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.

We choose to see it as particularly bad where the culture is different to our own, which allows us to avoid looking at our own behaviour.
Or we choose to ignore oppression if it's happening in another culture. 'A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere' Martin Luther King

Weriseup Carry on critiquing love while the patriarchy takes away the very definition of woman from under your nose.
Floral a Christian headcovering or hijab/niqab in the current climate? No, not getting your point.
Btw my point was made in response to another poster, in that context it was about how women are perceived by society not a few random women on this thread.

I've worn hijab style coverings, yes. And one idiot called me a 'dirty Muslim' on one trip out, so I'm not ignorant of the feelings it produces in the slightest.

I'm sorry, are you actually suggesting to WeRiseUp that we can't discuss these things because of the current and topical threat to the accurate use of the word 'woman'? Because that would be a weird thing to suggest.

FWR seems to be pretty critical of British cultural practices as far as I'm aware. It's only if you dare stray into critiques of Islamic practices that there's a big hoo ha. But tbf - it used to be mainly criticisms of transgenderism that were the big no no.

I'm sorry, are you actually suggesting to WeRiseUp that we can't discuss these things because of the current and topical threat to the accurate use of the word 'woman'? Because that would be a weird thing to suggest.
Your interpretation is certainly odd I’m saying there’s bigger fish to fry right now.
Critique away ladies, have fun. I’m off to bed for an early start.

I’m saying there’s bigger fish to fry right now.

Riiight. So you used a colloquial expression that means exactly what I just said? Gotcha. Sleep well, I'm off now myself.

Gotcha? Are you on glue dear?
I thought I was having an adult discussion not juvenile point scoring

How did women in your society change? I think the most effective and long lasting change comes from within societies not from those outside preaching the ‘right view’. While muslim women are treated with contempt for choosing to cover up, I think they will cling to that identity even more.
The support for women to escape the shit they’re forced to endure will come mainly from other women. Tolerance and support.

Women in my society changed because of education but also due to outside influences(art, film, music) and people travelling around.

Oh don't be so silly. Not 'gotcha' is in 'a gotcha'. Gotcha as in 'oh, I see'.

I've really attempted to keep this a focused discussion, despite a lot of attempted derailing by a number of different posters, and I've tried to outline what I an referring to with specifics. But because you think not being able to define woman is important (And please, find where I have said I disagree) you also think that we shouldn't talk about other things on FWR that relate to feminism because they aren't as important? So yes, I understood your meaning. I think it's daft and somewhat patronizing, so I wasn't being complimentary when I said 'Gotcha', but I wasn't scoring juvenile points. Good grief.

I just don't get this thing where feminists have to compromise principles to be super nice to a particular group.

I don’t get it either, and I refuse to accept any insistence that I do compromise, for any religion or culture, including my own.

Yes the derailing and whataboutery on this thread is frustrating. Can others stick to the OP please?

I am going to slightly contradict something I said before - because head-covering is becoming an increasing part of British culture. It's not British culture on one side and Islam on the other. Some Muslims are British and some Brits are Muslims. So it is acceptable for British feminists to critique Islamic practices along with other aspects of British culture.

That’s a helpful framing, thank you.

Floral - you might be interested in some of the work of Southall Black Sisters, who have done a lot of work on the conflicts within multicultural/cultural relativist and feminist approaches. For example, this is from a study they did in secondary schools:

Another immensely difficult area of discussion amongst the participating schools was the issue of dress codes for girls. The form of dress that Muslim girls in particular wear has been pushed to the foreground by the rise of religion as the main badge of identity.

Female dress has always been a difficult issue because in all religions, it can and often does signify the socially subordinate position of women. In many religions, the often underlying injunction for women is to be ‘modest’ in dress and behaviour. This is usually taken to mean covering their hair and body. The demand for modesty is borne out of the need to avoid attracting and therefore corrupting the male gaze. However in different contexts, historically, women’s dress is also dictated by cultural traditions and varies in accordance with the precise class and social positions of families. Religious fundamentalist movements however, use religion to re-invent or even invent cultural practices around dress codes to further their agenda to subjugate women

Dress codes for women, is further complicated by the fact that it can also signify political resistance as is the case, for example, in Palestine where wearing the hijab became a sign of loyalty to the struggle for freedom and liberation. Yet at the same time, it has also become a tool by which to control women’s behaviour.

Few if any of the participants in this study had an awareness of such complexities surrounding dress codes, although some in the first discussion group did acknowledge that headscarves had become a ‘fashion accessory’ and that there was ‘tremendous variety in how the girls use it’. Many respondents however, saw the demand for girls to dress in a particular way as an expression of community survival against racism and anti-Muslim racism in particular, resulting in very little interrogation of what the consequences might mean for girls in particular. Thus one participant stated:

‘This problem of what to wear has come in the last few years, with a lot of problems some years back. I mean when your survival is threatened in some way, you try to address that in different ways. I think they are trying to address the problem indirectly rather than directly…just the feeling of survival being threatened’

www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/downloads/mssr-copyright-sbs.pdf

Their report Cohesion, Faith and Gender is also interesting:

www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/downloads/cfg-report-copyright-sbs.pdf

Oh, I completely agree. Some of the discourse around this is unpleasantly close to the subtle 'noble savage' racist approach to the issues. There are plenty of completely British Muslims, and I tire of the idea that just because it's a more recently imported religion from the middle East than Christianity, it is 'not British.'

