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Essay about social issues
Essay about social issues
Essay about social issues
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Within the Middle East, the largest population of the men and women are Muslim. The Muslim religion suggests that women wear a veil or hijab, which is a head scarf that only exposes a woman’s eyes, accompanied by a burqa which is a full body cloak. The sole purpose of the clothing is to cover a woman’s feminine features from men’s eyes. The Qur’an, an Islamic scripture, supports and slightly obligates the uniform by saying that women are to be conservative, “let them wear their head covering over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments.” (Qur’an).
The headscarf has a role in Islam. It derives its significance from the Qur’an. Qur’an is God’s command to Muslims and the word taught to Prophet Mohammad by Allah. Muslim women wear headscarves to cover themselves. It’s a kind of modesty, and a way that women cover their beauty. They should not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands ‘fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, or their brothers’ sons or their sisters’ sons, or their women or the servants whom their right hand possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no senses of the shame of sex and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments.
It could be inferred that women wear the burqa and veil willingly because of their geographical location. However, when Muslim women are withdrawn from the Middle East, and are placed within other countries such as France, they become a minority group, which attracts attention because of their uncommon customs.
Wearing the burqa and veil by Muslim women in France has become a controversial topic. The burqa and veil are recognized in France as a conflicti...
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...hese women are going to be affected.
Democratic people with their beliefs, as they stick to freedom of religion, definitely, should not support this action. The banning of headscarves is directly targeting a section of women and forcing them to expose part of their bodies, which is against their will. Security issues are really important to any country, but there are other ways that should be done instead of just banning the headscarves. For example, a government can use security doors in public institutions that can detect any metal. There are already a lot of these doors used in many places like airports and some malls for security reasons. Also a government can use a lady police to check the identity of women wearing burqas. It is a shameful act in modern countries and modern civilization, and should be condemned by all democrats and human rights organizations.
Should Britain and other Western countries follow the Belgian and French examples and ban the burqa and the niqab? In other words, should the West prohibit any and all clothing that conceals one's identity? According to some surveys, most Europeans seem to expect the ban of burqa and niqab ("Widespread Support for Banning Full Islamic Veil in Western Europe"). However, a significant part of society, particularly in the United States and quite a few feminists have considered such a ban as religiously intolerant, anti-Western and primarily anti-woman. They maintain that the state has no right to decide what a woman can and cannot wear—it is her body, not public property; that given the worldwide exploitation of women as pornographic sex objects, wearing loose, comfortable, modest clothing, or actually covering up, might be both convenient and more dignified; that because of the West's tolerance toward religions, the state cannot come between a woman and her conscience because it would be a betrayal of Western values; and that women are freely choosing to wear the burqa. Some Western intellectuals, such as Leon Wieseltier,
“Mariam had never before worn a burqa...The padded headpiece felt tight and heavy on her skull, and it was strange seeing the world through a mesh screen.” (pg 72). The burqa in this book is a symbol of how Mariam, Laila were forced against their will to wear a piece of cloth that stole their identity from them. Burqas are a way to hide women so that husbands are reassured that their wife is not looked at by other men. It is a way for men to control their wives and become dominant. This is not always true for all women, but for the women in this book it is.
In Joan Scott’s book The Politics of the Veil she argues that contemporary understandings of Muslims and their place in French society are rooted in a longer history of racism and colonialism that reaches back to the 19th century. The controversies of wearing a veil in France have root causes dating back to French colonial. Scott traces back through time to examine the initial history between these two nations. She addresses the causes through her themes of racism, individualism, secularism and sexuality in which she intertwines to give light on the veil controversies.
The burqa is a type of head covering that also veils the face as well as the body. Many western feminists use the burqa to justify their saving of Muslim women without understanding the burqa and why women choose to wear it. This concept of saving Muslim women gives western feminists the satisfaction of being superior. Western feminists have been trying to save Muslim women for years.
Muslims, Sikhs, and many other religious affiliations have often been targeted for hate crimes, racial slurs, and misfortunate events. We are all different in our own ways some are good and some are bad yet one event changes everything for everyone affiliated with the group. The book The Politics of the Veil by Joan Scott a renowned pioneer in gender studies gives a detailed and analytical book of about the French views towards the Muslim females in France during 2004. The author talks about why the French governments official embargo of wearing conspicuous signs is mainly towards the headscarves for Muslim girls under the age of eighteen in public schools. The main themes of book are gender inequality, sexism, and cultural inequality historical schools used in the book are history of below, woman’s history, cultural history, and political history. In this essay, I will talk about why Joan Scotts argument on why the French government’s ban on wearing conspicuous signs was
The creation and enforcement of the burqa comes from a combination of a misinterpretation of the Koran and influences from the Pushtun residents of the country. The Koran has a brief passage that describes that women should abide by decent codes of conduct and their bosoms and private parts should be veiled (Goodson). In Pushtun societies women have a lesser role and lead more sheltered lives, but they were still respected (Goodson). So women had a very restrictive dress code that included wearing veils that covered almost their entire body till the late 1950’s, but it should be noted that they were treated with a lot more respect and equality than during the Taliban regime (Schulz).
