Muslim Hijab Linked To Less Negative Body Image Among Women - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14462895
It's more about the fact that women's bodies are depicted in a covered fashion that has this effect. Media is what teaches little girls what society considers attractive. It's not so hard to empathize with a woman wearing clothing like you and very hard to empathize with women wearing way better clothes than you. Muslims really just got lucky on this one since they were culturally set up to ameliorate some of the worst effects of printed/video mass media.
#14462899
wat0n,
wat0n wrote:Yes, but it is up to them to convert to Islam.

It has nothing to do with converting to Islam, it is the level of public decency required by ALL citizens of an Islamic society, Muslim or not.

Dagoth Ur,
Dagoth Ur wrote:The hijab is not mandated Abu. Muhammad said that it was a woman's choice to take on the veil and that there was moral virtue in doing so.

This is false. Please bring this supposed quote where he said it was a woman's choice. If the Islamically permissible level of public decency is not the hijab, then please provide evidence for what you think it is.

Dagoth Ur wrote:Making it a convention is an affront to Allah's gift of free will.

No it is not. You're stating this purely because you misinterpret the hijab to be some specific act of faith or a religious custom. Hijab is merely the level of public decency required in an Islamic society. Covering the hair is no different to covering the private parts according to Islam. Both are part of the regions Islam requires not to be exposed in public for a female (although some areas may be more serious obviously).

It is no more an affront to free will if it mandates the covering of the hair to if it mandates the covering of the private parts.

annatar1914,
annatar1914 wrote:As I said, there are traditional Orthodox Christian groups that take seriously the injunctions proscribing immodest garb, and were doing so at a time before Islam. Islam's proscriptions for wearing certain clothing in society and against other 'lack of clothing' shall we say, were nothing too unusual at a time when men and women in the Roman Empire of the time wore clothing from head to toe ankle to neck and to the wrist, with women wearing head coverings.

I have no doubt Christians used to follow these same modesty standards, my point is about now. It's almost impossible to find Christians today who do. Even the most conservative of Christians today do not hold the same modesty standards as Muslims do and Christians used to.
#14462915
What on earth do these things have to do with hijab??? Other than the fact you are unable to separate anything Muslims supposedly do. It's all just one big blob of 'Muslimness' to you isn't it?


Not unable. Unwilling. I want you to own the other stuff and condemn it loud and hard. You won't. Neither will millions of your coreligionists. SO you own that stuff.
#14462918
abu_rashid wrote:I have no doubt Christians used to follow these same modesty standards, my point is about now. It's almost impossible to find Christians today who do. Even the most conservative of Christians today do not hold the same modesty standards as Muslims do and Christians used to.


Thousands of 'Old Believers' for example out there; look up some photos of them online and you'll see their womenfolk covered up, and not just the women, either.

It just happened that with the localized revolution against Orthodoxy and aversion to it's moral restraints you have the 'post-monotheist' secular society that went global and which attacks us all today, just that some traditional groups threatened react in different ways of course.... Good or evil reactions are another issue for another thread.
#14462923
abu_rashid wrote:This is false. Please bring this supposed quote where he said it was a woman's choice. If the Islamically permissible level of public decency is not the hijab, then please provide evidence for what you think it is.

I'm sure I read it in sahih al-bukhari but I can't quite recall (I will look it up when I find some time). I'll admit that he "adjusted" this position later on but I don't recall him ever explicitly requiring the hijab. And for the gross majority of muslim civilization only aristocratic women wore the hijab. Furthermore Arab christians and Persians were the originators of the hijab as mandate.

abu_rashid wrote:No it is not. You're stating this purely because you misinterpret the hijab to be some specific act of faith or a religious custom.

It is an act of faith and I don't see how you could possibly see it otherwise. A woman chooses the Hijab because of her devotion to Allah and the customs of Muhammad. Doing otherwise would be empty and vacuous and speaks only the lecherousness of Men. This is hateful.

abu_rashid wrote:Hijab is merely the level of public decency required in an Islamic society. Covering the hair is no different to covering the private parts according to Islam. Both are part of the regions Islam requires not to be exposed in public for a female (although some areas may be more serious obviously).

Except they don't and most muslim women up until the late-1800's did not wear the hijab and those that did wore them in all sorts of regional ways that often showed part, if not most, of their hair. This extreme version of asceticism that you ascribe to is not what Islam has ever been and never will be. You're essentially utopian and this utopianism distracts you from the clarity of Allah's perfect MATERIAL creation.

abu_rashid wrote:It is no more an affront to free will if it mandates the covering of the hair to if it mandates the covering of the private parts.

