I am posting in IMHO because I don’t really want a debate, I just want opinions. I probably won’t post again, but I will read all the posts because I really am curious about people’s answers to this question.
I really do not understand why Muslim women choose to wear headscarves. To me, the headscarf represents the hatred of the Muslim religion towards women. The headscarf says that Muslim women must hide a part (or all, in some cases) of themselves while in public, and I find that idea abhorrent. Hiding my hair, which I think is pretty and an expression of my identity, is like hiding a part of who I am, as if that part is somehow bad.
Answers I’ve already heard are:
The headscarf protects women from molestation. I just saw a short movie (one of several shorts in “Paris, Je Taime”) in which these teenage boys are making crude comments to several female passers-by. The muslim girl in the headscarf who sits near them is largely ignored, and she laughs a little at how crude they are. The unspoken implication seems to be that if a woman doesn’t wear a headscarf, she is open to molestation. This doesn’t make sense to me. Shouldn’t the men have the responsibility for their own actions?
The headscarf shows that the woman who wears it is a part of a group, an identity. (The girl in Paris Je Taime mentions this as well, but I’ve heard it elsewhere first.) I actually do understand this line of reasoning, but I think it’s false. After all, men do not show any identification with the group, so wearing the headscarf can’t really be about that.
To some extent, my hatred of the headscarf is a little irrational, so I am just curious if there are more rational people who are better able to explain this to me. I would like to be an open-minded person, so I don’t like the hatred I feel every time I see a woman wear a headscarf, let alone a full abaya.
Thanks for any and all responses!
I would say that it’s partially about tradition – “my mother wore one, and her mother wore one, so not wearing one feels indecent” sort of thing, and partially about cultural pride and the ability to use the right to free expression to express one’s religious identity. I also once read (sorry for lack of cite) an essay where a Muslim woman explained that she felt that keeping her body covered meant that people wouldn’t judge her based on her physical experience but instead on her personality and intelligence. There are also more ‘old fashioned’ ideas about the headscarf as a symbol of purity.
There’s a really neat show out of Canada called Little Mosque on the Prairie. It’s actually a sitcom, about Muslims. One of the characters is a Muslim woman in her 20s, a doctor, who considers herself a “progressive Muslim.” The question of why she wears the headscarf has come up, and the character explains that she wears it to keep her beauty covered and private to herself and her {future} husband. So for her it’s actually a feminist thing.
IIRC, she was NOT into it when a woman moved in to town who wore the full hijab (covered in head to toe in black, including face covering)…she found that insulting.
I think the “why” reasons may vary from woman to woman…
It is a custom. Lots of customs seem silly to people who do not practice them. (I wear a tie for gosh sakes. That is very silly.)
Religious and ethic groups wear certain clothing to show they are members of a group. (A friend of mine took up the Men in Black look after his Bar Mitchmah and told me he felt he had “made the team.”)
People dress the way they dress because (mostly) they choose to dress that way.
The headscarf and gown are simply pieces of cloth. They are not in and of themselves oppressive or indicative of hatred. The words that are sometimes used to explain them are sometimes hurtful and disrespectful.
Muslims men are insecure? I cannot say I have noticed that all too much.
Little Mosque on the Prairie. I have to admit that, the first time I heard about it, I thought the news report was an Onion-style parody. It turned out to be real, and the show became something of a success.
while that might not always be the case it is in countries like Saudi Arabia. They have a religious police force (called the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) which in 2002 prevented girls from leaving a burning school because they didn’t have the proper headwear (14 died). There was an investigation, which resulted in the firing of the head of the school.
I know quite a few women, including Western converts- who choose to wear hijab. When I lived in a Muslim area I wore a token headscarf most of the time.
The first reason is group identity. Every group- from rastas with their dreds to bankers and their ties- have things they wear to denote identity. The Muslims I know are proud of their religions and their cultures. And they want to set a positive example of Muslims living everyday lives.
The other is that it takes emphasis off of beauty, and some women find this liberating. They feel like they get taken more seriously. They feel like their words and actions get paid more attention to. And they like being exempt from “bad hair days” and the time-consuming expensive beauty rituals most women do just to get out of the door in the morning. They are saying that they are not there just for other people to look at. That they are about what they say and what they do, not about how sexy random guys think they are.
