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

THERhubarb "The man is a dominant force and the woman is duty bound to be obedient to him. The focus is on pleasing him."

Rhubarb, you obviously come from an unusual culture.

I loathe hijab/burqa etc and any form of clothing like this.
Only worn by women.
Men can do as they please, as usual.
Oppressive.
I've heard the intellectual arguments on support of Islamic cover up clothing for females, but it doesn't wash with me.
It's not about modesty, it's oppression.
Religion and religious schools should be outlawed.
Not going to happen, but I can dream..

Well said stepaway. I personally also find if quite intimidating!

The comments of the mother of the two brothers who were recently sentenced after grooming underage girls also frighten me - is this the thinking of most people from this background?

Rhubarb your logic seems a bit skewed, all animal species do their best to attract a mate it's what keeps the human race alive. The girls up in Newcastle are only trying in their own sweet way to perpetuate the species showing potential mates big bosoms for breastfeeding etc, etc, we are all in some way biologically programmed to do this.

I don't really care what people wear but it's only when a society seeks to formulate into their laws, be it state or religious decree what an individual should or shouldn't be wearing do I think a line has been crossed

I once cared for a woman who had a toddler wearing a hijab, the mother herself wore a burka. The daughter was less than 2.5 as we discussed the age gap between her daughter and unborn baby.

Stepaway - I lived in the UAE for some time and it looks very different there. Women dressed head to toe in black yet when their uniform open they are dressed in the most skimpy, seductive clothing available.

Very timely article on bitchmedia:

bitchmagazine.org/post/three-michigan-muslim-teen-girls-discuss-their-hijabs

Where we are the little girls (and I mean primary school aged) who wear the head scarves pinned at the chin and baggy tops tend to be of N African origin.

We get a lot of folks from the Middle East visiting this time of year and it seems like overnight the fully black clothed women appear. Not so many with the gold masks any more, and there are more and more younger women covering everything but the eyeballs (from what I can tell) - it used to be mainly the grandmas until recently. The girls never wear headscarves though.

I have Muslim relatives in the ME and girls certainly don't cover either. The women (reluctantly) pop on a scarf, but they are stunningly beautiful and it suits them. I look like Les Dawson in a headscarf.

Little girls... I don't like to see it. Yes I know, some are probably just 'being like mummy' (how we used to trot around the house in mums heels with her handbag) but the scarf is a sexual thing. It is to stop mens' gaze - how does a parent explain that to a five year old? Why do they think they are wearing it? This says more about their attitudes to sex than anything else - and this is what makes me feel uneasy about it. Do they really see a small girl as a sexualised being? Who is the risk coming from?

Maybe men should be forced to wear blinkers and bee-keepers masks, and have bromide slipped into their tea.

Why cant people just let kids be kids - pink and frilly/cartoon tops and jeans, whatever. No coverings and no 'Future WAG' t-shirts either for that matter...

Yes stepaway well said

if the female form is too distracting [from God] them why don't men cover their eyes? Or stay at home? Their problem - not women's.

It's misogyny masquerading as religion : same deal re. Women bishops and the Catholic Church not allowing women priests. Power and control.

Baking I am in better place than you to assert my self as the voice of Muslim women. Hoever I am not saying I am that at all.

I don't like my sisters husband particularly and my sister chooses for now to go along with him regaridng the niqab.

I don't understand what you're getting at, if some women are forced to wear a headscarf then the headscarf should be banned completely, my sister is forced not to wear a veil, should all women by that logic then be forced to wear the veil in support? Some women are forced into arranged marriages (not just muslim women happens with Sikh and hindu women as well), should marriage be banned?

Safe guards should be in place and I think are more and more with marriages but with heascarves my firends choose to wear them and their daughters have a choice of whatever they cna wear.

My dd's love wearing headscarves they take mine to wear as I dont buy thme their own.

A headscarf has never stopped anyone form doing anything except when facing prejuidice and xenphobia, my girls ride bicycles without having to stop to adjust their headscarves (what is htat all about?), I hold down a high powered professiaonl job whilst simultaneously wearing a headscarf.

I also campaign for womens rights in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, and wouldnt' hesitate to help a woman in the UK who was bieng forced agianst her will to do something she did not want.

whats the point here?

