A recent article in the local paper devoted a full page to the wearing of head coverings by Muslim women in the United States, specifically right here in Michigan; we have the largest Arab / Muslim population in the whole country.
What attracted me to the article was the sub head that implied that young, modern women WANT to wear the head scarves and are enticing their mothers to wear them also.
The point of the story was that when the mothers first came to the U.S. they did not wear the head coverings popular in the old country because they wanted to fit into the new American society better by adopting the style of dress that predominates here. Younger women, on the other hand, now feel it is their obligation as Muslims to follow what they think the Koran and therefore Allah, demands.
The next day, the paper published a full page of “letters to the editor” about the article and most of the letter writers wrote negatively about wearing Muslim scarves in the United States.
As always, there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding even on the part of the Muslims themselves. One young Muslim woman said why are nuns allowed to cover their bodies but not us?
Please allow some stream of consciousness on my part as I try to work through my own feelings on this subject.
I remember in my Catholic upbringing that women had to cover their heads when entering church. They don’t do that anymore but still it was a tradition if not actual canon law in the past. The basis for the tradition came from St. Paul and his Letter to the Corinthians in which he babbles on about the head of every man being Christ and the head of every woman is man…
The point is quite sexist and basically signifies that the woman was made FOR man and the covering of her head meant she is subordinate to the man (male). Most Catholic women had no idea why they covered their heads in church; they just did what they were told.
My wife said that Jewish women she knows wear wigs over their own natural hair. It is true that in some Hasidic sects’ women shave their heads and wear wigs to this very day. The point – well it goes back to the days when the Bible was written. In those days a woman with uncovered hair was basically nude – hey that is how they thought then!
In my neighborhood, we have women from India dressing in their saris and Sikh men from India wearing turbans because they never cut their hair – no idea why.
Mohammed essentially combined some Christian and some Jewish ideas to form Islam. He stressed that women be modest and dress accordingly. Their modesty was their protection from lustful men. Again, that is how these men thought then and it probably made sense for their social environment.
There is nothing wrong with dressing modestly and many if not most women do just that. On the other hand if you spend any time at local malls in the summer, you will get to see young women dress totally without any modesty. You might say that they are half-nude.
As far as enticing unwanted sexual attention by immodest dress; well that is a fact of life and does happen I suppose occasionally but when you read about 90 year old women being raped you realize that a rapist does not have to be turned on by immodest dress; rapists have other issues. Men will definitely stare though and quite frankly, that is why women dress the way they do; I think it is biological, but that is another matter.
If you saw how women were dressed in Taliban Afghanistan (blue birquas) with not even the eyes showing, you saw where extremism can take you. The Taliban men must be turned on and induced to rape a woman if any inch of skin or hair strand is visible. I feel sorry for those guys; all they see all day is guys that look just like them and smell like them but of course they get to see animals also.
The Taliban also forbad woman and girls to be educated and that is in direct opposition to what the Koran states and so when they tell you they are just doing what the Koran tells them to do, you know it is plain bullshit.
So do Muslim women have to cover themselves because their religion stipulates to do so – no; the Koran asks them to just dress modestly and not to draw attention to themselves – OK?
As you have surely noticed, Muslim women dress in varied styles dependent on their locale; in most cases, the more backward a country, the more severe the dress requirements. Some Muslim countries actually leave it up to the individual woman as to what to wear. On the other hand, some countries have “dress police” that whip and beat women that are not properly dressed in their eyes.
Because female dress requirements change from country to country means that there is no specific and definitive instruction in the Koran that applies to all Muslim women; women dress as is the custom in their individual ethnic group.
Now let’s talk about American culture. We too value modesty but we do not have strict rules about it; it is a matter of personal choice how someone defines modesty. We do have laws that prohibit public nudity and such but no specific dress codes.
Some schools have dress codes, especially parochial schools like Catholic schools. I happen to think it is a good idea because it is less expensive for the parents and takes the guess work out of what to wear each morning.
So why do Americans have problems with Muslim head scarves and especially the whole body covering? Number one, yes, we do associate that type of dress with female oppression. We know the Koran does not require it and we do know that in other countries like France, teachers and students are actually forbidden from wearing a Muslim scarf.
We feel that if you come into our country and want to settle here and raise a family here, you should become as American as possible, after all something about Americans and America made you want to come here. That does not mean to abandon your ethnic ways and traditions, we all keep them to a certain degree, but do not stand out to the point that you are perceived to be mocking our society, our traditions and the way we look.
The views on modesty have changed dramatically through the years and especially since Mohammad walked the earth. If American women do not see the need to cover themselves for safety or for modesty’s sake, neither should the Muslim women; they are after all, all women and they live in one society – the American society.
Well, I guess some of my feelings are starting to show. I will have to pass it through my crowd to see if I am missing something in my logic.
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