Girl Power- Islam Style
This entry was posted on Aug 12 2009
While cnn is probably not the most realiable source for news, every so often a good story makes it through. This one about Rowaida Abdelaziz is worth reading. It provides an interesting perspective on how some women view and understand the wearing of the customary Muslim heading covering known as hijab. It also goes to show that our initial biases of others can often be wrong. Lots to learn and think about.
Dom, I really enjoyed this article. I spent a month in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt) in the summer of 2006, and I quickly learned a lot about the hijab. From my own knowledge, I think the reasons differ for why women wear the hijab depending on their location. The women I spoke to wore their veils (there was a wide variety of coverings from just head scarfs to full-body veils without eye slits) for many reasons, ranging from the fact that a veil offered women a sort of protection from ‘the advances of men’ to women being forced to wear them by very religious/traditional husbands/fathers.
What I liked about the article is that it was offering a reason why women choose to remain veiled once in North America or Europe. I think that, for a lot of these women, it offers a sense of modesty that is often lost in our culture. Not only are they keeping a part of their body hidden from the world, but the clothing they wear is different too…less form fitting and revealing. An important part of why girls and women decide to wear a veil is because they have a choice, not many women do in Arab countries, it’s just a given that you will wear some sort of head covering when out in public. It also is really affected by the type of background these women come from, if they’re coming from less traditional families the type of head covering they would wear is very different, with a variety of colour options and styles so it can be worn more as an accessory of sorts instead of the full head coverings, which I often heard referred to as ‘prisons’.
Also, I think women who have grown up in Arab countries view the hijab differently than women who have either never lived in those countries or left at a young age. If they never had to experience the political connotation of what the hijab meant during the extremist movements of the 1980s in the Middle East or the remnants of those governments still in power today, it would have a completely different meaning to them.
Some great thoughts here. Thanks so much. Visiting different places makes a big difference.
Glad everyone could learn from my experience =]