Re: My official stance on burqas
PCG, women wear burqa marjorily because of security, pressure, and false sense of piety embedded in the long-run tradition exploited by religious clerics.
Pressure - bad, agreed.
False sense of piety - bad, agreed.
Security? What’s wrong with a woman covering herself for security reasons? If that’s one way she thinks she can keep a guys’ gandhi nazrein off her, then may she be merry. :k:
Now if a woman wears a burqa ONLY because she thinks ‘I can’t handle the stares’ then burqa is not really the issure or solution here (in this case, yes, it’s not oppression) but there is something more psychological involved at personal level which is not as drastic as to call for taking off the burqa.
Can you clarify this…I lost your reasoning after “I can’t handle the stares”. What are you trying to say about these women?
Question is, how many women wear burqa because of such personal reasons? Probably many but still not the majority. That’s what my guess is.
Such personal reasons as “I can’t handle the stares”?
Whether women wear it for a good reason or for a bad reason is independent of the actual function of the Burqa and the NORMATIVE idea of whether it SHOULD be worn or SHOULD NOT be worn.
Do you see what I’m saying?
Normative: The Burqa should not/should be worn.
Descriptive: Most ladies wear burqas because of bad reasons.
Now, your concern is the “bad reasons”. The pressure, the anti-female culture, the oppression, etc.
So then ADDRESS these topics. Because these reasons are an underlying problem that is not limited to the Burqa. FYI - girls who don’t wear burqa are also oppressed, and pressured in many ways.
I wouldn’t say I’m oppressed, but often times I’ve been pressured to do things because its the right thing to do for a “girl”. And I disliked it. My case is not very drastic at all - limited to small things, and I don’t listen to my parents anyway, so it doesn’t matter to me.
But I see girls who don’t wear burqa all the time being pressured to not go to college, to not go on for more education/good jobs after college/highschool, to get married to someone because the parents like the family or they like the family’s money…etc.
Females are abused all the time in Pakistan - to the point that the stat is 2/3 women are abused. I think this is physical abuse only - not sure though!
Regardless, the stats are really high. Not all these ladies are forced into wearing Burqa.
So your main concern of oppression is really just related to the Burqa, but if you make a thread focusing on Burqas, then its the wrong way and the typical way to go about it.
Just address oppression in general itself. Once that problem is solved, then Burqas will be used correctly by most girls who decide to wear it.
Bringing in Burqas into this discussion only turns a thread into hijabi vs. nonhijabi.
Now why it symbolizes oppression is because someone handed this over to women long ago telling them they are insecure instead of curing the very reasons for which they were insecure. So when I say no one is asking to take it off or should not ask to put it on that’s what I mean.
Who told them to wear a burqa because they’re insecure?
The assigment of a burqa, first of all, is under much debate. Many scholars even go so far as to say that a burqa was not perscribed, just modest clothing and a head covering. Some go further and say that not even a head covering is necessary.
Regardless, the command to dress modestly (which I can say all muslim ladies and gentlemen agree on - so lets go from there) is not assigned because females are “insecure” by nature or are told they’re insecure.
Its assigned, because if a woman is to protect her body (from rape, from gandhi nazrein, etc), then she has to take SOME iniative to do that. She can put in her 100 percent effort to minimize the risk of anyone harming her, and anyone embarrassing her, and anyone making her feel like she’s a piece of meat.
Now does that mean if she wears a burqa/hijab/modest clothing, that she will not be raped? Of course not. Ladies in the Prophet’s time were raped, despite wearing decent clothing. (refer to my rape thread in religion for those hadith).
But she did her end of the job, and that’s what matters.
