To think it's ironic about Niqab and face coverings

[IsntItIronicDontYouThink]

Just thought about this and how ironically, face coverings have become mandatory on public transports and it makes me think of Muslim women (Niqab wearing women specifically) who've had a hard time because of their face coverings to now find that everyone has to cover their faces (for different reasons yes but still ironic, isn't it?)

Googled to see if anyone else mentions this. Here's a piece I found about it (There's more but just picked this one).

www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2020/06/12/face-mask-compulsory-muslim-women-12838585/amp/

[quote Dancethereupontheshore]@Muslimah2020 so ‘your beauty’ is for you, your husband, male members of your family and all women. So just not men for some unknown reason... do you think if my husband looked at you he would be overcome with lust at ‘your beauty’ and attack you? Or do you think you’re so beautiful that men can’t look at you or that if my husband looked at you you’re no longer special to your husband or your god? I’m glad you get to enjoy sunshine in the confines of your own home however.. it’s something I guess.[/quote]
You are SO rude. Stop it.

Who cares if your husband would or would not be attracted it or if he would or would not attack her for it (Can you 100% know that he wouldn’t? No, so back off.)

The point is SHE DOESN’T OWE IT TO YOUR HUSBAND (,YOU) OR ANY MEN TO EXPOSE ANY PART OF HER BODY, it’s HER Body. If she wants to only show it to her husband that’s fine, if she only wants to show it to her mum that’s fine too.

Why do YOU (or your husband!) feel so entitled to other women’s body?

Do you feel women should be forced to show their skin to your husband just because otherwise you think they think too highly of themselves? What kind of fucked up mindset is that? Stop it. You are being both ridiculous and offensive.

A woman’s body is hers to expose or not expose as SHE sees fit, according to her own thoughts/ beliefs/ moral compass and choices. It’s NOT for you or others to require any sort of entitlement to it.

We could return the question, why do you think your husband or any men should be able to see other women’s bodies and face against their will? Is your husband that special that we should all life out clothes and expose our bodies to him at the sight of him or what?

Learn to respect women’s choices, their choices (especially choices related to THEIR body)!isn’t for you to understand it’s for you to ACCEPT. Full stop.

And if you and your husband have this urgent need to see more of women’s body than women are willing to show and share, I suggest you both see a therapist because neither of you seem quite right, honestly.

Lift our clothes*

@Dancethereupontheshore I must ask, what happened in your life for you to be so cruel? Happy people don't attack other people for no reason.

Your comment is one of the most ridiculous things I've read on this site. And I've seen many. Perhaps you should seek some therapy to discuss your unhappiness and Islamaphobia.

And yet again the patriarchy has women turning on each other... slow clap.

We need to stop fighting each other here and realise that the underlying problem is our bodies being objectified. Just in different ways.

Haha I had been thinking of this too.

And what’s happened to all those supposed threat of terror the Governments been going on about for years??

Surely we need to see faces for security

So if Niqab is ok what about the burka? I mean I can see your eyes with a niqab, What if a man thinks there beautiful?

@june2007

So if Niqab is ok what about the burka? I mean I can see your eyes with a niqab, What if a man thinks there beautiful?

And what if a woman thinks they are beautiful and want to wear it? Should she not be able to because you disagree with it and feel women should show their body?

It’s not about what men wants. Men should not get to impose but women should get to CHOSE.

Don’t try and take rights and choices from women in order to end or fight the patriarchy.

Fight the specific issues you want to fight, in this case men controlling what women wear, WITHOUT resorting to the same problematic behavior aka controlling what women wear and requesting they don’t wear certain things (Niqab or Burka).

@Muslimah2020
Can I come and swim in your pool?

@UmmH you are more than welcome! 😁

That was supposed to be a smiley face emoji! @UmmH

And I actually see it much more patriarchal for women to uncover their beauty for men and live up to the standards of the media outside for men to see them, always worried about how they look and applying makeup and what they are wearing, rather than being protected from that and only allowing your husband and male family members to see your beauty. For me this makes me feel much more honorable and special than if I was to show myself to men I don't know. Why should they see my beauty

I wear as little clothing as possible. Especially in summer

I hate the feel of anything around my neck or arms or head or face or legs
Always have done. It has nothing to do with uncovering my beauty for men. I just can’t stand the restrictions of excess clothing.

