So, our Home Office celebrates World Hajib Day ??

Glorianny

If women want to wear the hijab they should be allowed to. If they want to celebrate wearing it they should do. Women dictating to other women what they may wear is no more acceptable than men doing so. Linking the wearing with FGM which is not a muslim practice but a cultural one is ignorant and unacceptable.
One is mutilation. The other is simply choosing a different form of dress. Permit women that choice.

Glorianny, please read my post above. I know that FGM is a cultural practice but so is wearing the hijab. The Quran only advises women to take a scarf and cover their chests. Islam, as well as many other religions, is blurred with cultural practices and most of those have been dictated by men. It is a patriarchal world.

As I said in my previous post, wearing the hijab as a choice is not always the case and simplifies the matter. An islamic woman living in the UK does not necessarily have the same choices as her western peers. Violence against women and girls in the Islamic, and also Hindu communities, is a strong possibility where they eschew tradition. Forced marriages, underage marriages, abduction and acid attacks do happen.

I have no objection to women wearing whatever they wish. Their body, their choice but is it?

I hope you enjoy the article Labradora. I think the concepts that we have of muslim woman have been heavily influenced and edited by colonialism. The education they had before western intervention and their roles in society were very different.
I remember the guide in the Alhambra pointing to a wall painting of two women playing chess, they were not veiled.

Urmstongran

Casdon

It’s not an organisation though, it’s a network for people of a particular faith who work in the civil service, and those networks exist for all major faiths, so they will all do their own specific celebration within their own network.

Hopefully not on taxpayers money though Casdon! I’d be very surprised if this was all done in their own free time. Let civil servants concentrate on the main job in hand. Not silly distractions.

This explains why there are networks and how they work.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/faith-and-belief-toolkit/the-civil-service-faith-and-belief-toolkit

If women want to wear the hijab they should be allowed to. If they want to celebrate wearing it they should do. Women dictating to other women what they may wear is no more acceptable than men doing so. Linking the wearing with FGM which is not a muslim practice but a cultural one is ignorant and unacceptable.
One is mutilation. The other is simply choosing a different form of dress. Permit women that choice.

Glorianny highlights some very interesting arguments around female equality or feminism and how females present themselves through clothing and these have merit.
I will be interested to read what looks like a very interesting article.
My instant reaction to discussions in this particular arena is that any issue of coercion, whether to wear a boob tube or a burka, is equally unacceptable.
Notwithstanding that a burka, for instance , certainly neutralises the male gaze , I instinctively recoil from a solution where women have to wear armour to function comfortably and normally in society , whereas men don't.
If I had a well thought through solution , which I probably don't , it would shift the responsibility to male behaviour to treat women respectfully , regardless of their clothing and vice-versa from women towards men.
Perhaps the law should be that we should all dress moderately , but that would be coercion as well.
I think I hold these views more in the context of liberal western societies . I think traditional , for example Islamic Societies, function differently and I'm not sure that I should comment on and/or criticise their normal social customs , in their own countries. Not my business ??

Casdon

It’s not an organisation though, it’s a network for people of a particular faith who work in the civil service, and those networks exist for all major faiths, so they will all do their own specific celebration within their own network.

Hopefully not on taxpayers money though Casdon! I’d be very surprised if this was all done in their own free time. Let civil servants concentrate on the main job in hand. Not silly distractions.

Ilovecheese

In this country it is a choice, which we should allow.
But I don't think that putting the onus on women to control men's sexual urges is anything to celebrate.

The thing is Ilovecheese, is it a choice? For some, yes, but there are women who are still forced to wear hijab through social and parental pressure. If they didn't they would be ostracised or worse. Don't forget, there is female genital mutilation and forced marriages in this country as well as acid attacks.

Don't think for a moment that because they are living in the UK they are free to live their lives like their western peers. It is not as simple as that.

Oh well, there we have it

Teach me to look into things properly and not poke my nose into business that doesn't concern me lol

Sago

So why not have a FGM day?
It’s the same thing……. men/religion suppressing women.

i agree

It’s not an organisation though, it’s a network for people of a particular faith who work in the civil service, and those networks exist for all major faiths, so they will all do their own specific celebration within their own network.

I think both ways need to change.
Both are to do with pleasing men.

Too much covered up or too little.

ask Teenage girls to dress the way they want to and to be brave enough to use clothing as expression of themselves.

Not to do with Western Fashions, nor to do with religious conservatism.
and not to do with pleasing men.

So why not have a FGM day?
It’s the same thing……. men/religion suppressing women.