Thanks, Lang. I'm off to work today and tomorrow, so I shall give that some proper attention later in the week.

I fell out quite badly a few years ago with some left leaning friends (I myself identify my political stance as being to the left) who were absolutely appalled when I said, as a feminist, I could not bring myself to agree to the concept of the hijab and to be very uncomfortable with it, AND any other form of religious dress that covers the body, to me it is shaming the body, but particularly when only one sex is expected to. I was called bigoted, racist, intolerant, uneducated, uncultured. I would never say anything to anyone wearing one, I have Muslim acquaintances that I would not bring it up with obviously, it isn't my business and I of course do not judge them for it, but religion/society generally. My opinions are my own and have not changed, it was a discussion amongst friends. But I've never felt comfortable discussing it with anyone else (until now!)

Generally speaking, I'm not big on the cultural relativist approach because it so often leaves women and girls behind. Feminist analysis is feminist analysis. I do anti-feminist things all the time. We all do because we live in a sexist society and we have to negotiate it somehow. I don't pretend those things are really feminist, however.

Generally speaking, I'm not big on the cultural relativist approach because it so often leaves women and girls behind. Feminist analysis is feminist analysis. I do anti-feminist things all the time. We all do because we live in a sexist society and we have to negotiate it somehow. I don't pretend those things are really feminist, however.

Gah. Sorry for double post. Internet misbehaving.

notanothernam

Your post illustrates perfectly the PC society we live in, where some folks get offended on unknown other's behalf, and in a massive display of virtue signalling try to make you feel guilty simply because you have stated a perfectly valid opinion.
Most of my Muslim relations, both young and old are not regular mosque goers, in their own country they only follow Islamic dress code - hejab, because they have to. When they travel abroad to England, they do not wear Islamic dress.
Hejab is as much a cultural thing as it is political/religious, and of course in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, there is a huge overlap with politics being heavily influenced by religion.
The more extreme versions of Islam - Wahhabism, Salafism, originated in Saudi Arabia, then spread to Pakistan, Afghanistan and more recently parts of Africa.
I use the word "extreme" to describe the teachings, which are based on a very literal interpretation of the Quran.
The cultures which support these versions of Islam are more likely to impose harsh forms of Sharia and Hejab on women, and also control what they can and cannot do - no education, no talking to non family males etc. and of course domestic violence against women.

I read this when it was published a few years ago, back when I still bought a printed Guardian 😂

Went looking for it to add to the thread:

Yasmin Halibai-Brown

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/muslim-woman-veil-hijab

*Alibhai

Doh!

She wrote a book in 2014 that looks interesting: www.amazon.co.uk/Refusing-Veil-Provocations-Yasmin-Alibhai-Brown/dp/1849547505?tag=mumsnetforum-21

And this Independent piece in 2016:

inews.co.uk/opinion/muslism-women-caught-unbending-islam-extreme-political-right/

BettyDuMonde

Good articles from Yasmin, she is a voice of reason and gets attacked by conservative Muslims and right wing Westerners.
In the Inews article, she talks about extremist Salafism and Wahhabism.

It's fine and dandy to criticize Islam and people need to get over the idea that they are the most oppressed of the oppressed and somehow we should keep hands off because (as a previous poster said) "they are brown people". That isn't even correct, like Christianity, it is a religion of conversion and I know white people who have converted to it, the women vanish into a shroud and are never seen or heard from again. So you bet I am going to criticize it.

What about the hundreds of millions of Arab and Middle Eastern women who DON'T want to wear hijab, who far outnumber the tiny minority of religious zealots who claim they are wearing it voluntarily? Why are they always ignored in favor of the ones who wear it? For far more women in the Middle East choose - or would choose - to go without. Entire protest movements against hijab (and for other women's rights) are routinely ignored in the west in favor of highlighting exteremist religionists who choose (if they are indeed choosing) to fully cover.

Forget this faux association between women in other religions who cover. I have seen the false memes that compare them to Jewish or Catholic women. The only Catholic women who cover their head are nuns - far from your average Catholic woman - and the only Jewish women who cover their heads routinely are married Orthodox women, who are not the majority of Jewish women, most of whom left that behind 100 years ago. Women covering their head routinely is something from the 1800s unless you are some sort of fundamentalist. Why are you defining an entire people by their fundamentalists? It would be like characterizing Christians by what the Mormons do.