To feel sad to see 5 year old girl in hijab

[INeedSomeSun]

Probably will get flamed for this & iabu as its not my business.
I am not racist in any way. I am Asian myself and have many Muslim friends.

Growing up, I never saw any muslim girls with hijabs. This is a trend which has been growing since the late 90s.

I know that the meaning behind the hijab is to protect modesty and show committment to Islam. It is supposed to be the girls/womans decision after much thought and dedication.

At 5 years old they are still getting changed in the classroom for PE and she won't be able to do this now with boys around. How will she play and do PE freely? She has been singled out by the views of her parents.
Also, she will barely know what religion means, so she has not made an informed decision for herself.

Normally she is chasing about with my DS and other kids before school.Today she was just stood there, perhaps embarrassed or told not to?
I felt very sad

Utter bollocks pardon me. Not in one single post, and I have read them all has crumbled patronised Muslim women.

Far from it. You can't question the patronised.

Questions have been asked and not answered.

You say there's a disgusting u tube video of a young girl being beaten for talking to men!!! Yes can't you see that some if us equate that with the treatment of musl women by MUSLIM MEN!! Cover up and don't speak or you are in deep shit!!!

Chaz so Muslim women have given their views, great that's what we are all doing here and have listened if not always agreed with.

Oh and again we have 'the pearl clutching crap'

"You ignored the voices of the women who are in the community"

And Chaz it may interest you to know that earlier on we discussed how disparate are the voices of women in the Muslim community. Both I and Muslim women pointed it out. Muslim women are not all the same - of course! - and do not all speak with one voice. There are women who collude with oppression and women who fight it. There are women who fight it in different ways and say different things. So how do you decide who to listen to? I'll tell you without fear of contradiction - you must use your own judgement. You can't agree with all the voices - you have to agree with some and disagree with others, because they often contradict each other.

Crumbled you have been the loudest voice on this thread and I have watched your game of tennis with almost every other poster. You see no other view but your own, you seek no other opinion but your own. I believe you have been told that by several posters now yet you persist.

Every woman and every girl in every country suffers some form of oppression. Every. Single. One.

In the UK we have a society and a culture which encourages gender separation through the toys they play with, the colours which are forced onto them and the clothes they wear. Who can say that their little girl loves pink when that it all that child has been surrounded with?

There is an underlying message in our society that girls should look pretty and have fit bodies and that's about it.

The Muslim culture oppresses women and girls in a different way. By covering them up and yes, who can say that a little girl chooses to wear a headscarf when all the women who surround her do and it is considered the norm?

The point I am making is that you have to look carefully at the way your own society represents girls and women before criticising another culture or another society, because the UK does its fair share of oppressing girls too.

Not as much as Pakistan or India but in a more subtle way, making us believe that we are making free choices about wearing make-up and sexy clothes when actually, it's been drummed into us by the media, by peer pressure, by society in general that girls and women need to look pretty.

I would no more criticise a woman for covering up than I would a nun for taking her vows.

Why? Because what is the point in criticising the woman? Where does that get you? Instead I would criticise the society which has driven home the message that women are not to be seen or heard or educated. I will openly criticise the Taliban and extreme Islamists as much as I will openly criticise the IRA.

However I will respect the right of any woman to wear what she wants even if I believe she has been brainwashed by her culture or religion. If I didn't, that would make me as bad as her oppressors. I would be telling her what she could not wear - how is that different to telling her what she can wear.

And that, Crumbled, is essentially what you are doing.

Now feel free to tell me that you don't understand my point. I don't really expect you to. You seem to have quite a closed mind.

thebody "Yes can't you see that some if us equate that with the treatment of musl women by MUSLIM MEN!!"

No.

There is a difference. They were the Taliban. Extreme Islamists. Can't you see that?

I am a catholic. Am I therefore part of the IRA?

No.

Did you see the programme? There were MUSLIM MEN!! who had been shot trying to teach young girls. MUSLIM MEN!! who were trying to re-build girls schools. MUSLIM MEN!! who put themselves in the line of fire by refusing to bow down to the demands of the Taliban and MUSLIM MEN!! who set up outdoor schools to each children in poor districts.

You have such a dim view of MUSLIM MEN!!, you seem to lump them all together. That is quite breathtakingly narrow-minded of you.

Crumbled
You patronised me when I pointed out my husbands reaction to Lee Rigby's death. When someone posted that muslims do not stop work to pray you found one example of someone who had and used that to try and contradict all the experience of the muslims posting.

