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Nonetheless, people have a difficult time relating to me. After all,
I'm young, Canadian born and raised, university educated why would I
do this to myself, they ask. |
Strangers speak to me in loud, slow English and often appear to be playing charades. They politely inquire how I like living in Canada and whether or not the cold bothers me. If I'm in the right mood, it can be very amusing.
But, why would I, a woman with all the advantages of a North American
upbringing, suddenly, at 21, want to cover myself so that with the hijab
and the other clothes I choose to wear, only my face and hands show?
Because it gives me freedom.
WOMEN are taught from early childhood that their worth is proportional
to their attractiveness. We feel compelled to pursue abstract notions
of beauty, half realizing that such a pursuit is futile.
When women reject this form of oppression, they face ridicule and contempt.
Whether it's women who refuse to wear makeup or to shave their legs,
or to expose their bodies, society, both men and women, have trouble
dealing with them.
In the Western world, the hijab has come to symbolize either forced
silence or radical, unconscionable militancy. Actually, it's neither.
It is simply a woman's assertion that judgment of her physical person
is to play no role whatsoever in social interaction.
Wearing the hijab has given me freedom from constant attention to my
physical self. Because my appearance is not subjected to public scrutiny,
my beauty, or perhaps lack of it, has been removed from the realm of
what can legitimately be discussed.
No one knows whether my hair looks as if I just stepped out of a salon,
whether or not I can pinch an inch, or even if I have unsightly stretch
marks. And because no one knows, no one cares.
Feeling that one has to meet the impossible male standards of beauty
is tiring and often humiliating. I should know, I spent my entire teenage
years trying to do it. It was a borderline bulimic and spent a lot of
money I didn't have on potions and lotions in hopes of becoming the
next Cindy Crawford.
The definition of beauty is ever-changing; waifish is good, waifish
is bad, athletic is good -- sorry, athletic is bad. Narrow hips? Great.
Narrow hips? Too bad.
Women are not going to achieve equality with the right to bear their
breasts in public, as some people would like to have you believe. That
would only make us party to our own objectification. True equality will
be had only when women don't need to display themselves to get attention
and won't need to defend their decision to keep their bodies to themselves.
Naheed Mustafa graduated from the University
of Toronto last year with an honours degree in political and history.
She is currently studying journalism at Ryerson Polytechnic University
[Source: Be Convinced]
Women in Islam | Sufism - Islamic Mysticism | Islamic Jihad | Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) | Islamic History | Prayer in Islam | Islamic Marriage | Fasting in Ramadan | Eat Halal Foods | Worshipping Allah | Quran - Muslim Holy-book | Hajj - Pilgrimage in Islam | Islam - Fastest Growing Religion | Children in Islam | Islamic Finance | Conversion to Islam | Islam - Unseen | Biographies of Islamic Personalities | Myths about Islam