Even in winter going outside I have never owned a coat.
The idea of a cardigan or hoodie and a coat. 2 layers going over my arms is too much
This all goes back to childhood. I hated the restriction of coats and would rather be cold than have that extra layer. Don’t get me started on school shirts with their cuffs around my wrists. It took everything to stop me having a panic attack

I have never been beautiful or pretty and couldn’t give a shit.
If I covered up I suppose I could have told people about my beauty and they would have been none the wiser.

I have never worn make up. Even underwear is optional.

I am nearly 60 and i doubt any man would look at me and be unable to contain his lust.
If he couldn’t then that is his problem not mine.

The idea of being protected equates in my mind to imprisonment.
You might have a nice villa and a pool but because of your lack of freedom to walk out and face the world free of a piece of cloth covering you up isn’t it just a guilded cage.

I don’t want to be protected from the world
I want to live in it. I want to face people and look at their faces and they look me in the face when they talk to me.

@Oliversmumsarmy it's a cage if you are forced to wear it and don't want to. It's a liberation if it's a choice to wear it and you want to. The only cage i feel is from women who because they can't understand why and respect my freedom of choice, feel as though they can push their perception of what it may be like onto me and assume that is how I MUST feel when I wear it. When it is quite the opposite.

I am treated very differently when I wear make-up, nice clothes, heels, with blow dried or curled hair. Shops refund things they wouldn’t normally refund. Colleagues stop and talk to me. I’m let into car parks when they’re full.

And then when I dress in plain clothes, flat shoes, hair in a ponytail, no make up, I’m invisible to the same people.

It’s such a fucked up world for women, judged by our appearance.

Muslimah2020 aren’t you doing the same.

Voicing opinions on what you think it is like to be able to wear whatever clothes you like without covering them up when you go out.

That you think all women are worried about how we look. Worried about our makeup and what we are wearing.

I can assure you we are too busy working and living to bother with what other people think.

Can I ask what exactly are you being protected from?
And why does it have to be men who have to do the protecting?

that might be down more to attitude than anything else SharonasCorona, I have never experienced that.

I tend to exercise in DH old baggy tshirts and plonk an old tracksuit on when I am cold before or after, so I have looked a state in many occasions, no one bats an eyelid. They might not like my fashion sense, but I have never been treated differently

@Janice true there could be other factors. But it’s happened too many times for me not to be aware that it does happen. I’m not treated badly as such, just nowhere near as well.

@Oliversmumsarmy

Muslimah2020 aren’t you doing the same.

Voicing opinions on what you think it is like to be able to wear whatever clothes you like without covering them up when you go out.

That you think all women are worried about how we look. Worried about our makeup and what we are wearing.

I can assure you we are too busy working and living to bother with what other people think.

Can I ask what exactly are you being protected from?
And why does it have to be men who have to do the protecting?

She hasn't been doing the same.

Most women who are clearly against the Niqab have literally felt some sense of entitlement to @Muslimah2020's body that she simply hasn't shown back.

Not only have people been trying to convince another woman that she should give up on doing what she does because they don't approve but also resorted in very questionable and entitled comments such as '' if you won't let my husband look at you it's probably because you think you are too hot for him? What are you scared of?"

To more recently '' I want to face people and look at their faces and they look me in the face when they talk to me.''

Those type of comments (and they were plenty) are NOT okay, it shows an entitlement that is extremely odd it's the " I want to see your body therefore you should show it to me, if not I will think you are oppressed."

Which is not far off at all and actually quite exactly the same as men doing similar requests and quite ironic because I bet the women who question women who chose to be covered and disapprove of them are likely the same women who find themselves outraged at most music video clip and disapproving of how little women wear in them to appease men.

Swings and roundabout I suppose.

Ain't no worse enemy to women than other women, as we say.