In any case, there are plenty of problems with women and Islam, but hijab is pretty low on the list. Think about our own society. You would never go to a job interview without pantyhose. Why? It’s bizarre. Somehow our society has deemed our legs unprofessional, so we buy fake leg film that we put over our real legs and somehow this is cool. Very strange.
The longer answer is that women were, traditionally, viewed as possessions by most of humanity throughout time. Women were always meant to dress modestly around other men or better yet never be unaccompanied with another man, or he might dishonor her. The definition at any given moment of “modesty” however, is described by the above graphic. There is no reason.
Going back even further, you get the issue of inheritance. Your sons get your goods. If they’re not your sons, then things become complicated. Traditional laws tend to err on the side of simple and absolute rules. Rather than dealing with figuring out inheritance among bastards, it’s easier to set up a society that very stringently guards against and punishes adultery by women.
As to why the women take it upon themselves to wear the hajib, mostly because a) Anything else would be immodest, and b) It’s showing support for their team.
I always thought groups in the Middle East who wore garments that covered their head like this did so originally to protect themselves from the sun and dust. If you look at some ancient religious writings, they often read somewhat like a “how-to” of everyday life. I don’t remember specifics of this, but it was pointed out to me, with examples, by a friend of mine years back.
Hence, everyday practical things, like covering up to keep sand out of your hair, became intertwined with religious teachings to the point where it’s considered blasphemy to, in this example, not cover up one’s head.
Basically its for the same reason (as mentioned above) that “western” women keep their nipples covered. So as not to arouse sexual desire in men. (It goes deeper, but this is the founding principle)
It is also required to have legs and arms covered. exactly how you interpret is another matter - which is way in traditional islam the dress is loose fitting (so as not to reveal female form).
Around here, you will often see jeans with headscarf - simply different interpretations.
What may not be so well known is that there are some requirements on men also - If I am not wrong (and I may well be) men need to keep legs covered to below the knee for the exact same reason - so as not to arouse desire.
Saba Mahmood has written a book that touches on this subject called “Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject.” She notes that while all Islamic virtues are gendered in one way or another, none so much so as the virtues of modesty and shyness, considered to be absolutely necessary for the achievement of piety in Muslim women. Because of this, the veil is not simply an outwards expression of her devotion and piety (and, consequently, her modesty and shyness); it is a way for her to remember that she must always be devout, pious, modest, and shy. In Mahmood’s words, veils are “the critical markers of piety as well as the ineluctable means by which one trains oneself to be pious.” So rather than being a way to avert an unwanted male gaze, an expression of dissatisfaction or resistance, or a method to reduce clothing costs as many Western feminist anthropologists have hypothesised, Mahmood instead claims that veils are a necessary means to an end when it comes to religious devotion and piety. Mahmood concludes that for Islamic women the performance (she draws heavily from Judith Butler’s theories of performativity in her work) is often just as important as the motives behind it. It is those external expressions of devotion which strengthen their internal resolve to lead a chaste life.
That is a seriously oversimplified explanation of her extremly brilliant thesis, but I really can’t do it justice here so if you’re interested in learning more I suggest you read her book
Hm. Do bridal veils bother you as well? What about nun habits or the wigs Orthodox Jewish women wear? Or the headscarves worn in Russia and eastern Europe (and sometimes by QEII)?
Just trying to get a handle on which bits of cloth bother you…
Ok, not really, but many Muslim women wear a hijab for the same reasons - because they want to. If they don’t want to they don’t. It’s not your head; what’s it to you?
I agree with other things, but not with this line of reasoning. Emphasis off of beauty my… whatever…
Many times, while I was an undergrad, I saw plenty of other Muslim undergraduate women wearing headscarves… And fashionable jackets and jeans, beautiful perfectly manicured hands, and perfectly put on make up.
In fact, for one girl, at least, it seemed as if the headscarf accentuated her beauty, by drawing attention to her face (which was very pretty, and had make up on).
In their case, I hope they’re wearing it out of tradition. If they’re wearing it for the reason you state, they’re hypocrites. If they’re wearing it out of piety and shyness… well, they’re wearing the headscarf, but the purpose of it failed miserably.
Seriously, most of the time, around me, that I see women with headscarves, they’re wearing fashionable clothes, make up, etc. Granted, I’m biased because I’ve lived most of my adult life in and around colleges, but I don’t buy that reasoning.
Religion <------------------------------------------------------> Logic :dubious:
