Is wearing a headscarf somehow insulting to muslims?

[BrittaPerry]

Sorry if this comes out wrong.

Quite often in extremes of weather (both hot and cold) I feel more comfortable with my head covered. In fact, I have been known to do it in private anyway. I suppose it is to o with me being a bit weird with sensory stuff and it making me feel secure, but I also think it looks nice (I have some lovely scarves, but I suppose I do tend to buy them in quite asian areas). I also cover my hair when baking and just leave it on. Sometimes it is a hippy style, sometimes it is wrapped round my neck abd covering my hair completely, sometimes just kind of loosely draped on my head and shoulders.

I also quite often wear long flowing dark clothes, mostly because I find them more practical - nobody wants to see random bits of my flesh poking out when I bend over to help the kids.

A couple of people have said I sometimes look Islamic, or like some kind of russian peasant or Amish. Some people have assumed it is some kind of political statement to look traditional Russian.

I honestly don't do this on purpose - sometimes I wear miniskirts and doc martens.

I'm just a bit worried that this is a kind of 'badge' of Islam for many people, and I would hate to offend anyone.

AIBU?

As a Muslim woman.

Let me take it upon myself to say;

'On behalf of my people.....we don't actually care what you wear on your head, we are NOT offended by your headdress'

HTH

Fuzzywuzzy but what about the patent

in that case sue for millions for breach of copyright....but thats due to a legal reason, not personal offense of the entire female Muslim population for whom I am the self imposed spokesperson.

FWIW I don't think YABU to be concerned OP, but your concerns come from your own evangelical upbringing.

I've worked with women from various fundamentalist religious backgrounds and one thing that always stands out us there absolute fear of offending others. It seems to be borne from a lack of education about other cultures/religions. I deal predominantly with Muslim women from the middle east and those from the less progressive countries like Afghanistan really struggle with self identity. They don't want to wear a headscarf as they can't quite believe they won't be attacked or thought of as promiscuous. I think the OP may have similar problems with self identity, based on her upbringing.

Stupid auto correct, "they don't want to wear a headscarf BUT they can't believe etc..."

hazle now I would like to ask you which Middle east countries exactly these women you work with come from, please.

Also, which age group of Afghan women are we talking here?

Yanbu to wear what you wear.

Yabu to even think that you might offend someone.

Mostly those from the Hazari tribe with regard to Afghanis. Also ladies from Pakistan, Iran, Iraq (though admittedly the latter two are usually very highly educated - degree level and beyond). Also Yemenis to a lesser extent, and African Muslims from the Darfur region. I'm a human rights lawyer, helping women seek protection from oppressive regimes. Why do you ask?

Thanks hazle I am very interested!!!!!

And was also confused by your post, as in Afghani and Iranian women you'll find in the EU won't be from a less progressive and fundamentalist religious background.
Iraki women are also not, and the ones you would meet NOW in the EU would most likely have refugee/asylum seeker status...

Yemini's must be very hard to find....

And so on...

So, when I read your post I felt there was sweeping all under one carpet, and hardly any would fit that category.

I didn't intend to generalise, it varies massively from country to country, tribe to tribe, even village to village. I think a lot of people don't realise just what the middle east is like. The stock assumption seems to be that its one continuous desert occupied by a few goat farmers [hmmm]

But there is still a massive amount of oppression for women and attitudes like OP's are very common "I want to do X but am afraid of offending Y"

Yep, and not all is the Middle east, there is the Near East and the Maghreb, which is also not all of North Africa etc.....

None of these people who vary so much in ther nationalities, their cultures, their traditions their religious views, generational gaps etc....

ALL of them, should they be living in the UK for whatever reason, wouldnot care about OP and her worries.

In my view, it is important not to start any shit-stirring threads under the disguise of "genuine worry".

None of these people would care about OP and her head-scarf worry I wanted to say.

I agree, they wouldn't care a jot. However, I can understand from her point of view how she has been conditioned to think they might and obviously she INBU to have her own neuroses. Hopefully, having read the thread, she feels better and can stop worrying about it.

My father is a friendly, elderly black man with a beard. These days young Muslim men are always coming up to him and greeting him with exaggerated courtesy and respect and lots of Salaam Aleikums (one explained once they assumed he was an imam). He just giggles and says 'Oh, hello'. One boy once said 'Are you not a Muslim?' and my father said 'No, I'm a Methodist' which caused confusion (and more giggling by father).

Yes, SHE is conditioned to think that, but that kind of evangelical/fundamentalist Christian way is not comparable to any normal traditional Muslim view of the matter, and I mean various shades and depths

ONLY the Muslim fundamentalist and extremist nutters I would say are comparable, not any different from Christian fundamentalist who have no problem to kill either in the name of their religion, not do they have a problem to live their ways even though it's against the law etc.

But you hardly will find them in mainstream population and esppeacially not among the female refugee/asylum seeker population, especially not Afghani and Iranian women who were usually refugees in the late 70's and early to mid 80's, Iraki's, Lebanese, and Syrians were most likely men and Academics and highly achieved in their home countries and so they are here now too.

The current Iraki population has different reasons for being in the EU, think Gulf War I and II etc....

North Africa, and differentiate Maghreb there, again very different, and all this fundamentalist movement is fairly young, as you know 20-30 years is in societal terms very recent, also the changes or rather say consequences after 9/11 are massive, and most women of whatever region you've mentioned are suffereing more from prejudices and misunderstood pity and loads of false explanations about their religion, culture and traditions, as even these 3 things are mashed together...

That's right Eldritch deeply religious Christian men (not sure if your Dad is) are also having a beard, all very similar...

Someone more savvy will hopefull come along with explanation, but all goes back to Old testament right?!

I wore a headscarf & got mistaken for a Plymouth Brethren once.

If I saw the OP with a full headscarf I would think cancer, not religion.

My father deeply religious? Haha, no! He's got a beard because he grew it to look older when he married my mother (plus his chin's a bit small) and just kept it on.