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.

Well, it certainly seems to have kicked off on this thread since I posted this morning.
What I would say is this.
It is all very well "studying" Islam for 15 years, but that isn't quite the same as having half your family belonging to the faith, and regularly visiting an Islamic country.
The "rules" regarding hejab vary greatly from country to country, and even within the UK it varies from community to community, depending where the people have originated from.
Some communities can be extremely strict - Gulf states, Pakistan, Afghanistan, but others can be more relaxed - Turkish, Iranian, Indonesian etc.
None of my female relatives from Iran would dream of wearing any form of hejab in the house, or when they travel abroad.
The simple fact is, that many women in Islamic countries do not have a choice to discard the hejab when outside the house, and that probably applies to some communities in the UK.

Indonesia is not one community. They recently announced rules in Aceh that flight attendants flying to Aceh from say Jakarta would be forced to wear hijab.

A regional election was recently won by the son of major mafia leader (think rape, murder, dumping thousands of bodies into ditches). He had made himself popular with Muslim leaders by funding the construction of the largest mosque in the region. His opponent was Muslim, but had previously worked with a Christian who was imprisoned on fake blasphemy charges based on an edited tape where was said to have said that people were being deceived by the use of Al-Maidah 51:

quran.com/5/51

"O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you - then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people."

As a Christian he was telling his mostly Muslim electorate that this verse had context and it shouldn't be used to say 'don't vote for me'. He was imprisoned for this.

Anyway, the regional election with his Muslim deputy was won by the opposition team of the mafia son and his boss, a very unpleasant army general. In Muslim areas the mafia side won up to 98% of the vote, and in Christian areas the Muslim deputy of the imprisoned Christian won 95%+ of the vote.

The mosques were directly instructing people to vote for the mafia side, and there were videos etc. saying you would go to hell if you did not, and banners put up about how it is worse to choose a Christian as a leader than to eat pork or drink alcohol.

Anyway, I think that religion is most effective if its adherents believe it fanatically, as they will choose the vilest rapists and murderers as leaders if they are told it is a religious duty to do so.

there's a shift in the symbolism

That's what I was getting at really. I don't really think we should get hung up on manifestations of faith or coerced faith. Faith is fine, coercion isn't. So coercion is the thing to focus on.

Faith is fine, coercion isn't. So coercion is the thing to focus on.

Exactly this. As so often is the case, it's the subtleties than are where the really interesting operative stuff is. The extremes are very eye catching, but I'm more interested in why women choose to do things like headcovering. How does that coercion function in settings where the law insists on hijab - I'm assuming we've seen the videos of the religious women enforcing compliance? How does it function where women are free to choose to cover or not, but still feel they should? Because obviously there are going to be a number of different motivations there.

Family or local community pressure, or even the public piety mentioned earlier. Not that there's anything wrong with wearing something as an expression of faith, but it's always useful to examine the why fully.

Personally I remember it being a really big thing among the headcovering Christian women I knew to be constantly aware if you were indulging in the spiritual pride of thinking you were better than other women because you covered your head. All while promoting headcoverings as something that good Christian women should do.
That's quite a contradictory tension to maintain.

Personally I remember it being a really big thing among the headcovering Christian women I knew to be constantly aware if you were indulging in the spiritual pride of thinking you were better than other women because you covered your head. All while promoting headcoverings as something that good Christian women should do.

That's interesting.

Anything to do with religion is alien to me. Atheist brought up in atheist household. I imagine there are many subtle dynamics.

Look, if the hijab was empowering men would be wearing it. Funny. isn't it, that they aren't?

That's quite a contradictory tension to maintain.
Head(cover)fuck, damned if you don't, damned if you do but wrongly. Keep women worrying about headcovers and not about the broader problems of patriarchal religion.

Keep women worrying about headcovers and not about the broader problems of patriarchal religion.

Yup. I've known more real life Aunt Lydias than I care to recall.

Bringeth thee the religion, bringeth thee the arguments.

For what its worth, my religion says I should cover myself and shut up. One out of two is not bad...

It's their religion, to believe in/adhere to as they desire.

A Muslim friend of mine chose to start covering her hair in her early 30s, motivated by a belief that it would strengthen her relationship with Allah. She told me that she found it liberating, that the focus on her face meant she was taken more seriously, she felt less objectified, more in control of how other’s viewed her. She also liked that she was signalling her internal beliefs to others, a kind of Muslim pride. She wore hijab in a slightly different way to the typical, more indicative of her family origins, but also cooler to western eyes, slightly less covered and more fashion-y (see attached photo of ‘influencer’ Nabillabee for an example) .
I had no reason to doubt that the hijab was my friend’s independent, informed choice, she is smart, sassy and interesting, everything I like in my female friends.

Anyway, roll on some years and she’s now in her 40s with two teenaged children, and we get into the days immediately post Brexit vote. Those awful days when racist people suddenly felt validated and starting unleashing overt bigotry all over the place.
My friend took the difficult decision to give up her scarves as a defence against arseholes. Covering her hair was signalling her out for attention that she really didn’t want. I remember feeling angry and powerless on her behalf.

I’m not sure quite what happened next but within the next year she left her husband and started a whirlwind romance with an atheist, ending in elopement! I’ve never seen her as happy (and her hair is beautiful, btw, I had only seen it once in her covering days, on women only spa day, in a private space).

Maybe headcovering is more of a control device than many of us realise? I often find myself wondering how much free will anyone truly has, we are all so influenced by our environments.

