Re: RE: Women caught in a more radical Indonesia
pinkbali said:
plus imposing head scarve laws for all women would mean that even non-muslim women like myself would have to wear one.
you would never see other religions imposing such laws.
Seeing as this topic has been resurrected, and to play devil's advocate here, I have to disagree.
In Islam, it is considered modest for a woman to wear a head scarf, also to wear clothing that does not define the body.
In a similar way, Christianity also forces their own ideas of modest dress upon women, and men too.
In predominantly Christian countries women are forced to cover their breasts. It is perfectly fine for men to walk around with no shirt on, but women cannot. This is so ingrained into our belief systems that we don't even see it as modesty principles coming from the Christian religion. But it is.
In Hindu Bali, before the English imposed their Christian morales, women went topless and it was prefectly fine to do so.
Until the 1960's it was obligatory for Catholic women to cover their heads in church. It was only when they 'modernized' the service that the requirement was dropped. Plenty still do though. There also still remains European sects of the Christian church that require women to wear scarves, cover their legs etc etc. 80 years ago a nice girl
never went in public without a hat on.
Christianity imposes the modesty standard that forbids men and women to go naked in public. Yet in some non-Christian cultures, nudity can be quite normal.
You might say that exposing the breasts in public is not the same as exposing your head in public, but that is just your belief systems that have been ingrained into you through your Christian dominated culture speaking.
The act of covering your body in a Christian dominated culture is no different from covering your head in a Muslim dominate culture. Where the difference lays is in what you are familiar with. Just as our Christian based laws do not allow us to expose our breasts, Muslim based laws do not allow women to expose their heads.
I'm not saying that I personally would like to be forced to wear a hijab (although I have, and it is a surprisingly liberating experience). But I am disagreeing that Islam is the only religion that 'forces' modesty standards upon women.