What is it about a fucking scarf, similar to the scarves that millions of other non-Muslim American women wear on their heads sometimes?
So when my wife or millions of other American non-Muslim women sometimes wear something to cover their head, they’re expressing “the traditional subordinacy [sic] of women”?
Don’t discourage the boy. If he can limit himself to the occasional dinging and not try to use words the level of discourse on this board will be immeasurably improved.
First of all, subordinacy is a valid term. Not sure why you would risk a warning by altering my quote to sic a term being used correctly.
Second of all, a Muslim woman wearing a hijab can be considered in the same class as an African-American from Mississippi with a Confederate Flag bumper sticker on their car. The act of choosing to do so does not matter; the symbolism of centuries of oppression does.
To that point, as Quicksilver illustrated, liberal Muslim women are beginning to turn against the hijab as they also view it as a symbol of oppression and not just a religious garment. Their choice is to not wear it, for those purposes. Do you applaud them or consider them asinine?
I just saw an interview with them on MSNBC. She said she didn’t speak because she was controlling herself so that she wouldn’t break down in tears. At home, she still can’t walk into a room with pictures of her son.
And it’s entirely probable that she chooses to wear the hijab because she’s comfortable in it and she likes it.
Roma wise women wear head coverings as a symbol of their perceived greater connection to the invisible spiritual realm. It’s never been viewed as a symbol of subordination (at least not subordination to mortal men), but as a crown of power within our communities. To a certain extent an Islamic woman’s headscarf can have similar meaning. A headscarf wearing woman is sending a message in her community that she is “off-limits” to strangers. Whoever tries to bother her is the transgressor and the enemy. It’s a considerably less offensive way of getting that message across than carrying a visible weapon.
And we all know you are all about being inoffensive!
If liberal Muslim women choose not to wear the hijab, good for them. If they choose to wear it for reasons of culture or convention or habit, good for them, too. Your question is asinine. It’s like asking whether a woman who might choose to stay home and raise her children and do the shopping and cooking is being “asinine”. What is actually asinine is not being able to mind your own fucking business, or worse, taking offense at someone who doesn’t share your values and your culture. It’s one of the warning signs of being an asshole.
Apologies for the mistake, and thanks for the lesson and the new word.
Oh come on. So my wife is free to wear anything she wants, but a Muslim woman must not choose a headscarf or else she is expressing or bowing to “traditional subordinacy”?
That seems ludicrous. Not a burqa, but a headscarf? That seems no more oppressive, as long as women are free to choose to wear it or not, as a bra. Women can choose to wear bras or not if they want, whatever their religion or culture, and women can choose to wear headscarves or not (or should be), whatever their religion.
I think it’s wrong to judge this woman in any way whatsoever by her choice of garb. Maybe she just feels more comfortable in it.
I applaud them. I also applaud any other woman for making any free choice they are able, including wearing a headscarf if they wish.
Is there any traditional Muslim or Middle Eastern garb for a woman that you would not consider expressing the “traditional subordinacy of women”? Because I don’t see why the hijab (not the burqa or the niqab!) would be any more oppressive then a long traditional dress. Covering the head is incredibly common throughout the world, including in Western culture.
Stringbean, wouldn’t you prefer to allow for the possibility that Mrs. Khan is free to choose anything to wear that she likes, and chooses to wear the garb she feels most comfortable in?
Point of order, from the linked article I provided earlier:
It would be good to get more perspective on this from a knowledgeable poster, like Ramira.
Do we know whether Mrs. Khan was wearing a hijab or just a headscarf?
It doesn’t look like a hijab per se to me. It looks like a shawl that she has run over the back of her head.
In South Asia, you often don’t see a hijab proper. Muslim women often use whatever they are already wearing—a shawl, a dupatta (scarf that goes with the shalwar-kameez), or anchal (the end of a sari)—to loosely cover their heads.
Of course, non-Muslim South Asian women sometimes do this too.
Oh pity the royal family of Morocco, of the Ottoman empire never did such things a century ago… Oh in fact they did.
Here is news for you, the unveiling movement began a century ago. And as you can see in the old classic movies, the severe hidjab promoted by the Salafistes was unknown, and the traditional ones much rarer except in the country sides.
The hidjab of the feverish haters imaginations is in fact a new thing, promoted in the past decades by the Salafistes as a reaction against the cultural change and gaining ground because of the failures of the secularist movements - tied unfortunately to dictatorships on the left and on the right - of the 1930s-1970s.
The region history looks very liitle like your exotic imaginations.
It is worthless.
this is 100% wrong. We use the term hidjab to cover
Their assertions may be true for the Egyptian dialect, the Egyptians tend to think their usages are the universal, but it is not in fact true.
Mrs Khan wore a loose hidjab covering - or just a headscarf if you want. Ordinary people call a wide number of things hidjab.
the political partisans of both the secular and the salafist like to promote a strictness of terms and of attitudes that does not exist in the real life.
As a non hidjab wearer, I can say to all you Westerners who are so “concerned” about the hidjab, leave us alone with your stupid hypocrisy.
I just thought of a great compromise on the hijab business. Follow along here. The objection to the hijab is mostly from the bigoted redneck contingent like the OP who find it “un-American” and therefore offensive.
But this same xenophobic bunch of right-wing bigots also finds it exemplary and awesomely patriotic to walk around festooned with assault rifles, and consider it the ultimate expression of patriotic Americanism. Herewith my solution.
Now, I’m not sure I exactly see the equivalence because a hijab has never killed anyone and AR-15s frequently do, but what the hell, my proposal for a fair compromise is that everyone wearing a hijab also has to carry an assault rifle. I’m certain that the strong patriotism emitted by the assault rifle would counter the fearfully dangerous anti-Americanism of the hijab and everyone would be fine with the hijab-wearing person walking around with an assault rifle – redneck bigots, everyday citizens, the SWAT team that quickly arrived – they would all smile in approval. Because America is nothing if not fair and logical.
You have that backwards.
I always feel like Ramira could be a very valuable source of cultural information, but I find myself continually baffled by what seems like eternal rage of the heat of a thousand suns. If I actually understood half the invective, I feel like I wouldn’t be quite as confused most of the time.
Oh, that’s easy. She’s just a total bitch. No great mystery there.
I allow for both this (likely) possibility and the possibility that the hijab is a symbol of oppression towards women.
How could I possibly have it backwards? Is an American citizen wearing a hijab not entitled to express her patriotism and Love of the Constitution™ in exactly the same manner so beloved by gun nuts by carrying around an assault weapon? Are there different classes of citizenship that we don’t know about?
And if they’re somehow incompatible and one has to be regulated, which do you think is more dangerous and kills more people in America – guns or head scarves?