has agency. She sets the terms of her hijab, appearing as ascetic or as appealing as she wishes. She can also wear makeup and fashionable clothing if she likes. > > In the second kind of hijab, the woman has no agency. Where we lived, the terms were set by Iranian government authorities under a mandatory dress code that banned women from wearing makeup in public and forced them to wear a baggy, knee-length garment to fully disguise the shape of their bodies, over a pair of pants and closed-toed shoes. For a while, the authorities even decreed the colors that women could wear: gray, black, brown or navy. > **[Opinion | There are two types of hijabs. The difference is huge.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/there-are-two-types-of-hijabs-the-difference-is-huge/2019/04/07/50a44574-57f0-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html?noredirect=on)** > > In the United States, women are free to make a decision about the hijab that women in other countries cannot. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/68 "2019-04-08T01:58:45Z")
I just want to point out that here in southwestern Missouri, the women in traditional head coverings are typically Mennonite. I have known personally one young woman who started dressing almost like a Saudi after she converted to Islam, and one evangelical woman who started wearing a head covering because it was in the Bible. But mostly it’s Mennonites. And of course there are still parts of the world where a married woman traditionally wears some kind of cover in Christian cultures. So when I see on Facebook a relative—whom I know for a fact was raised a devout Christian—denouncing hijab, I get pretty upset. That really has been a Christian custom for hundreds of years. You should know better than to attack someone for a custom that’s part of our own tradition. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/69 "2019-04-08T02:03:49Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Because there are no Amish groups attempting to violently take over the world? Of course Christians are not attempting to violently take over the world. They already have, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/70 "2019-04-08T02:10:13Z")
No, they haven’t. China, which is the most populous nation on earth and third largest by landmass, is not Christian. India, the second most populous nation on earth and seventh largest by landmass, is not Christian. The entire region known colloquially as “the Middle East”, also, is not Christian, or at least not dominated by Christianity - its populations of Orthodox, Maronite, Melkite and other varieties of Christians typically live under persecution. Christianity has not remotely taken over the world. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/71 "2019-04-08T02:11:27Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > What the fuck does “bravery” have to do with it? The links are self-explanatory. Anything that can get you imprisoned for decades for not doing, and that can get you imprisoned and whipped for _defending_ not doing, is oppressive. If you want to know if\* Western \*Muslim women are oppressed by wearing a hijab, find out how their families and their communities treat them if they decide to stop. OK, so how do you plan to find out? And what will you do about it when you do find out? > [@monstro](#): > > My dad has copped to having a weird beef with Indian immigrants. He sees the men dressing like Americans. But in his mind, the women “always” seem to be dressed in traditional Indian garb. Like saris. Huh. That does not match my experience with South Asian women in N. America. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/72 "2019-04-08T02:22:02Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > …angry sky fairy… If you were raised in an abusive religious environment, I am sorry for you. If you weren’t, bite your tongue. You caricature theism like you were raised by an angry atheist who taught you always to try to pick a fight with the rest of us. In any case, when you don’t distinguish between custom & oppression, you aren’t being logical. You ignored several posts making this distinction in this thread to yell “Religion bad.” Can you please stop acting juvenile? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/73 "2019-04-08T02:33:47Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Huh. That does not match my experience with South Asian women in N. America. The issue is further complicated by the fact that middle-class men in India tend to wear generic “western” clothing of buttoned shirts and slacks in drab colors, whereas middle-class women are more likely to wear the traditional sari or salwar-suit usually in bright colors, though of course some women do wear Tshirts-and-jeans type outfits informally. So when Indian people move to the US, the men are already in the habit of wearing what we might consider “business casual” or “shirt and slacks”, whereas women’s outfits are more obviously “foreign”-looking. ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/74 "2019-04-08T03:44:10Z")
Are you really wondering if wearing a hijab is oppressive? It depends on where one is, and what happens if a person who is expected to wear a hijab doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/75 "2019-04-08T04:44:42Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > In every society, women are pressured to wear women’s clothes and men are pressured to wear men’s clothes. However you want to define those things. > > Is this kind of pressure “oppressive”? Always. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/76 "2019-04-08T06:10:54Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > In any case, when you don’t distinguish between custom & oppression, you aren’t being logical. You ignored several posts making this distinction in this thread to yell “Religion bad.” A custom of being told that an angry sky fairy judges your worth of as a human being and how you should be treated in this life and the next based on your headwear. