On the Hijab and human faces.

[FloralBuntingIsObnoxious]

Way back when I wore headcoverings myself as a Christian woman, I took a keen interest in what was taught about the Hijab, and what women themselves had to say about it.

I recall being particularly impressed by something I saw from a number of women about it being 'liberating' because it creates a focus on the face, on the woman as a human, rather than a sex object.

I took that at face value for some time as a good thought, but over time, I've begun to feel very uneasy about it.

For a start, there is an implicit understanding that a woman who is not covering her hair is a sex object, not a human. It all leads in to this notion that if a woman does not cover herself then she is not as worthy of respect as those women who do.

Then there is the understandable desire to be seen as a human, rather than simply subject to the male gaze. I feel it myself when I'm not wearing make up and just want to get on with my day - a sort of wish to be invisible to leering glances.

But why is there this strange notion that only our faces are 'human'? My whole body is part of what makes me human, the same as a man. How come a Muslim man is able to walk around with hair uncovered and still be seen as a human, but a woman does not have that ability unless we can only see her face? This 'disembodying' is so harmful.

Anyway, just some rolled around thoughts I had this morning while reading some things about the objections to hijab. I'd be interested in a discussion about it.

I agree with you. You can dress it up as empowering, or “you can have a bad hair day, haha!” but when only women are compelled to cover, it can’t be empowering. When women are told to cover to protect themselves from the lustful male gaze, it isn’t empowering.

I’ll see Muslim families out shopping in London during the summer, and the husband is wearing jogging bottoms and a t shirt (ditto sons), the wife wearing an abaya, hijab and veil, and the girls covered from neck to wrist to ankle. It’s impossible not to see the oppression and the double standards.

Totally agree with your thoughts. It only applies to women, therefore it’s pretty straight forward sexism. Real freedom would be wearing whatever the hell you want to and not ever being subject to sexual objectification or harassment because of it.

Yes it it totally tied in to the male gaze, the sexualisation and objectification of women and the subjugation of women by men.

Women might kid themselves that a lot of things are empowering from wearing a veil to wearing make up and heels, but the way it is always read and received by males (the dominant group) is that it is women demonstrating obedience and lower social status. That's why some men really freak out if a women doesn't conform- it's insubordination.

Its a difficult one. How do you encourage women to stop wearing them? It does seem to have become a lot more common in recent years. I think more integration and less hatred would help.There’s nothing like covering yourself and trying to disappear.

Way back in the distant mists of time all the women here had to cover their heads or else they were shameless hussies.

It's children wearing a head covering I really disagree with. So, men are lusting after little kids are they?

Then there is the understandable desire to be seen as a human, rather than simply subject to the male gaze. I feel it myself when I'm not wearing make up and just want to get on with my day - a sort of wish to be invisible to leering glances.

Does that work in practice? I’m pretty much invisible now (yay!) but I never wore make-up as a young woman and it didn’t seem to make any difference, tbh.

Not every Muslim girl child wears a headscarf.

I think that danger lies in the prescriptive banning of them as in France. We should stand side by side with our sisters, whatever they choose to wear. Ditto fight with them if they want the freedom not to wear a head covering.

I am also of a generation when I can remember women not allowed in church without a hat, same for girls. Every Whitsun we were bought a new hat to wear to church for that year. I think somewhere in th bible is something along the lines of covering your head in the sight of God. Just for women though, of course. Brazen hussies that we are.

On the subject of Musim men not covering their head, some do. They wear those little white crochet like hats. Just googled, they are called kufi. Not the same as a full body covering, but you never know what might happen if we hussies are allowed to be seen!

I think the issue of kids is a fair one though. Parents shouldn't let their daughters go out in make up or a headscarf no matter how much they beg to 'be like mum' because it is sexualising and inappropriate for children.