Both are affronts, as it is an affront to attempt to proselytize in the name of Allah. Allah makes these decisions and He alone reserves judgment.
#14462935
Drlee wrote:I want you to own the other stuff and condemn it loud and hard. You won't. Neither will millions of your coreligionists. SO you own that stuff.

If you want me to "own" the other stuff, that's a completely different issue. As an adult capable of intelligent thought (I assume), surely you can raise those issues in their own context, without having to just lump them with whichever Islamic topic happens to be current?

Drlee wrote:Female genital mutilation

I definitely won't be owning this. It has no basis in Islam at all, and is quite obviously practiced by peoples of many different faiths. I no more own it than a Christian does. As for staged and pressured condemnations, I've never believed in giving them any such legitimacy as to submit to them when they're demanded by the average garden variety Islamophobe.

Drlee wrote:arranged marriage

So long as it's not forced, there's no problem with match making in Islam, just as there's no problem with it in ALL cultures.

Drlee wrote:early marriage

Early is an ambiguous term, you'd need to be more specific.

Drlee wrote:beatings

More ambiguity, great.

Drlee wrote:sequestration at home

This is incompatible with the point below.

Drlee wrote:forbidding certain jobs to women

For example?
#14462950
Drlee wrote:Even if there were some body-image benefits from Muslim modesty laws, they come at a dreadful cost world wide. Female genital mutilation, arranged marriage, early marriage, beatings, sequestration at home, forbidding certain jobs to women....on and on.

I think hijab is ridiculous (do you know how hot it is in some of those countries?), but these aren't specifically Muslim manifestations. FGM is an animist practice that long antedates Islam in Africa. Arranged marriages happen in many traditional cultures, as does early marriage. Remember, the Judeo-Christian Bible says a girl is ready to marry at 13. Beatings (and mutilations and killings) of women have also been accepted in many traditional cultures. Sequestration at home is, granted, a fairly Muslim-identified practice, though not unknown in other Asian cultures that antedate Islam (Chinese foot-binding served a similar purpose). Traditional Christian and other cultures have also forbidden certain jobs to women.
I find any attempt to frame the traditional or modern Islamic view of the role of women in society as somehow fair, not to mention beneficial, as preposterous. Islam virtually enslaves women in a great many places.

Or at least, it helps perpetuate and aggravate a pre-existing order that tended to enslave women.

I work with a number of Muslims, both men and women, and I have to say their culture produces results that look very unfair to me. Muslim men typically have an attitude of self-assurance and entitlement, while the women have an attitude of fear, self-doubt, and sullen subservience. IMO if the penalty for apostasy were not death, women would abandon Islam in droves.
#14462986
No doubt TTP, these are not unique to Islam. But carefully note what abu-rashid did. He dodged every one of my assertions. He, as is the case with the vast majority of Muslims, did not reject these horrors performed in the name of Islam. He perfectly made my point.

So until I see a major movement toward reform in Islam I am going to continue to view it as fairly monolithic. I am happy to take responsibility for what my country does and what my religion does. I criticize my country endlessly on this forum. An example. I believe that we should not try to depose Dr. Assad. Though he is clearly an autocratic and even somewhat cruel leader, he is able to check radical Islam in his country. So I ask myself. Would the average Syrian be better off under Dr. Assad or under ISIS?

I want the same critical thinking applied by Muslims. If it is not OK to hang homosexuals from bridges then say so. If it is not OK to cut your daughter's clitoris off then say so. If it is not OK to bar women from driving cars then say so. If it is not OK to behead captives then say so. Say it loud. In the streets. Take up arms against it. If you are not willing to do that then you share the blame.

This is not rocket science. And it is not a game of two wrongs making a right. Either you are for radical Islam or you are against it.
#14463053
I always thought Fundamentalist Christians ranked as the world's laziest thinkers. Extreme Islam, likewise, also doggedly follows scripts to the letter, from all Drlee mentioned, including the enslavement of women. Enslavement is widely regarded as anti-God, and has been since Christ.

Here's a thought. Why not let women dress as they choose, and teach you sons some gentlemanly manners. I'm guess God wouldn't be bent out of shape over free flowing hair, and would probably endorse Muslim men acting courteously. And I hardly think God's on board with this vile business of kidnapping children, and selling them for sex slaves, do you?

As to the immodest? dress of non Muslims, I can tell you for a start if, as a teen, I'd try to go outdoors with my face painted as in the photos above, both my parents would have dragged me to the nearest sink to wash it off, and they'd lecture me on cheap, painted tarts for a week. Maybe modesty isn't all invested in a 50 cent scarf.
#14465051
Dagoth Ur wrote:It is an act of faith and I don't see how you could possibly see it otherwise. A woman chooses the Hijab because of her devotion to Allah and the customs of Muhammad. Doing otherwise would be empty and vacuous and speaks only the lecherousness of Men. This is hateful.