TerriBull I also find the idea of taking a day to celebrate an aspect of any religious attire bordering on the preposterous but people do all sorts of things that I find preposterous. I don't believe in the "after life" or the Holy Trinity, I don't believe in Kelpies tbh I'm struggling to believe in "Democracy" ATM as it seems to give us such poor leaders but then I pour a glass of wine, take a deep breath and try to believe that most of us are good people, regardless of our religion (or lack of it), place of birth or upbringing and we care about the same basic things It's the only thing that keeps me sane (well almost).

It is a protected right to wear an item which is a symbol of faith, as it should be, but an organisation which is part of a government department should not be celebrating a symbol of any particular faith

Nail. On. Head. Calli. 👏

I recommend everyone reads Normal Women 900 Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory about male dominance.

fancythat

You wont know what goes on behind closed doors.

That's true. A lot of the women you see out in sexy dresses with their face made up are hiding bruises under that make up.
You can only rely on what they tell you.
Some women choose to wear it. Insisting they are victims or controlled by men is demeaning to them.
Why do women buy sexy underwear?
This is an interesting and informative account of Western imperalist feminism and Muslim liberation including wearing the hijab
www.law.georgetown.edu/immigration-law-journal/blog/the-war-on-muslim-womens-bodies-a-critique-of-western-feminism/

Western feminists call forcing us to strip our clothing liberation, when in reality it is oppression. In all of its cloaking in “feminism,” this narrative still expects women to dress for the male gaze and allows empowerment to turn on whether our sexuality can be publicly consumed by men. This narrative is thus, inherently patriarchal. As Frantz Fanon said, “[t]his woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer.” The attempt to take the Muslim woman’s clothing, is also an effort to make her an object of possession.

TerriBull

"seem" is the operative word in VS post we can never know whether a woman wearing a hijab is doing so of free choice. I completely accept that Muslims are not a homogeneous mass there are versions of that religion as indeed there are of the other Abrahamic faiths and like those there will be those who are born into who have the freedom to merely pay lip service or just became non believers However, lets not forget at the extreme end there are all manner of atrocities committed against women. I find the idea of taking a day to celebrate an aspect of any religious attire bordering on the preposterous. Imagine France endorsing such an idea?

It is a protected right to wear an item which is a symbol of faith, as it should be, but an organisation which is part of a government department should not be celebrating a symbol of any particular faith.

Of course we can but should the supposedly impartial civil service get involved?

There will be women who choose to do so but it is a controversial garment simply because so many other women have no choice and are forced to wear it through fear.
Even in this country.

Government departments should stay out of it.

"seem" is the operative word in VS post we can never know whether a woman wearing a hijab is doing so of free choice. I completely accept that Muslims are not a homogeneous mass there are versions of that religion as indeed there are of the other Abrahamic faiths and like those there will be those who are born into who have the freedom to merely pay lip service or just became non believers However, lets not forget at the extreme end there are all manner of atrocities committed against women. I find the idea of taking a day to celebrate an aspect of any religious attire bordering on the preposterous. Imagine France endorsing such an idea?

I thought we lived in a free country which allowed people of different faiths and cultural backgrounds to celebrate those things that are important to them. There are lots of Muslim women who want to wear the hijab out of choice, not because they are being subjected to oppression and there are many who choose not to. Fortunately we are discussing women who live in the UK and not in Afghanistan and who therefore have a choice. In the UK there are many women from all communities that are subject to male oppression, why is there a need to focus on the Muslim community?

👏👏👏

Furthermore men who are indoctrinated into such religions transfer their collective guilt about sexual desire and put that fairly and squarely onto women and that manifests itself by the men who make themselves The Big I Am in those religions, making women cover up to a greater or lesser extent.

I see no reason why we should celebrate a hijab day anymore than we should have a shaved headed wig wearing women's day or, if it were still a thing in the catholic religion, a mantilla day why? because they would sound ridiculous. It's just endorsing the raison d'etre of the subjugation of women by a load of male clerics

Glorianny

TerriBull

Well obviously I'd agree with that too Glorianny it's not either or, sexualised children or covered up for their own good. Just standard children's clothing will do.

Exactly so why focus on a hijab?

Because that is the reason for the thread?

TerriBull Sat 10-Feb-24 16:41:43

Good post Terribull.

TerriBull

Well obviously I'd agree with that too Glorianny it's not either or, sexualised children or covered up for their own good. Just standard children's clothing will do.

Yes, me too. It is not either/or.

I thought that women covered up either through choice or because the men in their lives insisted, because men considered them to be sexual objects.
It's sad to see little girls covered, and sad if it's thought wrong for them to wear skimpy clothing in hot weather.

It is not women and girls who are sinful and tempting.
It's a man problem.