Without a Hijab for the First Time

Sound’s similar to Penn Jillette’s story of “Jewy-Jew” (I can’t remember the exact pseudonym he gave the man) in his book, “God, No!”.  When they all went and treated him to an and enjoyed watching him experience a real american cheeseburger. 

It’s not even a question of toplessness (or top-freeness), necessarily.

The bottom line is that some people in the West rail against hijabs but conveniently forget that women and girls in our own society are constantly pressured to look or dress certain ways. The issue of women forced to wear the hijab or burqa is fundamentally no different from the issue of unrealistic body images portrayed all over the media.

The only difference is that men and boys tend to enforce their way with physical abuse where women and girls tend to do it with emotional abuse.

although i was focusing on the preassure for women to wear certain clothing or covering certain parts of their bodies being codified in law…  i suppose that general bopdy image pressures are somewhat similar as well.  but that at least is somewhat more gender neutral (and it is legal not to be hollywood hot), males also have unrealistic standards for manliness.  do any of you fellas have six pack abs?  are all of you sad that you don’t? 

anway i think the shirt thing is a much more apt analagy than body image preassures for the hijab controversy.

I would just like to mention that I actually do support “topfreedom” for Women, for exactly the same reasons that you mention. I know that’s not entirely the point you were trying to make, but I just had to say that not all of we Americans are hypocritical on that issue.

The only place where I would disagree with you is with the pants. In many situations, pants are completely understandable, but not all. At the beach, park, pool, etc. they don’t always make sense.

Otherwise though, great comment. I wish I was even half as articulate as that.

The biggest problem with the hijab and the cultural/religious traditions surrounding it is that they dictate to a woman what modesty should mean to her. There’s no negotiation. If you happen to come from a background where covering your hair or your entire body or part of your face is the prerequisite for ‘decent’ appearance, you have to go along with it. Sure, you can try to oppose the tradition, but then you risk the ire of your parents, your community, even your government.

A disclaimer- I live in a region where being topless on public property is legal. Granted, people don’t do it much, because it’s pretty damn cold for eight months of the year, but being shirtless and a woman is, at most, going to earn you a few funny glances.

So, around these parts, you can negotiate what ‘wearing a shirt’ means to you. If you feel comfortable in an over-sized sweater, that’s cool. A tank-top, a sports bra, a t-shirt, whatever works. The government and dominant culture generally lean towards allowing a woman to negotiate her boundaries and define modesty for herself, if she chooses to. I find that the hijab takes that decision-making process away, and super-imposes premade values in its place.

besides the shared seat issue i would also agree on the pants thing from a position of individual freedoms.  but since it is at least gender neutral i see it as less of a problem and more of a quirk of our society.

It’s similar in principle, but different in practice. Men too “have” to wear shirts on many occasions. It’s not stricly illegal not to, but nevertheless there’s strong social pressure for me to put on a shirt if going to work, to a restaurant.

The slight difference that exists, is just due to cultural norms that consider female breasts as more sexual than male breasts. On the flipside though, a penis is considered to be significantly more offensive than female genitalia.

She would not get to feel the wind indoors. Big difference.

That is EXACTLY how I felt the first time I got in my car and drove somewhere on a Saturday.

Who’s dicing onions?

Oh yeah – for me, it was a shrimp cocktail, but same idea.  

Orthodox Judaism supplies a “target-rich environment” for experiences like this 🙂

I’d disagree that women have to wear shirts while men don’t. Maybe men with six packs who like showing off don’t, but there’s definitely a social stigma that hammers down upon some men who might decide to walk around topless and aren’t as aesthetically pleasing(!) 😉 Pleasing to women, presumably… (?) 😉 Also, as has been noted by other replies, as part of the same cultural norms, the penis is considered more taboo than the vagina, thus it is clearly not a cultural norm aimed at subjugating women.
In all seriousness, I’m against all laws about clothing except where hygiene is involved. (For example, I think the only good argument against public nudity, is based upon hygiene.) Well, apart from permissive laws, obviously.I actually think the world would be a better place if there were areas public nudity was encouraged – it might help get rid of some people’s ridiculous obsessions about how ‘bad’ sex is.In all fairness, there’s also a geographical part to it. What is being called western culture by this post actually isn’t – I’ve been to Europe, and the norms there are completely different to in the UK or the US. In the warmer climes of mainland Europe, what is acceptable is far different to in the UK or (I presume) the US.There is, however, still a large difference between a hijab and western clothing. Hijab’s inhibit social interaction (things like eye contact and body language are vital when it comes to communication between people), and as a symbol mean far more than wearing (say) a shirt does.Not all clothing is the same – we would have far more outrage over someone wearing – I don’t know – a slave collar, than we would over someone wearing a scarf or necklace. Well, apart from people who are relativists, I suppose, who don’t think we can say that slavery is objectively wrong. (And no, I am not saying that the hijab necessarily means slavery, I’m just giving an example of where clothing differs in its meaning.)