What is ironic is that I have even spotted some in freedom of expression and super tolerant multicultural UK that are subjected to being totally covered from head to toe but don’t cover their mouth, nose and eyes. (I am not overtly religious but I understand they are by design/default subject to different rules for men as obviously there is no gender equality/discrimination in strict adherence to traditional Islam - but do enlighten us as ignorant of this here!)

From a Covid health and safety viewpoint in terms of outer clothing, if wearing a female Muslim equivalent of a hazmat suit in daily everyday wear then at least why not also cover the bits that is medically most Covid impacted. I am not sure why they do all this and leave out the bits that matter and then use political weaponisation of race and ethnicity for inequalities of Covid fatalities. Covid is invisible and does not discriminate but it does impact more on anyone who takes the most risk. UK is seemingly still relaxed and arguing about benefits of PPE while having world record Covid daily fatalities. Surely if common sense is actually common then all protection is better than nothing?!

So in answering directly to this subject matter then it is not ironic as one is about religious fulfillment (whether by free choice or by instruction) and the other is on medical Covid safety. Both obviously impact visually but given the daily Covid infections and fatalities then perhaps both aesthetics and any limiting religious requirements should step aside for Covid sensibility!

And what exactly aren't we doing to contribute? I live abroad and I wear medical gloves when I go to the shops and my niqab covers my face so it's the equvilant to a mask anyway and in the Muslim country I live we have one of the lowest death rates and best recovery rates in the world for coronavirus. So we must be doing something right, hey?

OP there's one more irony to add: hand shaking. Muslims were constantly criticised for not wanting to shake hands with members of the opposite sex. There was at least one thread about it here. Now, no one wants to shake anyone's hand!!!

@Muslimah2020 I'll pack my burkini

There is a big difference between not wanting to shake hands with someone because of their sex and not shaking hands with anyone.

Not even a hint of irony there.

The niqab pre dates Islam and was used by slave owners to transport their goods to sell at market - girls and women, all covered to keep their most prized goods protected from being stolen

This was used ISIS only a few years ago in excatly the same way

The point of full covering was to take away a woman’s identity. Now if some women choose that in a free country such as the UK (and life for women and girls as in choices we have is far better than in all Muslim countries and considerably better than in many) that so be it but the niqab was never designed to free women and for the vast majority who it’s worn by its a cloth of chains

But the mask is to protect us all against the spread of a virus that’s why we are being encouraged or it’s becoming mandatory to wear. The niqab isn’t to protect anyone

are you Muslim or do you live in a predominately Muslim country? You seem to know an awful lot about the ins and outs of every Muslim woman in the world

I do live in a predominantly Muslim country and have for many years. I am free to have the opinion that a niqab is a sexist piece of clothing, and erases women from public life.

Most women in the MENA do not wear niqab. It’s more of a Gulf practice.

If these same attitudes came from a Mormon woman, you’d all be excoriating her. Even if she came here politely to explain her beliefs, you’d all be lamenting how her upbringing led to internalized sexism. (And yes, the Mormon religion is also extremely sexist and, like Islam, forces women to believe their modesty and chastity uniquely define them).

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

There is a big difference between not wanting to shake hands with someone because of their sex and not shaking hands with anyone.

Not even a hint of irony there.

Yes the sexism behind one is problematic but what's the solution? Force women to touch and make physical contact with men against their will?

Women (and men) are entitled to not touch specific people if they don't want to, as sexist as it might be.

Trying to imply women (and men) should have more physical contact with people of the opposite sex than they are comfortable with is more problematic than them refusing to have physical contact with them.

(Not saying that's what you are implying, just that most solution would come across that way and therefore it's a case where Body Autonomy likely trumps Sexism)

Where do you get your history facts from?

The niqab was instructed to be used by our religion from when our Prophet pbuh instructed us to do so. It is Islamic texts and the quran. So no it has nothing to do with slaves. And if anything gives a woman freedom, it doesn't take away from it. It is only the western ideology that has this thinking, why do all the Muslim lands not take this view? Because it originates from our religion, that's why.