Are you not brave enough to defend these arguments yourself?
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.
Why do you assume Orthodox Jews are freely making a choice to wear their religious garb but Orthodox Muslim women en mass are being forced to wear hijabs? If this isn’t what you meant to convey with your analogy, please explain what you do mean.
Rep. Ilhan Omar chooses to wear a hijab. I assume this because she lives in a society where no one would give her a hard time if she went without it. And yet, Rep. Omar is catching a lot of shit for this choice. How does your analogy explain this?
I don’t have generally have a problem with the idea of covering your hair, or your elbows or your knees etc. I tend to see that type of restriction as very different from covering your face. With one exception - I do think that even restrictions that do not involve covering the face can be oppressive in certain circumstances. And the main one is when men and women are not treated similarly . For example, I have seen groups in NYC where the men were dressed in a way that didn’t stand out from men not of their group - perhaps the men of the group only wear long sleeves, don’t wear shorts and don’t go shirtless , but there are many men outside the group who are dressed the same. But the women- they are dressed in a way that makes them stand out. It goes beyond a dress code that involves covering certain body parts or not wearing form -fitting clothes or even not wearing pants. They are wearing a specific article of clothing that absolutely causes them to stand out from those not in the group. And that I think can be oppressive - although it’s just as oppressive to forbid them to wear it.
Why don’t you ask an average conservative woman what would happen if she decided to stop wearing a bra in public? Or she decided to stop wearing make-up out in public? Or heaven forbid, she decided she wanted to dress in men’s clothes and keep her hair short. When conservative America stops policing gender norms and telling women in so many ways that they aren’t good enough and stop electing misogynistic assholes, maybe I’ll believe conservatives actually give a fuck about women being oppressed by a damn headscarf.
Exactly. In most cases (at least within the context of Western societies) it’s a cultural marker and little else. It’s a lot more about broadcasting “I’m a practicing Muslim woman” than it is about the sordid circumstances Western media & politicians like to make hay of because Muslims are the acceptable target du jour.
There used to be a Twitter hashtgag, #TooOppressed, back around the time France was banning the hijab in schools and the debate surrounding that stupid fucking law. It was about Muslim women trying to shift that media window and posting pictures or videos of themselves engaging in various absolutely normal situations while wearing hijabs - from reading books at public libraries, to skateboarding, to playing video games, to clubbing, to having risqué sex even. Sadly I recently googled #TooOppressed and there seems to be no trace of that movement left - it’s as if I dreamt it all, it’s very weird.
Anyhoo, it’s of course absolutely oppressive when a given state compels women to obey such norms under penalty of laws - as Saudi Arabia or Iran do. But that’s of couse not the case in our societies and anybody trying to make that equivalence is either an idiot or being disingenuous.
There’s an edge case re: minor girls in Muslim families who may or may not be compelled to wear it by their parents ; but at the same time kids are forced to do any number of things by their parents that we may or may not approve of and that the kids may or may not be OK with. I was made to wear a middle-parted bowl cut throughout my teenage years, and you can’t tell me that shit is right either. But there’s no support group for me, nor is there a legal taskforce to protect kids from the abuse that is Mommy’s bowl cut. So what’s so very particularly abhorrent about the hijab ?
And then, finally, we have women 18+ year old wearing it, for whatever reason of their choosing, and it’s THEIR BUSINESS. They’re adult women under the protection of the law. They can do whatever the fuck they want. Don’t patronize them and tell them they’re being oppressed. If anything, they’re more likely to be oppressed by anti-Muslim bigots than anyone else (in point of fact one of my colleagues at uni went from wearing a bona fide hijab to wearing a loose, sort of rasta-looking beret just because she had one bad experience too many in the subway). They might be doing it for personal belief, or to not stir up drama within their familial/cultural circle, or to piss off the squares, or because they find it pretty, or because they’ve grown into it so much that they feel naked without it, or a hundred other possible reasons that are THEIR BUSINESS.
Let me put it this way : do you think it’d be OK to go around a beach, accost women wearing T-shirts or one-piece bathing suits and tell them it’s not OK and they should wear teeny tiny bikinis leaving nothing whatsoever to the imagination like the other girls do ? No ? It’d be kinda creepy and messed up ? Then why do you think it’s OK to tell women wearing hijabs that the way they choose to dress isn’t OK and they should show their hair like the other girls ?