Oh and I have read your posts
CrumbledwalnutsWed 03-Jul-13 17:08:42

"There is a belief among some Christian groups that women should cover their hair when they pray. "

And? Most women make a different choice - not to be submissive

That's where you link head covering to being submissive - in case you've forgotten what you've written

I wanted to reply to the OP even though the thread has moved on. YANBU if the family have forced her to wear a hijab. If she's chosen to wear it then I guess still YANBU but have a few issues with it...

I was with a group of friends recently - all Muslim women - who were talking about one of their daughters who had put on a hijab 'to be like Mummy' - she was tiny, four or five. Her dad came back and was very angry about it, made her take it off, and had an argument with his wife about it. She said that she replied 'Why can't she wear it? She just wants to wear what I wear, and dress up at being older like children do?' and he said 'What will our neighbours and the school think of us? They will think we are extremists. She is not allowed to wear it until she is a grown woman.'

The women were talking about this and saying it was a shame for a little girl not to be able to put on the hijab if she wants to. They felt that the husband was BU. They asked me what I thought (lone Westerner in the group!) and I said that I'd let a DD of mine try on my high heels at home, but wouldn't let her put on make up or wear 'dressed up like a grown up lady' clothes outside of the house and that I supposed it was the same thing. They didn't seem at all offended (but then they are all terribly polite to me...) and did seem to see putting on the hijab as a similar thing - part of the entrance to 'being a woman'.

becscertainstar interesting point. Yes, women primarily wear make-up to make themselves appear attractive; high heels to make their legs look longer and all of this brings them more attention from men.

Women wear the hijab to appear modest, to hide their feminine hair and prevent attention from men.

Looking at it that way, both are wrong. Yet only one would be considered by some to be a free choice. The women in make-up and high heels would be said to have chosen to dress like that whereas the woman in the hijab is considered to have been forced to dress like that.

The western culture very much thrusts women into the limelight. In the media we are told what to wear and how to wear it. Famous women are criticised for the way they look, they can never be perfect. Teenage girls are told by magazines how to attract boys. Yet our culture has the temerity to openly criticise a culture which does the opposite?

And for the record, my opinion is that neither are right. Both are forms of oppression and dictatorship by a male-dominated society.

theRhubarb - FWIW, and I say this in a loud voice, I am not an oppressed woman and never have been.

I am a muslim woman (a white british convert in fact) and I'd happily see hijabs banned from infant schools tbh, the same way I think heeled shoes/ jewellery have a place. Outside schools no problem, DD (4yr) sometimes likes to wear one and. I don't even wear one myself, except to pray! The same way I'd let her wear her fairy wings/ play silk as a sari/ princess dress, I see no reason to stop her from playing around with a head scarf.

To a PP who says they see all women wearing headscarves as being oppressed, would you apply the same principle to elderly women wearing scarves, or people wearing them on churches? As I've said, I don't wear one myself but lots of my friends and all of my female in laws in this country do and I assure you none of them are oppressed in any way within their families or cultures or pressured to wear it in any way. That isn't to say it doesn't happen, of course. I don't know every muslim woman in the world! But for a woman to be forced, even encouraged, to wear one I would think happens more rarely than you are imagining.

I have just seen a photograph of the protests in Egypt. There are a line of 'volunteers' between the male protestors and the female protestors to keep the women safe because 91 of them have been raped. THAT'S what I call oppression and fear, not pink toys in a shop.

I did see my gran as oppressed actually. She felt that she had to wear a headscarf in public as it was the 'proper' way for a woman to dress. She would never have worn a skirt above the knee or a short-sleeved t-shirt come to think of it. She no doubt thought that she chose what she wanted to wear but her choices had been dictated to her by the religion she followed, societal expectations at the time and the way she had been brought up by her parents.

Every woman and every girl in every country suffers some form of oppression. Every. Single. One.

Well i am a woman and i have never been or felt oppressed in anyway. I wear what i want, look how i want to look, live where i want to live, go where i want to go. I control my own finances, have the right to leave my possessions to who ever i want upon my death. I have the same rights in law as my husband both under civil and criminal law. I am equal to everyone of what ever gender they maybe or which ever religion or none that they wish to follow.

Rhubarb I see nothing in your post that I haven't already responded to - or which is a not comment on something I haven't actually said". It is possible to listen to people, to take on board what they say and still to disagree with them*. " Instead I would criticise the society which has driven home the message that women are not to be seen or heard or educated." - this for example, has been met with the accusation of colonial feminism on this thread, and if you were in general agreement with me, this charge would be levelled at you as well. I have indeed read all the posts, and considered them, and hold to my point of view. I dislike equally the encouragement of young girls to wear sexy clothes. Does that validate my point of view in your eyes? I don't suppose it does - you have put me in a box, and you won't consider my point of view, because you have attached a little label to it - that is a sign of a closed mind.