Actually, it is proscribed by Allah Most Gracious in the Noble Qur'an.

Holy Qur'an, Surat An-Nur 24:31 wrote:Image

And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers, their brothers' sons, their sisters' sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.


Holy Qur'an, Surat Al-'Ahzab 33:59 wrote:Image

O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.


The point of the application of Islamic jurisprudence is not to ensure that Muslims have the 'free will' to either sin against God or cultivate piety, but to protect public morality in Islamic societies. It is important to remember that there is no confessional in Islam; the sins of believers are between themselves and God and sin cannot be allowed to publicly manifest.
#14465684
Rejn wrote:Self esteem also improves if you remove mirrors in your home. It's not a surprise that if you can't see yourself, you feel more easy about letting go.


I was going to suggest just blinding 'em. That would certainly help reduce body image issues since they couldn't see themselves or other women. It might even improve the self esteem of ugly men, putting them on more even ground.

Bonus.

On the other hand, if you blind your women, they won't be able to perform their cooking and cleaning duties very well. Perhaps your suggestion might be better than mine with a little tweaking. You can't just outlaw mirrors in the home because they will still find a reflection in places like public restrooms or window glass. So I would say, yes, outlaw mirrors, but also outlaw leaving the home. Really, that's their place anyway. There is no point in women going outside.
#14590396
What's the point of modesty anyway? Why be modest?

Basically you're saying that people who don't care about their appearance also don't care about beauty standards? How is that a surprise? It's basically like saying people who don't work don't need to handle stress from work activities.

Rei's post is so correct that it ought to be censored in the name of fairness!
#14617852
I've seen this study before: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12045/abstract
A total of 587 British Muslim women completed a battery of scales assessing their frequency and conservativeness of hijab use, body image variables, attitudes towards the media and beauty ideals, importance of appearance, and religiosity. Preliminary results indicated that 218 women never used the hijab and 369 women used some form of the hijab at least rarely.


To add detail to considering the results from the study: http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2014/09/15/347083281/covering-up-with-the-hijab-may-aid-womens-body-image
The difference between the two groups was small. But across all parameters, the women who wore the hijab, at least some of the time, had more positive views of their bodies on average. They had less desire to be thin. They appreciated their bodies more. And they weren't as influenced by media messages about beauty standards.

The study looked only at women in Britain, where wearing the hijab is optional. In some Muslim countries, women are required by law to wear full burqas, covering their faces and bodies. And in others, such as France, it's illegal to wear a face-covering veil.

"It's dangerous to transpose the findings [of our study] to other places besides Britain," Swami says. The hijab's effect on the body isn't likely to be the same where women are required to wear it — or aren't allowed to wear it, he says.

I think the bolded is important.
It'd be oppressive on the woman who is compelled to wear it against her wishes and even if one may wish to wear it, in the context of a society in which it is enforced it may be that the lack of autonomy in one's appearance might have alternative effects.
#14760390
Having a positive body image can be an ongoing battle. It does make sense that the more you show, the more potential you have for scrutiny and self-consciousness. The fun-loving all American girl archetype has powerful draw. The concept of 'sex sells' is prevelent in America. A girl/woman without sex appeal gets labeled... boring!

Practicing hijab, with it's limitation of showing, hands/face/feet and nothing more, provides modesty in a very traditional manner. Instead of projecting a sexual image, it promotes a chaste image, with focus attempted to be drawn to the non-physical; her morals, honor...

Average contemporary western clothing for girls/women is response to pop culture and human intersts, wheras hijab clothing is how a girl/woman would dress to show that she is a person of dedicated religious faith.

There is quite a chasm between the two styles of dress. There are many styles of contemporary clothing to choose from and some is indeed fun and feels good to wear. The first time I ever tried on a hijab headscarf was a day impossible to forget because I had a very specific and negative outlook. Despite my misgivings, the hijab headscarf was not all that uncomfortable, it really didn't feel unnatural, and it didn't look bad. If I only focused on myself and not what others might think it really wasn't bad at all. I think so long as it's completely free and voluntary, perhaps hijab could be linked to less negative body image.
#14760396
Frollein wrote:Since we know now that young men also suffer from negative body image in the age of selfies and social media, I'm all for putting them into burkas, too. Veil them all!!!

Yeah but we all know young men's body image is not a particularly big priority for the people who consistently talk about body image of women. :hmm:
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