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/77 "2019-04-08T07:23:43Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > It depends. Are the wearers wearing it solely, or mostly, because of social pressure to do so, to maintain a religious and cultural tradition just because “that’s what women are supposed to do?” If so, it’s maybe not exactly “oppression” but certainly an example of women being pigeonholed into a gender role that they might not want. If a woman takes it off in public while her husband or father are around, are they going to disapprove, and make that disapproval known? If so, then yeah, it’s an example of women being pressured to conform. In that particular case. > > If a woman is totally cool with wearing it, is proud of wearing it, and does so because she thinks it’s the right thing to do - because SHE thinks it’s the right thing to do, not just because the men think it - then hell no it’s not a form of oppression. People are free to make their own choices. Religious belief is a choice. Practicing a form of modesty, whether out of religious belief or just for its own sake, is a choice. > > I’m guessing there are a lot of Muslim women, and Pentecostal women, and Jewish women, and Amish women, who prefer to wear certain religious garments and who are proud to do so. I’m also guessing there are a lot of them who wish they didn’t have to wear them, but do it out of fear of being ostracized or worse. Hell, there are probably Jewish men in Brooklyn who wish they didn’t have to wear the black coats and hats, but they do it anyway because of familial pressure. This stuff is just a part of life, part of the choices we all make to belong or not belong to certain groups…I don’t think it rises to the level of “oppression”. > > The full burka or niqab getup completely obscuring everything but the eyes (and some cases even covering them with a barely-translucent cloth) is another story…I think that’s wrong, and absolutely a form of putting women into a lower status. It’s also problematic for a society that expects peoples’ faces to be visible (and no, I don’t think that expectation is unreasonable.) It would be fucked up if I went around in a black robe and a mask in public, and “it’s my religion” wouldn’t be an acceptable justification for it. Here here!!! Women who wear them because of their own free will, due to a personal feeling (the same as one might wear a crucifix or what have you), that’s not oppressive. They also don’t really phase me all that much, since growing up a few of the nuns at our church still wore veils. Hell, my mother’s family’s from Eastern Europe. If I were to post some of those pictures, the hijab doesn’t really look all that different from those women in those photos in their _babushkas_! 😃 Wearing one because you feel society will judge you as a whore, or because you’ll be shamed, or because God will punish you or, because there’s a law against it? _That’s_ oppressive as fuck. (Burqas and niqabs are oppressive no matter what, not to mention a safety hazard.) And if a women feels oppressed by one, she shouldn’t be forced to wear one, or called an “Islamophobe”\*, or told “oh, it’s just the right-wingers saying that!” It’s her choice. \*Yes, I’ve seen that from some idiots. Telling an actual Muslim or former Muslim she’s an Islamophobe. What can you do? ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/78 "2019-04-08T07:40:31Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Another quote from that article: > > Yep, no oppression there. I force myself to get out of bed every morning and deal with stupid. Help, I’m oppressed! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, all of your responses have been non-sequiturs, irrelevancies, and gross misrepresentations. When evangelical Christians repeatedly tell women they’re second-class citizens, they shouldn’t say shit about any other religion’s treatment of women, or of how those women CHOOSE TO TREAT THEMSELVES. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/79 "2019-04-08T08:43:35Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > No, they haven’t. China, which is the most populous nation on earth and third largest by landmass, is not Christian. India, the second most populous nation on earth and seventh largest by landmass, is not Christian. The entire region known colloquially as “the Middle East”, also, is not Christian, or at least not dominated by Christianity - its populations of Orthodox, Maronite, Melkite and other varieties of Christians typically live under persecution. > > Christianity has not remotely taken over the world. India was conquered by the British who violently oppressed its population - they only left when forced to do so. By violent opposition (yeah, yeah, Gandhi. There were lots of peoples with guns besides Gandhi.). And yes, Christianity was invoked back then as a justification for the existence of the Raj (among others). The Middle East has, of course, long been controlled by the Byzantines who enforced Orthodoxy at the point of a sword. And then there were those crusade thingys which I believe had something to do with Christianity ? I think ? I’m like 80% sure. And then it was conquered _again_ by the British (and the French, further west) who, again, only left when they were kicked out. China… yeah, China never got conquered. Too many of them, too rich, too large, too powerful even at its weakest. So it got debt-trapped instead. They’ve remembered that one neat trick, BTW. And of course, one notes how you’ve pointedly avoided talking about an entire continent. The one on the left ? ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176/80 "2019-04-08T08:51:55Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > “Appropriate undergarments” is often buried in company dress codes. Western women absolutely face the risk of getting fired if they refuse to wear a bra. > > My point is, I can’t possibly tell you if I would “really” prefer to give up wearing a bra because I am so steeped in the culture that says I should and because my own sense of modesty is shaped by that culture. And it seems hypocritical to point a finger at hijabs as a sign of oppression when I put on my over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder even if I am just getting gas–because I don’t want anyone think I’m low class. Yeah, but you wouldn’t be chastized or beaten up for not wearing one whilst in the wider public. > [@](#): > > **Monstro** > > Can you expand on this some more? > > A couple of weeks ago, my coworker, boss, and I had to hold a public hearing. It is expected that officiants of a public hearing wear something a little spiffier than the usual business casual. My boss and I were wearing blazers, but my coworker showed up without one. My boss pointed it out in a semi-serious fashion, but as far as I know, my coworker wasn’t penalized. > > Still, he bucked an expectation. I have no doubt in my mind that if the expectation is not met for the next public hearing, my coworker will hear about it from my boss again, and it won’t be “semi” serious this time. > > Is my coworker “oppressed”? Or is he simply living in a society where one is expected to dress a certain way in certain contexts? > > If being expected to conform to a standard is “oppressive”, then all of us are oppressed. That’s a business setting, in wider society, the woman would be able to do what she wants in terms of what to wear to a large degree. I find it funny because alot of people are ignorant of the Hijabs function, which is gender policing. Sure, you’ll get people who wear it out of choice, but it’s not really a choice when the penalty for _not_ wearing one is greater _than_ wearing one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hijabs-oppress-women/832176.md?page=5)