LastTango oppression takes many forms.

In this country you have both male and female victim blamers. You have young men who do not think it is rape to have sex with an unconscious girl. You have girls who are forced to strip for boys who blackmail them on their phones.

17,186 sexual offences were recorded against children in 2011/12 in England and Wales alone.

Yes I am aware that violence against women in places like Pakistan and India are horrendous. Yes I have said in my posts that in comparison, this country is safe. But we are taking mainly about the UK and about a little girl in a hijab. We are talking about women in the UK who some think are forced to wear headcoverings.

There is no comparison of the UK versus somewhere like Pakistan. The oppression against women and girls here can often be violent, but not on the scales experienced there.

I have addressed all of this in previous posts. My later posts are addressing individual posters and the points raised by them.

Well said Tango.

I did patronise you with that one comment Chaz because it is beyond my comprehension to consider as equal the hacking to death of a man in the street and an extreme over-reaction of police on the alert, in fear of and trying to protect the public from terrorist attack. Words actually failed me.

theRhubarb - you, again, didn't read my post. I said I was not, and never had been, oppressed.

The fact that someone somewhere may take advantage and 'have sex with an unconscious girl' does not make it oppression.

And I haven't forgotten what I'd written about submission. It was in response to a poster who said covering was not about oppression but submission. I said most women (western/Christian - what are we calling them?) make a choice NOT to cover and NOT to be submissive. I think you misunderstood. The link with submission was made by another poster defending covering.

cantspel it is a subtle oppression that we face in the UK. I have stated that. It is subtle such as the pink toys for girls and educational toys for boys; it is subtle in that women still think they choose to wear make-up for no other reason than their own confidence yet make-up highlights certain facial features which makes women seem more attractive to men; it is subtle in that there are hardly any women MPs; it is subtle in that women are still blamed for being raped; it is subtle in that teenage girls are still seen as mini Lolitas.

You might not see it individually but look around you and you will see it. The little girl who is taught to care about her appearance above all else. The girls who stagger about at night dressed in tiny outfits. The businesswoman is continously passed over for promotion.

It might not always be violent but it is designed to keep us in our place.

LastTango it does when that girl is not believed or blamed for her rape.

Read my last post.

^^ that is not oppression!

If that were oppression most of the young girls in the UK would be quaking in their shoes on a Friday night because they have chosen to dress up and go out and have a few drinks.

Doobiedoo: I appreciate your agreement about the banning of covering in primary schools. But it is not (in my opinion) enough to say I'm not oppressed, I'm not oppressing anyone. In the same way that everyone in the separated communities in the Troubles had a responsibility to reject the violence and the symbols of violence, (and not enough to say it's nothing to do with me), in the same way everyone in the Catholic church has a responsibility to reject and take a stand against abuse, its concealment, its facilitation (and not to say it's nothing to do with me) every member of a community with customs which facilitate, encourage and validate gender inequality and oppression of women, have a responsibility to reject that. It cannot be done by people like me. All I can do is express the view. I cannot order people what to do, I cannot tell Muslim women what to wear, I would not impose a ban on covering grown women. But I can have a view, I can criticise and I can express what I think those responsible, non oppressed women should be doing to help fight that inequality and to take a stand.

I have absolutely no truck with the view that wearing make up is equivalent to covering. Men wear deodorant and aftershave and have nice haircuts and wear clothes to make themselves more attractive to women. Women do the same. When I see men walking around in burkhas then you can say "it's the same".

TheRhubarb never wear makeup infact i never have. I have sons who played with which ever toys they pleased be it a pink hoover or a thomas the tank engine.
There are 147 female mps which is not hardly any.
I dont think the majority of people think women are responsible for their own rapes. We have police officers trained especially to deal with rape victims and victim support and rape crisis centres to support them.

We have equality laws for the woman who feels she is passed over for promotion because of her gender.

And I would also like to say that this kind of gender inequality is not confined to countries which have been mentioned which are being loosely described as Muslim countries. India, for a start, where being a woman can be hell. Such perpetuation of gender inequality are backward, antiquated, cruel and wrong, wrong, wrong. I do not want to see its symbols normalised and defended in other countries, where so much hard fighting has gone into progressing the cause of women.

Very very sad. I visited my ex's family once and was so shocked to see one of his cousins wearing once. I think she was 4.

I don't get the difference and all the names to be honest, don't have an issue with the scarf but anything covering face should be banned.