I don’t think there’s anything special or especially oppressive about the hijab or any other garment. What’s oppressive is laws (and to a lesser extent societal/cultural pressure) requiring (or alternately, outlawing) certain garments for women.
How about listening to some Muslim American women?
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. He takes this as a sign that the women are “oppressed”.
I just can’t agree with this. For one thing, I see plenty of Indian women who don’t wear saris. For another thing, I think saris are beautiful and superior in many ways to the stuff American women wear. I can easily understand why a woman wouldn’t stop wearing them if she didn’t have to.
I know that my mother would never give up her shoes. You could drop her into a country where it is normal for everyone to walk around barefoot or in flip-flops, and she’s still going to wear her pumps. Not matter how “weird” this would make her look. Whereas I could see my father immediately doing the flip-flop thing since he doesn’t really care what he wears and he hates being an odd-ball.
So–number 1 is oppression and number 2 is oppression?
Another quote from that article:
Yep, no oppression there.
My mother thinks God gets mad when his children say swear words, which is why she doesn’t cuss and gets very upset if she hears me cussing.
Is she oppressed too? Am I oppressed for refraining from certain words in her presence?
I’m wondering what we do to the word “oppression” when we use it to describe any and everything. According to you, following any code of conduct is “oppression” even if it’s self-imposed. I just can’t join in on that. Because that would make all of us “oppressed” in some shape or form and that’s crazy bananas.
That’s why I said I think it can be oppressive , not that it is. Because , to use your example, I’m sure there are many Indian women who prefer to wear saris - but I am also sure there are many Indian women who wear saris not because they want to , but because of pressure from their family/community. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I don’t remember ever seeing the reverse- a woman dressed inconspicuously while a man with her wears traditional attire.
Any system that raises children to believe that a supernatural creature requires that they dress in a certain way or eat/avoid eating specific foods is oppressive. Absolutely. Whether they be Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Sikh, whatever. It is systematic oppression, entirely as legitimate as the concept of oppression by “the patriarchy.”
No oppression here!
No oppression here!
In Indian society, particularly among the educated and professional classes,
It’s very common to see men dressed in western clothing with women wearing traditional clothing. I’d go so far as to say that western male clothing has become as Indian as any kind of clothing. It’s very rare to see Indian men going to office jobs wearing traditional Indian clothes. Politicians are far more likely to wear traditional clothes than regular professionals.
Right. I can’t begin to tell you if I wear a bra in public because I’m forced to by gender roles or because it’s a free choice. How would I dress if there were no gendered subtext in my clothing choices? How would I possibly know? It’s like asking if colors had flavors, which would be my favorite? The question is meaningless. I think a much more effective question is whether or not wearing a bra (or shirt, or headscarf) limits my ability to function in society–and I don’t think any of them do. Covering my face would.
Obviously, laws mandating hijabs are odious, but so are laws making it illegal for a man to wear women’s clothing–but that doesn’t make men wearing pants into victims of oppression.
If someone dresses in a manner that pleases their spouse, is that oppressive?
I’m not trying to sound clueless, but I’m just trying to find the line between “oppressive” and “voluntarily conforming or catering to someone’s else standards.”
Many men are not shy about expressing their disdain for short hair on women. If their wives or GF were to cut their hair, would it be oppressive for their male partners to express negative feelings about it? Would he be an oppressive bastard if he were to dump her over it? Is a woman who has always wanted to cut her hair but has never done it because she knows her husband wouldn’t like it “oppressed”? Is a man who has always wanted a beard but has never let it grow out for his wife’s sake “oppressed”?
How is “Babe, I want you to wear a hijab when we go out in public because you look so beautiful in it, and people stare when you don’t wear it” any more oppressive than “Babe, can you not wear daisy dukes and halter tops when we go out together? I don’t think they flatter you, and I hate dealing with the stares”?
This is interesting. I’m going to tell my father this the next time I talk to him.
It becomes oppressive when there’s an expectation to wear it.