At the risk of being accused of "mansplaining", I feel I should explain my background.
I am an agnostic, white, English male, and have been married to my Iranian, Muslim born, wife for twenty seven years.
Neither of us are religious.
A couple of years ago, we drove to Salzburg for a holiday, and whilst we were in that lovely location did a lot of driving around because it is a magical place with awesome scenery.
One day we ended up at a lovely lakeside town - Zell Am See - and when we parked up, we were surprised to see dozens of Muslim women wearing full hejab (burkhas), and a relatively few men (we assumed they had their full quota of four wives each), wearing casual gear, chinos and short sleeved shirts.
It was a hot day and we were trying to keep in the shade as much as possible, so I can only imagine how uncomfortable the women were dressed in that gear.
When we visit Iran, my wife along with all the women, has to comply with the "dress code", which basically means a head scarf and long clothing or jeans, and she feels uncomfortable if it is hot. Of course, that only applies when outside the house, because when in the house the vast majority of Iranian women dress just like their counterparts in the West.
My point is this.
The hejab is not liberating at all, despite what many white converts to Islam try to tell everyone.
The hejab was not instigated by women, it was forced on women by men, the same men who have formed every single religion since time began.

Its a cultural, rather than a religious choice to wear head and/or face coverings. Modest dress for men and women is all that is specified in the Koran. Explained to me by a practising Muslim colleague (female) who wore similar clothes to her western counterparts. Long or short sleeved tops, nothing low cut, trousers or longish skirts.

I also remember women and girls having to wear hats in church. I don't think the rule has ever been abolished. As I recall (I was a child so happy to be corrected) the practice ended because women first stopped forcing their daughters to do it and then stopped doing it themselves.

Then there is the understandable desire to be seen as a human, rather than simply subject to the male gaze. I feel it myself when I'm not wearing make up and just want to get on with my day - a sort of wish to be invisible to leering glances.

Does that work in practice? I’m pretty much invisible now (yay!) but I never wore make-up as a young woman and it didn’t seem to make any difference, tbh.

Not always, no. The same as a hijab doesn't mean a woman is always respected as a whole human being. But that desire to be invisible to the male gaze is common to both ideas, and obviously the answer is not for women to be subject to ever greater schemes to become invisible, of their own design or imposed on them, it's for men to sort their shit out and stop treating women as objects...

I'm not talking about banning them. It's an interesting thing that the leap is made to top-down imposition when a critique is offered about something imposed top down in many places.

No, my point is that women are being forced, coerced, and convinced by arguments that use 'liberation' as a draw to do something that is entirely based on male desire. I'm suggesting examining the arguments that use freedom etc. to see if they stand up to query, so that women themselves are able to make their own decisions about what they wear with genuine freedom.

I very much dislike and do not regard it's ubiquity in parts of our country as "progress" in any way shape or form, and it utterly baffles me why people defend it.

Why do we just talk about the hijab? The queen often wears a scarf and usually has her head covered? Brethren women wear scarves for religious reasons. Nuns in Anglican and Catholic traditions often wear head covering veils.
Why is it OK for other women to tell Muslim women they are being objectified and oppressed? Personally I’d feel more liberated in an abaya than in a micro mini skirt or bottom exposing shorts. Are we sure it’s the Muslim women who are seen as less human objects?
I think young girls who feel the need to share near naked pictures, to go clubbing wearing very little and to crucify their feet for male pleasure are perhaps not quite as liberated as they like to think.

The Christian practice of headcovering is still ongoing. It's not particularly mainstream any more in the West, which came about, I think, because of an unguarded remark by a bishop asked something by a journalist which was then passed on like Chinese whispers and the practice was jettisoned in fairly short order.

But it does still exist, and I have a draw full of headscarves and lace doilies to prove it. 'Freely' chosen by me, and freely discarded eventually too.

And why is the counter to not wearing hijab always objectified near nakedness? I'm quite sure every woman is seen as an object. That's my point, and has been referenced since the OP.