This is true. If you cover something up, something else becomes appealing. With Islamic head coverings, I’ve often found myself drawn to eyes. Even with something like the Niqab, which covers the lower face, the eyes can still look very pretty. Which is exactly why the Burqa was invented

if we were getting more upset over one than the other i wouldnt have a problem becuase that would imply that we are getting upset about both

i have a problem becuase we get upset about one and treat the other as if it was an obvious rule that all good women must do, and if they don’t they are horrible people.

i am sorry if i miss communicated

i suppose the distinction you make would be the same as between a law that mandates shirts vs a bikini and we could certainly say the freedom to wear a bikini top is better than being forced to wear a shirt  and that therfore bikini-minimum societies have a right to snub their noses at shirt-minimum societies…  but then you might say that that is rediculous which is what i am trying to show about shirt-minimum societies snubbing their noses at hijab-minimum societies.

but the arguments  used to enforce burka, shirt, or bikini top, laws are the same, the ideas behind them are the same and the way in which they limit freedoms arbitrarily is the same.

obvioulsy X is a greater form of Y but they both stem from the same rationalizations.  “Westerners” tend to accept the arguments for Y but reject the same arguments for X and that they do so arbitrarily.  furthermore they mostly see it as obvious to wear Y and scandalous not to wear Y but they are confused and horrified if a different person says it is obvious to wear X and scandalous not to wear X.

(though i have learened that new zealand and southern europe are apperntly exceptions so i regret saying western and should probably have said american… of course participating in a rally with hunrdeds of compatriots is different than walking down the street alone, or going to buy some cheesecake.)

many say that the very act of covering things up is what makes them especially apealing and sexy!  we might have our cause and effect backwards.  it is not the case that it is too sexy so we cover it up but the fact that we covered it up that made it sooooo sexy to begin with!

on hot steamy areas of the planet more body parts were traditionaly left uncovered and less body parts are considered too sexy for sight.

but it the desert or snowy regions more clothes are worn for protection and they tend to also have more sexy parts that need to be covered up….  i would be interested to know if eskimos have similar ideas of modesty as desert tribes….

on that note to discourage lust we should all walk around completely naked!

Well, the origin of the symbolic meaning of the hijab as opposed to the shirt is obvious – Islam, and cultural norms of Islamic culture which treat women as second class citizens.

The shirt does nothing like that: there is no all powerful rule saying this must be the case. Because our society is obsessed about sex being bad, anything seen as relating to sex must be covered up, or else a huge social stigma gets placed upon them. But it isn’t just women who get that social stigma placed on them, either. Men do too. Where I live, if men go around without shirts on, they immediately get pegged as a certain ‘kind’ of person, with next to no breeding. And if they are – shall we say – overweight, people turn away in disgust. Nothing (for either gender) is illegal about it (as long as the women have their breasts covered up – but jumping upon this difference would be missing the point. It’s for the same reason that men’s swimwear has to be larger at the crotch than women’s swimwear has to be. There’s no inequality here other than the physical differences of our bodies.).

Your final paragraph makes me think you have completely missed the point. 

1) I don’t dislike (automatically) Muslims.
2) I don’t dislike the burkha and it’s fashion companions because they are weird. I dislike them because they are enforced, demeaning, sexist, have connotations of ownership, inhibit communication, and many other reasons beside. Weirdness doesn’t come into it.
3) I disagree with many of the ‘normal’ things that ‘we’ do. I don’t think they are necessarily justified or awesome. For example, in my previous post I criticised the sexual frustration that is prominent in English speaking societies.

You seem to be arguing from a perspective of cultural relativism here, is that correct? In other words, nothing is right or wrong, only different. If we met a culture that endorsed slavery, or cannibalism, we wouldn’t have any grounds on which to stand to disagree, just like we apparently have no right to criticise hijabs etc. because it is fundamentally ‘the same’ as western clothing.

If so, there’s not much point us arguing further, unless it is to discuss relativism. If not, then I think you’ve got preconceptions about why people dislike the burkha etc. which are false. The arguments against the Islamic female body coverings are far more powerful than just ‘we think they are weird’.

There’s definitely a few things pinging my skeptical radar that this isn’t 100% true (hijab isn’t worn before a certain age, can be taken off at certain times, etc.). I wonder if the OP used a bit of poetic license to reinforce a true situation. She may have felt wind in her hair when she was a kid, but has gone so long without it that she may as well have never felt it. I don’t know. No doubt there ARE women who take off the hijab and fel exhilaration being in public without it for the first time as an adult, so this story isn’t too far out there. I do wish people would keep hyperbole out of important things to let the truth speak for itself. Of course, this was also her sharing an anecdote that she may have thought would be important only to her. Who knows.