Amnesty International blogs:
The minefield of women’s apparel
Deciding what I want to wear for any given occasion can be a tricky affair. Is smart casual the same as eveningwear? And does it include a light blue dress with small flowers – or is that strictly a cocktail dress? And is it the empire waist or the basque waist which is preferred for the fuller figure? Should blue and green never be seen? And what about pink and red? Yep, it’s definitely a minefield out there.
That said, as much as I find deciphering the codes of women’s wear slightly mystifying, there is something quite fun and fanciful about making those choices.
A woman should be able to wear what she wants, when she wants. In whatever country she wants. That’s why theEuropean Court’s ruling upholding France’s ban on the full-face veil is so startling.
I like being able to wear a miniskirt whenever I like. Equally I want to be able to choose to wear trousers instead of a skirt on any given day. In the same way, if I wanted to wear an outward symbol of my faith, I should be able to.
Living in London, I know I can do that. But if I were to hop on a plane across to Kampala, I know I’d have to think twice about travelling in a short skirt. I may risk getting arrested at arrivals because they may be banned under Uganda’s controversial Anti-Pornography Bill. While if I were to go to Sudan, I could be fined for wearing trousers.
Amira Hamed lives in Sudan – and who has been previously fined for wearing trousers – more recently has been charged with ‘indecent dress’. Why? Because she’s refused to wear a headscarf.
Categories: Answers to Anti-Islam, Belief, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Europe and Australia
My issue with attempts like Gaga and other emancipatory attempts for women in hijab is, to begin with, how the world is obsessed with it. Why is the hijab or burqa a buzz word but not a nun’s head-cover or her right to choose celibacy…. a right I completely respect? Liberality and support of rights to choose cannot be partial. It must then be across the board, for practitioners of all viewpoints, left right and centre, or else it is a farce.
Often, the notion of hijab is over-simplified and Muslim women practicing it (or not) are homogenized. We are all clubbed together. I personally even have a problem using the term “we” actually. We Pakistani Muslim women are so varied, each so unique, that I can’t even speak for all of them, leave alone Muslim women of the world.
Islam is not a monolithic entity. Neither are its followers. There are degrees and levels of hijab even in the Islamic tradition. The way women of Islam have understood and practiced it also differs. When I have donned it, I myself have practiced it as a simple dupatta (Pakistani traditional scarf), a big chaadar (cloak-like sheet) and a scarf pinned tight. My friends who cover their faces have different ways in which they do it. Some wear all black. Others jazz up the black with studs and diamantes. Yet others wear the burqa in colourful varieties. And a lot of my friends, deeply drenched in Islamic faith, do not cover their heads or faces at all.
The reasons women practice hijab are also multi-fold, complicated and different. Cultural conditioning is one, where women just feel more comfortable wearing it because everyone they know does. I know Christian and Hindu women in Pakistan who choose to wear it because they feel at home doing so. Yet other Muslim are indeed oppressed. They are forced and have no choice. That is deeply problematic even to Muslims, because “there is no compulsion in religion” (Quran 2:256).
Yet other Muslim women, myself included, are what are called the “Muslims by choice” — those who were Muslims by birth and chose to start attempting to practice it more consciously. And then there are those who came into the fold of Islam from another faith.
If I know one thing, women practicing hijab (to any degree) would unanimously like to say: We are honestly just as normal or as crazy as the rest of the women of the world. We laugh. We cry. We make mistakes. We are women who earn for their families and we are women who are home-makers, or we are both. We shouldn’t have to smile a little extra to prove to you that we are not prudish or depressed or oppressed. We shouldn’t have to be extra witty in order to show you the brains beneath that covered head. We don’t want to be caricatured as being exotic and sensuous beneath the layers of cloth. We don’t do it to create hype or curiosity.
We are just like you. So please don’t appreciate or admire us. Just let us be.
IA
London School of Islamics Trust