Fakhraie launches her essay by explaining how Muslim women struggle every day because of what they wear. In her essay, she talks about a teenage girl that was killed by her father because she refused to wear her hijab. Also, many women that wear a hijab are being banned from sporting events in the United States. A hijab is a “traditional Muslim garment” (Fakhraie 461) that several Muslim women wear every
Professor Leila Ahmed, active Islamic feminist, in her article “Reinventing the veil” published in the Financial Times assumes that there is a connection between “advancement” and veiling, which means that unveiled women are advanced and vice versa. In addition, she supports that it led to increasing rate of violence. She questions why women wear veil, that is considered as “symbol of patriarchy and women’s oppression”. However, research changed her position towards wearing veil. Firstly, she states that wearing veil was essential for women, because it could be beneficial and influence to how people treat women, in terms of job, marriage and free movement in public. Secondly, her assumption was explained while interviewing women, who stated
According to Doucleff, “‘wearing the hijab eliminates many of the hassles women have to go through — such as dyeing their hair,’ she says. ‘For example, you're getting old, and gray hairs, when you wear the hijab, you might not think about dyeing your hair because nobody sees it anyway.’” By wearing a hijab women do not have to worry about “gray hairs, and can focus on other parts of their lives. Although this seems like a trivial improvement, women in the west spend inestimable amounts of money on beauty products and a surfeit amount of time on their daily regimen. Even though the burqa is therapeutic in helping women with their appearance, it can be physically restricting, “Mariam had never before worn a burqa…The padded headpiece felt tight and heavy on her skull…The loss of peripheral vision was unnerving, and she did not like the suffocating way the pleated cloth kept pressing against her mouth” (72). In this excerpt the burqa is described as “tight”, “heavy”, and “suffocating, making it seem like an unpleasant garment to be ensconced in. The burqa can cause an “unnerving” feeling, which can make daily tasks hard to complete. When interviewing a girl in Afghanistan Daniel Pipes, American historian, writer, and commentator, got her opinion on the burqa, “When I wear a burqa it gives me a really bad feeling. I don't like to wear it…I don't like it, it upsets me, I can't breathe properly.” The discomfort the girl feels in the burqa “upsets” her, linking her physical distress to emotional distress. The girl gets “a really bad feeling” when she wears a burqa, showing that the physical effects of the burqa can be negative. Besides the physical hardships Muslim dress may cause, it can also cover up physical abuse, “A Muslim teenage girl
Most of these things it is possible to see through the analysis of the situation that exists in practice and analysis of several court cases. In France, for years women with Hijab encounter problems, both in education and in ...
but it’s part of their religion for both men and women to dress with modesty. For example, “Muslim women wear full-body garments that only expose their eyes. Some cover every part of their body except their face and hands. Some believe only their hair and cleavage is compulsory to hide, and others do not observe any special dress rules. In the United states it is more common to see women only wearing the hijab around their hair to cover everything except their face and it’s less frequent to see Muslim women in the United states fully covered so only their hands and feet are seen.”
The current law in France states that it is prohibited for women to wear full-face veils in public areas. If found doing so, a fine of up to €150 can be charged. Woman who follow Islam choose to wear the burqa in order to gain closeness to god. Woman also chose to wear the burka as a means of modesty and to diminish the inappropriate attention from men. This can also be seen as a means of protection.
Muslim women, whom strongly identify with their religion by wearing a head veil, formally called a hijab, are being discriminated against and made to feel as criminals or as someone with horrific, catastrophic intentions. Due to the implications that are made about the veils Muslim women are removing them in order to live their day to day lives without snide remarks, or cruel looks. The hijab, is associated with the Islamic religion and has a reputation for being a device that would “imprison” women, and give men power over them (BEHIERY). This reputation came after European colonialism and European missionaries sent reports from Middle Eastern nation-states back to their home nation-states.
In some countries, like France, some customs like the wearing of a burka are being restricted. Some say that it is outrageous for women to wear a niqabs because it “creates segregation”. On the other hand, the wearing of burkas is a “preservation of individual rights, self expression, and personal
“Women’s rights in Islam” is great controversial topic going on nowadays. The world is colored with different cultures and religions. Most people come up with different thoughts for other religion’s people by just having one look on them. Veil is obsession for some people, whereas, being bald is freedom in some people’s point of view. There are lots of misconceptions about women’s rights in Islam among non muslims. If women are covering their body or if they like to stay at home, people think that they don’t have any freedom in this religion and women are obsessed. But this is not reality. A person cannot point out anything wrong and blame other’s religion just because of his own confusion. He needs to study thoroughly and then come up with opposing viewpoints. Therefore, the misconception about women’s rights in Islam should be removed because women have equal rights, veil is for their protection, and they have freedom of speech and expression.