Personally I’d feel more liberated in an abaya than in a micro mini skirt or bottom exposing shorts.

Happily, you have a choice and are not being told to dress a certain way, while men are not. That’s the key here. I do not wear mini skirts either, and nobody is making me.

FloralBuntingIsObnoxious Yes, I have a friend with a drawer full of mantilla. She’d love to wear them but feels she can’t as a) her children would be very rude and b) it’s no longer the norm in U.K. so she’d be seen as a reactionary oddball. In fairness, she is a tad reactionary.

Oxytocindeficient I work with several hijab wearing women who most definitely make their own choices. There is an irony in other women telling them what they should and shouldn’t wear.
Not all Muslim men are oppressive. Some agnostic men are definitely controlling.

For a start, there is an implicit understanding that a woman who is not covering her hairisa sex object, not a human. It all leads in to this notion that if a woman does not cover herself then she is not as worthy of respect as those women who do.*

With all due respect, this is false and you have completely misunderstood the purpose of hijab.

If someone doesn't wear hijab it doesn't make them a sex object or sub-human! What makes you think Islam or Muslims believe that?!

There is absoloutely no where in Islam that says or even suggests that women that don't wear hijab do not deserve respect! Where did you get this idea from? I have studied Islam in-depth for the past 15 years and I can categorically say that there is absoloutely nothing in the faith to even suggest that. In fact, Islam is most stringent about the fact that Muslims must not judge each other on their actions or what is outwardly visible, because God is the one who really knows what is inside our hearts.

Your whole argument against hijab is on the premise that Muslim women wear hijab so that they are not seen as sexual objects. Well that is not true. If you have evidence from Quran/Hadith to the contrary then do share it. But the truth is Muslim women wear hijab because God asked them to. It is a dress code given to them by god, and there is a dress code for men too. Just as there is in other faiths just as Judaism.

Some Muslim women may feel that hijab protects them from inappropriate lustful gazes from men in some situation but that does NOT mean that the purpose of hijab was to protect women from men's lustful gazes. Because the truth is covering your hair alone does not stop a man from making unwanted sexual contact!

I think the mantilla is an interesting one. As far as I'm aware, you only wear one in Church. The women I know who struggle with whether to wear one or not are concerned with their peers thinking they are old fashioned or prideful. There's obviously a 'modest dress' aura attached to the thinking in those circles, but I'm not sure the mantilla itself is about modesty. I'm not what it is about, tbh, and its something I'm still reading up on. The coverings I'm familiar with are very much more overtly about modesty in appearance at all times. There's also the submission symbolism, which is what I presume is part of the mantilla too.

Some Muslim women may feel that hijab protects them from inappropriate lustful gazes from men in some situation but that does NOT mean that the purpose of hijab was to protect women from men's lustful gazes. Because the truth is covering your hair alone does not stop a man from making unwanted sexual contact!

Well, clearly they do, because I was referencing conversations I had with Muslim women who told me this was one of their reasons. And clearly, no, wearing hijab doesn't prevent unwanted attention from men.

@Oxytocindeficient

Muslim men do have a dress code that they have to adhere to. Look it up.

Jewish men and women also have strict dress codes they have to adhere too. In fact Jewish women cant even show their real hair to their own children.

No man is making me or my friends wear hijab, I am wearing it because I WANT TO, because I believe this is what my God has asked me to do, as part of my dress code. In Islam, I am not allowed to look down or judge anyone who doesn't wear hijab or doesn't adhere to any other part of our faith; in fact I would be sinful for treating anyone at all with disrespect

Well, clearly they do, because I was referencing conversations I had with Muslim women who told me this was one of their reasons. And clearly, no, wearing hijab doesn't prevent unwanted attention from men

Well if they do, that's a problem with our society then, rather than the faith. That may be some Muslim women's personal reason for wearing it, but that is NOT why God asked them to wear it. The quran and hadith are very clear about that.