In other news, my daughter saw an orthodox Jewish family out and about yesterday, asked me what it was all about. I was explaining and pointing out that she did know some Jewish people, but they weren’t orthodox, so she probably wouldn’t of noticed. I pointed out that friend X is actually the father of a boy who grew up to be a Rabbi - ‘what’s a Rabbi’? Asked DD(7) ‘The Jewish equivalent of a Vicar’ says I...

‘What’s a Vicar?’ asks DD.

For a moment, I couldn’t quite believe she didn’t know, but then I thought #growingupatheistproblems 😂
We were forced to go to Sunday School every bloody week (free baby sitting, reasoned our agnostic mother)!

I think it’s more about the methods used by the male (and they’re always male) directors of any fundamentalist version of any faith. I agree that the scholar above can and should believe what she wants.

However her study does not change the fact that in practice, women are not free in many parts of the world to prance out in a T-shirt and capris saying, ‘it’s okay, I don’t subscribe to that bit of islam’. They won’t be judged, they’ll be incarcerated.

So it’s more the places in the world where they have no choice, legally or societally, but adherence to a life that leaves them covered head to toe, that I have issue with. That includes places, possibly in the U.K., where a woman might be excluded from her family / community for not conforming. That could be conservative Christianity, Judaism OR Islam.

I just had someone from a fundamentalist religion living with me for a year, a homestay, and it was fascinating watching her eyes pop at our ways (she definitely disapproved, but had the issue described by OP, of knowing it was wrong to disapprove). It was exactly the situation above of ‘obviously I’m not judging you because I’m a good religious woman, but wow I’m such a good religious woman for not judging your WICKED HEATHEN WAYS. Which I am not at all gossiping about to my local aunt Lydia who totally does not at all vet you regularly on social media. Because we don’t judge wicked, immoral harlots LIKE YOU who live a wrong life at all, honestly’.

It must be tiring.

This cult religious group in NZ is one of many examples of oppression of women in religion.. There are docos on them, and they cause lots of debate. Headscarves and truely awful uniform dresses for the women.
gloriavale.org.nz

If you live in the UK and wear a hijab out of choice, I suggest that it is Western society and all the women around you not wearing hijab, that give you that choice, simply by their existence as a socially acceptable alternative.

I agree OP, I don't think the face/human argument holds water. The face is as potentially sexually attractive as hair, if not much more so. The logical conclusion and obvious solution to that fact is, of course, the burka. Under which we see women achieve ultimate respect for their humanity, unencumbered as they are by male admiration of their physical form

Whatever is covered up is sexualised and fetishised by men.

Harumphharagh

"So it’s more the places in the world where they have no choice, legally or societally, but adherence to a life that leaves them covered head to toe, that I have issue with. That includes places, possibly in the U.K., where a woman might be excluded from her family / community for not conforming. That could be conservative Christianity, Judaism OR Islam."

Exactly right, and that is what I was talking about in earlier posts.
It is the places where the woman has no choice (but to obey the hejab/morality laws made up and enforced by men) in the matter, because it could result in punishment by the state or exclusion/honour killing by the family.
There are places in the World, where fundamentalist men, try to bar women from education, work, travelling outside their house alone, speaking to men they are not related to etc.
All of the above is not empowering for women, it is about the control of women by men.

If it was so great the men would also do this.

"If it was so great the men would also do this."

Exactly, and what we saw back on a hot day in Austria in 2017 at Zell Am See, with the dozen or so Muslim women wearing full black Bhurkas, with just a tiny slit for the eys to see out of, was contrasted by their menfolk in chinos/jeans and designer short sleeved shirts.
Strange that you never hear of Muslim women having four husbands?

God, one’s enough

"God, one’s enough"

I think some of the posts on here come across with nasty undertones towards women who wear hijab tbh. I'm Muslim but don't wear hijab. My sisters and mum do. It's part of their id as a Muslim in the same way as my husband and brothers and dad wear beards and clothes that are not too tight (yes blokes have dress rules too but many don't adhere to them).
But im not going to watch this thread or stick around because I anticipate a pile on tbh. I've already seen posters on this thread mention bullshit about apostasy and taking Qur'an text and using it out if context (a far right tactic).
Religion is not fashionable these say. I get it. But when ppl start having a go at Muslims we have no idea of its anti religious or if it's racism by proxy. And it feels dangerous and threatening because if the current climate.

I'll be blunt here - you can't believe what a brainwashed woman tells you about how liberated she is. Hijab is not liberating. If it were, men would wear it.

Also in Western countries where women and girls are "voluntarily" wearing them, often it turns out the family is pressuring them to wear it.

But when ppl start having a go at Muslims we have no idea of its anti religious or if it's racism by proxy. And it feels dangerous and threatening because if the current climate.

Shying away from or, worse still, trying to stifle legitimate discussion because of the potential for overlap with those being had by racists or other hateful types leaves said racists as the only ones having the discussion. This means that others with similar concerns are only going to be engaged by the racists.

If you want to see an example of what happens when this goes really, horribly wrong, just look at Rotherham.

flashbac
"yes blokes have dress rules too but many don't adhere to them"

And when the blokes don't adhere to them, absolutely nothing happens. If a woman tries the same thing, then in Saudi Arabia she will likely be publicly flogged.
Or as a woman you could be sentenced to death for being a human rights activist.

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/22/saudi-arabia-seeks-its-first-death-penalty-against-a-female-human-rights-activist