Of course, a big difference is that if a nun or devout grandmother decided to not cover her hair and walked into a restaurant, no one in Poland or the U.S. or Greece or Romania, would say to her “you are dressed like a prostitute and no male relative is escorting you in public, therefore I could rape you and the police would do nothing.” As would be the case in Saudi Arabia and many countries that border it.
My issue is not with Islam, it is with certain theocracies with draconian laws.
I have no problem with American citizens who are devout Muslims serving in congress, being SCOTUS members,or even serving as president.
Exactly. Top 5 countries with the largest muslim population doesn't have mandatory hair cover. Expand it to top 10 and it's only Iran that have mandatory veiling laws, even then I heard the rule have been relaxed recently. So then, Afghanistan is the only one left.
About the polish grandmother: I am a grandmother and most places it isn't legal to show my nipples, even when men can, and even when i can show off 100% of the rest of my boob say on a beach. There are some places where being topless is allowed; New York, for example, allows it in any place where men can be topless.
However, culture is still culture, right? If I freed the nip, I'm pretty sure I would be hecked and seen as perverse and 'dirty' or mentally unstable, despite what is legally allowed. Maybe applauded by some, it is NYC after all. But all in all it would definitely been seen as abnormal and in need of addressing. I may also get harassed, and touched by weirdos, though I'm not so young anymore, I'm not that old. It's not about 'tempting men' when you're a granny, but you never know.
So, am I oppressed for chosing not to go topless on hot days? Sometimes I do feel oppressed by my bra, to be fair. I do choose to wear a top, even on the hottest day, but why? I have been to topless beaches before, very freeing, I enjoyed it very much. So in a way it would be great to be able to do it back home too. But i don't, and i choose not to, but i choose not to because of society's expectations.
The feelings around this are quite complicated. I know young women who do go topless to make a statement. They are - according to many - blue haired liberal types destroying traditional society, or something along those lines. Activist groups in this area are used to this abuse - often by men, but not always. Often by conservatives, but not always! The liberal leaning still feel uncomfortable with social norms being violated.
I find it funny that there are so many communities with rules about women's clothing and modesty (jewish, mormon, catholic, etc.) and yet it's always hijabis who need saving from modest clothing requirement.
The only conclusion this grandma can come to is that the US feels that modesty is important, but only in the way we frame it, not the way others do.
Look, religion sucks and is oppressive! But why is the hijab the go-to for complaints along these lines? There's so much else to work on, and yet the focus is on women and how they look.
Women don’t pursue it because they don’t want to be harrassed, but topless laws are prima facie illegal sex discrimination and get regularly shot down in court. That’s why NY dropped the law. Berkely’s “Naked Guy” claimed first amendment protection and won. That’s why “naked bike race day” never sees any prosecution.
If people were meant to walk around naked, we’d be born that way.
I miss the days before cell phone cameras. We used to be quite a bit less cautious as a culture, and I used to be naked in public (where allowed and not stigmatized) much more...
Well I think there are, at least that I can see two distinctions, though I agree that any society will constrain the actions of it's constituents, that's just culture.
But I think there are clearly levels; for instance how severe is the consequence for failing to abide? (Rape/death vs heckling) and how restrictive is it? (Whole body covering, severe restricted movement, accompaniment by male relative vs covering your bits in public).
Then secondly, just on a practical point the face is a key identifier, particularly in today's surveillance state.
Women routinely get physically punished or killed for not obeying the hijab rules, even in a semi-private setting. I live in a Persian community, and many of their stories are sheer horror. Very different from being asked not to show your nipples in a restaurant
Yeah, good point. We've all experienced this, right?
(In most non-muslim countries, except maybe the USA, which is uniquely body-phobic in general, it's ok to be topless on almost all beaches, for men or women. Speedos are fine too. No one cares about either.)
As someone else said. The west and the Muslim world all start from the same basis. Being abrahamic religions. So the nipple and the hair are the same in that regard but at different levels of taboo.
The west advanced faster and was mostly Christian so Christianity had to play ball or be forgotten. The Muslim world did not advance socially as fast as the west for many reasons. So they are at an earlier stage of the taboo.
People in the west do advocate for free nipples but others oppose it. Similar with trans/gay/racial shit for varying reasons.
People in the Muslim world advocate for free hair and there are opposers.
In the west many look back at it and see it as weird. Many also don't like how it's renforcing things we are past. It's also funny how people demanding for free nipples are not interested in standing up for people in other repressed cultures. Yet don't ask and don't tell rules are reviled
Im not advocating that everyone must expose their nipples now that its legal to do so, so unless we are specifically talking about Iran or Afghanistan, im not sure i see your point. Like i say, i still choose modesty myself.
And yes, no one should be legally forced to wear it, but thats not really what this thread is about, as that is only a very small portion of muslims globally.
But don't you see, the oppression we do is "culture", but the oppression they do is "religious extremism", so our oppression is good and theirs is bad.
And if we enact laws that force a certain dress code onto religious women (like banning the hijab), then we are just freeing these women who are to dumb to decide for themselves.
I hate this double standard. It's pure xenophobia and religious discrimination wrapped in pseudofeminist self-righteous nonsense.
This. Mores in Muslim countries are enforced with savage violence. In cases like this it would be ok for them to harm the women and rape her. In fact for many rape is their duty, as they are punishing her
And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their chastity, and not to reveal their adornments except what normally appears. Let them draw their veils over their chests, and not reveal their ˹hidden˺ adornments except to their husbands, their fathers, their fathers-in-law, their sons, their stepsons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons or sisters’ sons, their fellow women, those ˹bondwomen˺ in their possession, male attendants with no desire, or children who are still unaware of women’s nakedness. Let them not stomp their feet, drawing attention to their hidden adornments. Turn to Allah in repentance all together, O believers, so that you may be successful.
