Life, but nothing like it.

Hijab! :D

jazzonia:

Hijab! :D

One thing that baffles me about people wanting to ban head-scarves is… Ok, 1.) they’re just being bigoted assholes, but also HIJABS LOOK GOOD. If some fashionable aliens were to land here on Earth, knowing nothing about anything, I think they would happen upon some head-scarves and think, “Ooh, pretty!” Why would you want to ban that?! Like, not going into subjects like culture and diversity (which you KNOW some people who are for the ban don’t give a darn about), why?! Some Earthlings are just too hateful to appreciate the niceness that some hijabs have, though. :< (Sorry if I’m being weird. I just like them. ;__;)

Photo by Tin Green

Ahem:

One thing that baffles me about people wanting to ban head-scarves foot-binding is… Ok, 1.) they’re just being bigoted assholes, but also HIJABS BOUND FEET LOOK GOOD. If some fashionable aliens were to land here on Earth, knowing nothing about anything, I think they would happen upon some head-scarves bound-feet and think, “Ooh, pretty!” Why would you want to ban that?! Like, not going into subjects like culture and diversity (which you KNOW some people who are for the ban don’t give a darn about), why?! Some Earthlings are just too hateful to appreciate the niceness that some hijabs bound feet have, though.

Seriously, though. The most recent French ban, for example, isn’t against hijab; it’s against niqab and burka (I believe all scarves/veils are prohibited in French public schools, along with all other religious dress and symbols). Niqab and burka aren’t fashion items in the way a hijab or other “head only” scarves can be — at best, they can be a cultural or political statement — and even when adopted voluntarily they restrict a woman’s vision and physical comfort.

Arguably, that doesn’t make them technically worse than, say, high heels, except for the fact that I’m probably not at risk of being punitively beaten by my family and community based on my shoe choice. No-one is going to let me burn to death in a building rather than escape bare-footed.

I’m not saying there’s not a Western double-standard here. I mean, no-one in the West is talking about banning high heels or corsets or any of the thousands of other items of clothing that have been used in our culture to physically restrict the ability of women to actively participate in society. But the issue is not purely about sartorial aesthetics, and implying that it is is dishonest. So is implying that the only reason anyone would ever be opposed to veiling is because they’re a “bigoted asshole” (though there’s certainly a lot of that going around).

The actual issue of one of coercion; about whether or not Muslim women feel they have the choice to wear a hijab or niqab or whatever or neither. Dictating that choice by law is just as problematic when it’s white Western men telling Muslim women they can’t veil as when it’s Islamic patriarchs telling them they have to.

Ever noticed how almost all female pro-veiling advocates you hear from in the media are educated women from Western countries who’ve adopted the niqab as adults, frequently as a deliberate socio-political protest? Let’s not keep pretending their experiences are in any way congruent to girls growing up in Islamic theocracies. There are plenty of women in these countries crying out for Western feminist allies. Ignoring them because cultural cringe is apparently in vogue right now is just abhorrent.

The fact that many Muslim women wear their hijab, or even niqab, in a reclamatory fashion is positive, but it’s also a sign of privilege, however small. We should support their choice to do so, but I refuse to do it at the expense of the millions of women whose “choice” is to either dehumanize themselves or risk physical harm, and I’m certainly not going to pretend I think it’s an awesome, totes-unproblematic practice to start out with.