Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Chill Out About the Hijab
Imagine you’ve had knee pain for a long time, and have been referred to an orthopedic surgeon for a consult. She walks in, and looks like this:
What would you think? The men might think, “Gaaaah … she is smoking hot! Best. Doctor’s. Appointment. Ever.” While the women might think, “Yeah, I’ll bet I know how you got through residency…”
It is exactly this issue that Muslim women say they are trying to avoid by wearing hijab. While covering is as common place as hummus in the Middle East, women who cover in the West face more scrutiny, and therefore must be readily able to defend their position. The often recited reason is something like this: “Hijab is a choice every woman must make for herself; I chose to cover my hair so that people know I’m Muslim, and will take me seriously and respect me as a person, not just a sexual object.” If we stop there, I actually have no problem with this argument.
Conservatives have long denounced the skimpy, revealing clothing that has become de rigeur in our society. Among evangelical Christians, modesty is heavily encouraged. As a professional, I’m cognizant of looking nice but not too nice when seeing patients, because I don’t want patients to discount my abilities and assume I got by because of my looks. Many professional women struggle with this balance, since being extremely attractive is not a desirable feature in certain professions. The focus on emphasizing inner beauty rather than outer is not unique to Islam, and neither is head covering.
In our dismay over the increasing threat from Islam on Western Judeo-Christian values, it’s easy for us to see the hijab as a symbol of all that Islamic extremists represent — oppression, hate, murder. But we forget that women have been covering their hair for a long, long time, and head covering is still seen in Christian and Jewish communities in America.
Until the creation of Vatican II in 1959, women were expected to wear a lace veil while in the church, and women attending Latin Mass today often still wear a veil. A friend’s mother once told a story in which she was at Mass as a little girl and forgot her veil at home; a nun came by and put a Kleenex on top of her head. Even in Protestant churches, women historically wore hats to church, though this fell out of favor after the 1960s as hats became distractingly large and elaborate. Martin Luther himself called for women to be veiled, as did John Calvin and John Knox. So where does the Christian tradition of hair covering come from? Easy — the Bible.
1 Corinthians 11:
5 But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. 6 For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.
7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.
13 Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, 15 but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering.
While head covering is not popular among most contemporary Christians, there is a growing number of women that are choosing to cover their hair — just do a quick YouTube search and you’ll see for yourself — and Amish, Mennonite, and Catholic nuns all still engage in this practice.
Christians aren’t the only ones. Orthodox and Hasidic Jews also practice head covering. The mitzvah of kisuy sa’aros commands married women to cover their hair, keeping their beauty (their hair) only for their husbands. For this reason, observant Jewish women wear a snood or tichel. For a married ultra-Orthodox woman to show her hair would bring shame and distrust on her and her household.
So, slow your roll, Loretta, and chill out about hijab — it is not the problem. The real problem is all the other stuff: female genital mutilation; honor killings; throwing homosexuals from rooftops; those that treat women and non-Muslims like animals; and those that see their own fellow believers as an expendable commodity. The scarf is just as scarf, part of a long history of women’s modesty spanning many centuries and different religions.
Published in General
If you being introduced to Bon Qui Qui was the only result from this post, I am so glad I put it up.
And sometimes that’s all we have to go on. Sometimes all of us judge based on appearance. I wasn’t saying that we don’t (so no poor impression, just saying), only that it’s not always that accurate – and that it can, in fact, be inaccurate.
Vicryl, I thought this was very well-written, and I agree with you. But I’m very torn about it. I wrote this piece when I lived in Turkey :
But over time, I changed my mind:
Five years later again, my position has softened. Why? Because what I didn’t realize, when I wrote that, was that we’d already reached peak-headcovering in Istanbul. It was just a fashion trend, in a sense. After years in which the hijab was banned, many women found it liberating and rebellious and a political statement to start wearing it. But then, a few years later, they started to notice the obvious: The thing’s a nuisance, and it wasn’t that edgy and cool anymore.
By the time I left Istanbul, I saw almost no covered women in my neighborhood at all. I don’t know what the national trends looked like, because I couldn’t be all places at all times, but I concluded that I was wrong to feel that the AKP’s predecessors had had the right instinct in banning it, and I’d been wrong to say so. It’s much better — morally and politically — to allow the trend to burn out of its own accord.
That said, I believe the burqa — the covering of the face — should be absolutely illegal everywhere, for two reasons. First, in an age of terrorism, it’s a security threat. Second, people can’t feel empathetic connections with someone who has no face: The face is how we know if someone is happy, sad, scared, or angry: If you take a woman’s face away, you can’t know whether you’re hurting her. It’s a dehumanization, and I stand by my argument that France was right to ban it. The France to which I returned was a better place for it. There are some principles the West must defend just as vigorously as it defends freedom of religion. A conception of women as human beings, with emotions and faces that convey them, is one of them.
Nowhere in the Quran does it say, by the way, that women must cover their faces. It’s unclear whether it even says they must cover their heads. The injunction may, I’m given to understand, be translated as “cover your jewels.” Some scholars hold that the command has nothing to do with covering the body, but is instead a prohibition against flaunting one’s wealth before the poor, or one’s beauty before those less blessed. A command to be modest and humble, in other words. Others believe the jewels in question are the breasts. There’s a lot of commentary on this and a lot of room for interpretation.
I have not read the previous 17 pages, so I apologize if I’m rehashing something already discussed. But I think we needlessly cede ground to conservative Muslims by defending the hijab. Can we really call it a choice when little girls are forced to wear at before the onset of puberty?
A dear friend of mine and ex-Muslim grew up having the hijab forced on her at a young age. She stopped in her mid-20s, but the social pressure and ire she receives for being an uncovered woman in a strict Sunni Arab family is immense.
Forced modesty like this is demeaning to women and rather insulting to men, since they are regarded as so lacking in control that they can’t bear to see a woman’s wrists, feet, or hair.
I do not wish to see the hijab banned, but let us not conflate it with nuns wearing habits or old ladies wearing a shawl. It’s a completely different beast. The latter are not ALL the time and there is not a tremendous social cost for not participating.
Exactly my point about having to wear pants!
I know you’re itching to rock those tighty-whities in public.
Itching. That’s the problem with the bicycle undershorts I’ve been wearing. They’re OK on a long day ride, but at the end I can’t wait to get them off. I’ve found a new product, though, that makes it easier to be sociable and sit still after the end of a ride. I’ve tested them twice. Fortunately for all concerned, there are no photos to prove it.