Why can't Muslim women or foreign women in Muslim countries wear what they want?

[wall]

There should be a choice clearly... Like in moderate muslim countries like Lebanon, Jordan and Syria...

But in Saudi Arabia and Iran, women are forced to cover themselves, at the very least with a vale.

But what is it about Islamic culture that insists women where hajab?

Some suggest that (some) muslims feel that men have no self control when it comes to sex.

Others suggest that women are forced to where hajab because of male insecurities... Fearing that if there women are displayed to the world, they can risk losing them...

What do you think?

Later,

Wall

(Man Inside The Child)

 

[foray]

Oh man, this is just the kind of thing I grew up with and live with, and so it was only when I came into contact with women's groups that I started questioning this practice which is so much the norm here. I live in one of those more democratic Muslim states that you mentioned; even so, women who don the 'tudung' (as the headdress is called in Malaysia) - I feel - are more respected than women who don't. At the same time, the 'tudung' is not seen as oppressive in this society; I think it's safe to say that all the women who wear it are proud of it. It is a public proclamation of their obedience to Islam and their religious pride; I guess much like how Christians wear chains with crosses/crucifixes.

If we are talking more in terms of the principle involved, at this point I should mention that there are a few states in Malaysia run by fundamentalist Muslim state govts. All Muslim women (non-Muslims are free to do as they like) in these states must wear the tudung. The reasons given are that (1) it protects the man from increasing his urges, or having them, whatever; and hence (2) it protects the woman. The fundamentalist Muslim man sees it as protecting the woman; and the women in turn have learned to see things the same way. It is similar to the Christian principle of "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak."

However, one must not question the wearing of the tudung, but the principle behind covering one's body fully. A few years ago, a Muslim woman was raped in a bus. She was conservatively clothed, with proper Malay dress and tudung. Women's groups have leapt at this example to try and change the mindset that the onus is on the women to prevent rape.

Just my two cents; I can't go on, I am dead tired at this moment.


foray