One of the articles published for the series about Islam addressed the issue of the hijab (the head covering that Muslim women wear). Since Americans became obsessed with Islam, they have turned the hijab into a symbol for the inequality and oppression that Muslim women face at the hands of their religion. The article, which was published by a Muslim woman, discussed how the hijab is liberating for Muslim women, and it is a symbol of strength and not of weakness.
Often when Muslim women discuss the hijab, they ask an important question: Who is oppressed, a woman covering her hair and neck to show humility, or a woman dancing around a stage in front of millions of people in butt-less chaps and red panties, such as we see every day on MTV? I have to admit, the idea that a woman is oppressed because she chooses to cover her hair and neck seems absurd, especially if we are calling it liberating for a woman to expose her body as her most marketable asset. Whether a woman spends her days relaxing at a nude beach for all eyes to see, or whether she covers her body from head to toe, leaving only her face bare, evades the issue. What she wears does not determine whether she is suppressed, oppressed or faces any other inequality. However, the obsession that we have with women's clothes is evidence that all women are oppressed by social expectations of appearances.
The debate over the hijab does indeed prove that women face prejudice, but all women, Muslim, Christian or atheist, are equally oppressed by society's obsession with what we wear. If you look at Muslim people across the world, both women and men cover their heads. In Sikh tradition, a woman can never cut her hair, leaving a beautiful mane exposed for all eyes to see; a man covers his hair in a turban. Conversely, no one equates his concealment as a symbol of suppression and submission, as the property of his wife.
No one ever asks who's more oppressed, Usher Raymond (he always goes shirtless so women can ogle him), or Yasser Arafat (if he could just uncover his hair, he would know what it means to be free). In analysis of pop culture, we obsess over what the latest teen queen wears, her age and how sexualized she is. These are important questions in the context of our own culture; however to make isolated, cross-cultural comparisons ignores the real problems that women face. If a woman is truly liberated, she should be able to wear what she wants, without enduring criticism for being either too \free"" with her body or too ""conservative.""
Women face oppression and inequality in many different cultural contexts. However, by comparing the lifestyles of various groups of women to American women based on their clothing is ethnocentric and causes us to be less critical of our own social inequalities, which can also be easily symbolized in female attire.
Women in many Middle Eastern, Muslim countries endure a status of inequality, as women in Western countries endure inequality. However, for me to understand the level of freedom amongst women who do versus women who do not wear the hijab, I have to look at them within the same cultural contexts in the United States. Were I to make a comparison between Muslim-American women who cover their hair, and mainstream American style, I would argue that a woman who keeps her hair covered is protected from the sexual prejudices that many other women in America face. Although most American women generally don't walk around half naked, our contemporary pop culture clearly calls for us to express our femininity by exposing our sexuality, and this expectation is being imposed on our daughters at a younger and younger age.
The female body is life giving; it can create, carry and feed a child. Artists, poets and musicians often use it as a symbol for the strength of humanity. Her body is her temple.
In a society which values the female form as a sexual tool, I respect a woman with the courage and the empowerment to reject the culturally imposed idea that she use her body to gain acceptance. The hair and the neck are two of the most sensual parts of the female form. A woman who denies that part of herself from the public eye is empowered because she keeps her sensuality hidden, so that she can live her life and do her business without interference from the sexually imposed ideas about her gender, which so many girls face in this Music Television era.
