Headscarves on young girls

Why do you assume that the teenage girl hadn't freely chosen to wear the scarf?

Child abuse???

Yeah, maybe you know something about headscarves that I don't...

Fact: they're typically made of smallpox blankets and lined with nails and broken glass.

Says so on Wikipedia.

I demand a...

When I read this, I pictured the Plymouth Brethren doo-rag that Jessica Hynes wore in SON OF RAMBOW. Shows what I know.

I heard you can choke em easier.

You do realise that we let girls wear them so's that, after we splooge all over them, there's a quicker way to clean up the mess, right?

No.

The Qur'an doesn't actually mandate wearing one. It's backwards fundamentalists who've twisted the religion out of all shape who make girls wear 'em. Also, are you sure she wasn't Jewish?

I thought you were simply complaining about a girl that was wearing a "headscarve". Just to be clear, are you just bothered by this or you don't like kids to express their (or their parent's) religion?

I see, and I share some of that concern. But then again, in most cases, I'm not sure I can see it as "child abuse" to have a tradition for that and obviously having kids follow that (as long as they are not physically abused).

You could make an argument that in the "west" you also have similar restrictions though, with regards to clothing.

I meant children, and I also didn't mean you would be beaten up for it which you don't know is the case with that girl. You're making a lot of assumptions.

Do you live in Afghanistan?

Alex, you don't know anything about this girl. You're making a bunch of assumptions about her based what you understand to be true about a culture that you're not a part of. Granted, these assumptions could be true and her parents could be forcing her to dress as she does and she could be completely unhappy about it. On the other hand, she could be openly, freely choosing to embrace an aspect of modest dress that's suggested (no, not mandated) by religious teachings that she follows. Additionally, you've shifted from wondering about the choices of a single American girl to women's rights in Islamic countries. For obvious reasons, these are very, very different things.

I don't know why I posted that link to Feministing.

What I want to know is... What are the head covering restrictions of a passport photo? How much of your head can you keep legally covered in a recognized form of identification? And was this an issue for your job?

You know, it's nice to see that the Christian and Muslim faiths have so much in common.

A headscarf is generally worn in the West as a cultural signifier. Many women wear it as an assertion of their identity in male-dominated cultures (or as an expression of modesty in sexually liberal countries). This does not in any way lessen the moral repugnance of enforcing the burqa or abaya through morality police, or the treatment of women as chattel.

What happens here, I think, is the prejudice gets mixed up with the cultural alienation, and otherwise reasonable people make unreasonable assumptions. There is absolutely no prerequisite of a headscarf or a full-body cloak for abuse of women and children to take place. In politically and socially repressive countries such as the ones noted here, abuse is invisible. We should note that political and social repression are by no means monopolized by the Middle East.

In the West, however, I think the hijab means different things than from what it does in more conservative countries. Even in Iran, it is often worn as a fashion accessory (I do admit to finding a classy headscarf to be attractive). I don't think hijab, in this context, is any more indicative of abuse than, say, an Indian nose ring.

Historically, the only religious command to wear a head covering for women is found in Acts. The Islamic practice was adopted and adapted from the Byzantine Empire and Tribal conceptions of kinship bonds.

Yeah, why did you do that?






(thanks, btw. Very interesting.)

Maybe she's just a Stevie Nicks fan? In all seriousness passport photos indicate travel and certain Islamic countries require photos in visas for female travelers to be taken wearing the head scarf. She could probably not even wear one at home but needs to for a visa picture.

Well, if it's her choice, she can wear whatever she wants. It's just hard for me grapple with headscarves as emblematic of feminism because they're so enforced by men in countries of the middle east. Headscarves also strike me as fucking lunacy of a repressed society. What, men shouldn't be expected to be able to control themselves if they see an attractive woman and not rape her or 'steal her away' (which is quite a chauvinist concept). It sets a bad example. It's unnatural for a woman to have to cover herself in layers of clothing to step outside. Surely I don't know many women who constantly fear being raped, unless they have similar prior experiences, in which her attitude is the result of trauma, not a realistic reaction to an even remotely egalitarian society. If she takes off that hood she could be called a whore! Come on, there is something wrong with that. Yeah, we're speaking of 'Exotic Countries", but you must remember that people are the fucking same and such repression can't be excused and hinders progress between gender relations. Am I supposed to call a first generation arab woman I know a whore because she has gone against her family tradition by not wearing one? Fuck that. I guess the arab guys would be able to call her a whore, but that is even more fucked up than I can imagine, should people of a different race be considered separate when talking about freedom! If you move your family to Canada, you can't bring that immoral shit here, and most who immigrate don't because they dislike the repressive traditionalism. When it comes to forcing your own will upon another, it is simply wrong. If you wish to wear a headscarf, go ahead - but don't be condescending to those who don't. That isn't feminism.

What, are you going to the beach?

hahahahahaha

I keep reading that link as femifisting. I'm a bad person and i'm very much aware of it, ta.