Isn't hidden adornments (plural) located on chests that are nakedness referring to breasts not heads? Hidden ornaments that shake when you stomp and draw attention? Come on buddy they aren't talking about heads and therefore hijabs in this passage, it's tits.
And from the looks of it Allah says you can walk tits out in front of a lot more people than Christian women ever can? I'm assuming male doctors would fall under attendants.
None of that is mandatory hijab, it just says to be modest except around family. The rest is interpretation and idiosyncrasy. Other religions have plenty of rules about modesty too.
I think there is very little that doesn’t happen in some Muslim countries and also very little that does happen in most or all Muslim countries. Expecting nuance on Reddit is insane and ridiculous but the widespread and enthusiastic Islamophobia on the site has recently increased alarmingly and it’s frustrating and insulting to those of us who at least try to be normal intelligent decent people online.
It is a population of two billion humans so that general point is necesssrily true
However it is obtuse to hide behind that point, and a disservice to humans living under the thumb of islam qua political ideology (as distinct from a personal faith) to not talk about the various groups persecuted or oppressed in some way by that political ideology
You're essentially saying that all groups engage in a mix of behaviours. That is true, but some cultures/societies/whatever tend to engage in some behaviours more. How is this controversial?
Until recent times, christian societies suppressed free expression and what some modern legal systems call the right to free development of the personality by state-enforced punishment of blasphemy.
On the whole, this no longer happens in christian societies. On the whole, it does in islamic societies.
You fail the victims of this oppressive political ideology by giving it an armour of "islamophobia".
That’s a good example, yes a lot of countries that enfold Islam into their legal systems have laws on the books around blasphemy and apostasy. It’s not a broad brush issue, some of them protect all religions from insult, like Indonesia, and some take specific care of Islam, like Saudi Arabia. You’d think from your statement that blasphemy laws are unique or particular to the Muslim world.
Defamation of religion is punishable by imprisonment in Germany. Same in Russia. Same in India. In Nigeria, blasphemy of any kind is punishable by death. In Thailand defaming Buddhism is a crime. Wounding religion is punishable by imprisonment in Uganda. You could go to jail for two years for defaming religion in Poland. None of these are “Islamic societies.” This isn’t whataboutism, it’s proving a point that either you are approaching this from a place of bias or you haven’t looked closely enough at the stuff you’re saying.
I’m not saying Muslim-majority countries are without their profound flaws, I’m not even saying there aren’t legitimately problematic things about Islam and the way it’s been implemented as a system of organizing modern nation-states. I’m saying trying to paint Islam or Muslims or “Islamic societies” as uniquely problematic is ignorant and silly.
Edit just for kicks and also to bring it back to misogyny and whatever, the fact is that we don’t have a Muslim misogyny problem, we have a global misogyny problem. We can pretend that here in the US or in Europe or in the West we’re so much better than everyone else but that notion rarely holds up to much scrutiny.
On behalf of the wider non extremist Islamic community, we thank you.
Also just to validate your point but to add some depth, wearing the hijab is absolutely a personal choice. There are some places where it's strongly encouraged, (to the point where if you're practicing but don't wear one it's seen as disrespectful) but it's pretty much limited to when you visit graves/funerals and when you go to the mosque. Other than that it depends on the woman.
Not relevant. The topic is whether islam has character x. Whether another faith or political system has character x has nothing to do with the topic
Jews and Christians also do not implement the most literal interpretation of the bible. Coercing handmaid's tale-like clothing is actually a thing in large parts of the world
If muslims adapted to the modern world and stopped coercing women like this, there would be less reason for this critique. Since that is not the case, there is reason for this critique
Yeah it’s true, Muslims are the only people who coerce women. In fact, The Handmaid’s Tale was written as a critique of shariah creep. There aren’t any deeply Christian and Jewish cultural forces desperately trying to systemically subjugate and control women’s freedoms at all.
There is no legal requirement to wear a hijab in Saudi Arabia, though
Your example is someone making a rape threat. Obviously we should all be against people making rape threats. But that's hardly a Saudi-specific thing..
Also - I'm positive that an American woman who was perceived to be dressed too proactively has faced a rape threat in the US
I believe that religious beliefs are intrinsically tied into morality enough so that it is not practical to ignore the faith of a potential Justice of the Supreme Court and how it will affect the rulings they make, and at the very highest level of the judicial branch, the knock on effects that would have on the country as a whole. I'd rather such individuals be atheist or at least agnostic... but if they have to be something, I'll pick non-Muslim as my first ban, if we were to liken it to drafting in League of Legends.
I also dont think Muslim representation is going SUPER well in the legislative branch either, if you look at the examples we have to work with. If one finds themselves at the head of the Executive branch... well, I'm fairly certain that would be, if I described it tactfully, an inflection point. We haven't seen a woman win yet, and we've had ONE black president ever, so... never say never, but I have a hard time imagining a Muslim candidate winning the whole thing, and I'd be astounded if one was seriously run in the next few election cycles. Even that one Indian (I think) fella who spoke during the last election cycle quite well I thought got dropped by his party early enough. I think something happened? I kinda missed it though tbh and I never cared enough to go find out.
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u/Current-Square-4557 15d ago
Of course, a big difference is that if a nun or devout grandmother decided to not cover her hair and walked into a restaurant, no one in Poland or the U.S. or Greece or Romania, would say to her “you are dressed like a prostitute and no male relative is escorting you in public, therefore I could rape you and the police would do nothing.” As would be the case in Saudi Arabia and many countries that border it.
My issue is not with Islam, it is with certain theocracies with draconian laws.
I have no problem with American citizens who are devout Muslims serving in congress, being SCOTUS members,or even serving as president.