The OP states a little child was seen wearing a headscarf for the first time today and wasn't playing with hte other chidlren as normal. She goes on to say that now she wont be able to share a changing room with boys . Altho there doesn't seem to be any basis for this assumption bar the OP making massive assumptions.

From that we're discussing Afghanistand and Saudi Arabia, I've been to the middle East many times no young pre-pubescent child wear hijab there.

I'd also say I am pretty well placed to state that no muslim woman condones the opression of her sister in Islam under the guise fo religion.

I've read loads of literature about Islam, I'm interested to understand what the Qur'an actually does say as opposed to the interpretations extremists take on it. Nothing I've read has convinced me women are considered equal to men.

If it truly is about Modesty why is it only women expected to wear them?

I appreciate the Bible is just as misogynistic but it's ok to point that out. We just have to pretend it's just a cultural difference that we should accept without question or else you're a big ole' racist. You'll not see my daughter in stupid sexy slogan t-shirts any more than you'll ever see her in a burka so it's a moot point. The question was about hijabs. I'm personally bloody annoyed when I see women in burkas, the irony is that you'd not give her a second glance without one.

Sauce Muslim men and muslim women are instructed to lower their gaze in the quran.

I do get the covering up... if you live a nomadic life in the desert - to stop your skin getting burned and sandblasted, and sand getting into every orifice. That makes sense.

The black colour just doesn't though. The heat would make me very tired and slow, and if I was also fasting/praying 5 times a day, I would be an absolute zombie.

Religion has its own ways of making people compliant. Sadly, the books and laws are written by mortal men.

YANBU

There are a few young girls wearing the hijab at my DC's school and I think it is a bit sad TBH. Why can't they just be kids?

Yanbu

It depresses me.

personal choice and I have seen a girl swimming in one once.

Men have a dress code too.

It doesn't take long to pray five times a day, fasting is only requied one lunar month, women don't fast during their periods nor do breastfeeding mums or pregnant women.

If you don't beleive in God then you wouldnt be able to do it. It would be a chore.

Stepaway, excellent posts.

Rhubarb, why are the rape stats so horrendous in Pakistan and India where women dress modestly.?

Please explain...

DH is from North Africa and I regularly visit there. No one in his family expects young girls to wear the hijab and none of them do. I can't recall seeing young girls in a hijab whilst visiting his country other than if they have just been to the mosque. None of his friends daughters here wore the hijab at a young age either.

But it's only women who are covered in my part of London. Only their eyes are [barely] visible.

The protest outside the Syrian embassy was divided by gender. It infuriated me. We have equality laws yet women and men are meant to protest separately and women are meant to cover every centimetre of skin.

I have to admit I have very limited knowledge of the writings on the Koran - I am very interested in learning though. I have studies Christianity, Judaism and just recently Sikhism. So please pardon my ignorance but in studying the religion I have yet to read anywhere that man and woman are equal.

Does a woman, after leaving this earth arrive to heaven greeted by line of Virgins? Can a woman chose to take more than one husband? Can a woman end a marriage?

I find this all fascinating - I guess when you live this way it becomes quite normalised but it doesn't make it right.

Would you not feel totally wrong footed and unequal in a conversation with a woman in a face covering?

Human brains are designed to react to faces. If that woman in the burka had spoken to me (her husband actually did, just pleasantries) I honestly don't know how I'd have reacted. How do you react to a person when you can't see their face?

Thebody India is a mjority Hindu country (so not filled with burkha wearing women for the benefit of this thread), did you see the documentary on BBC 'India a dangeorus place to be a woman' it was terrifying and sad and a huge eye opener, the women there are however fighting their corner fiercely.

Clumsy, who is supposed to meet a line of virgins on dying, certainly not muslim men or women.

A Muslim woman can't marry more than one man at a time, she can stipulate in her marrigage contract that her husband can't marry more than one woman whilst married to her.

Its not the length of prayer but the times. The human body needs to sleep and eat to function properly. I know the rules. My family tell me and I see it first hand. And if you don't believe in God where they are, heaven help you, literally.

Men may have a dress code - it's certainly not as restrictive and a lot don't seem to bother anyway.