brinnainne incited me to write this.

Though today a topic popularly associated with Islam, the custom of women covering their heads predates the birth of the Prophet Mohammed by several millennia, at least.

As quoted in the Christian Bible, when St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says that women should cover their heads, he was not suggesting a new fashion trend, but expressing support for a long-standing tradition in the ancient Jewish community.
Some conservative Christians and Jews maintain the practice even today. I remember reading somewhere the story of a newly married Jewish lady, whose hair was naturally of an unattractive color and unlovely texture, when she married, she was obliged by custom to shave her head, and wear a wig, that being the prevailing form of headcovering in her community. She bewailed the absurdity of this requirement, ostensibly intended to prevent men from coveting her now unavailable and spoken for beauty, noting that her wig was much more beautiful than her natural hair had ever been, and wearing it, she now looked more glamorous and alluring than she ever had when sporting her own lank and mousy locks.

The subject of hijab in the context of Islam has been debated hotly and painstakingly over the centuries, many men with many degrees and accolades have produced rivers and oceans of arguments, winding and trilling and cascading them down and entwining them around the formidable quasi-math labyrinth that is Sharia, and this has, for the most part, had little effect. I am not going to discuss it here. Those who are interested can find plenty of monographs, treatises and debates on the subject, down to lively arguments over the meaning of this or that syllable of that or this Arabic word in the common usage of 1400 years ago. Enjoy.

The most widely held and shared interpretation is that both women and men should dress modestly, and obviously, this is something of a relative term, with the result that Muslim women tend to cover today whatever they covered before Islam, with some exceptions. One of the most interesting are some African communities where women still wear no clothing at all above their waist, but take great pains to ensure that every hair is invisible, tucked carefully into their hijab.

Other exceptions are to be found in many eastern cities, where all manner of dress can be seen, but a few miles away in the countryside, every female over the age of nine is swathed in the ancient robes of her pre-Islamic ancestors.

There is no denying that whether we are talking about ancient Nepal or ancient Israel, the covering of women does have an aspect of women as property, as a commercial product that is liable to being stolen or vandalized, and must therefore be kept in protective packaging.

But in desert climates where sandstorms are frequent, there is a very good reason for both men and women to cover their faces as well as their heads. 😉

There is, however, no reason other than cultural for western women, unless they are gardeners or fry cooks, to wear blouses. Most, however, choose to do so, especially in public, and few decry this as evidence of their internalized oppression throwing back to the days of women as chattel. (A condition, by the way, that Islam opposes, please see The Prophet Mohammed as Feminist)

Today, however, the question of hijab is simply the question of how an individual woman wishes to dress herself, whether for reasons of interpretation of scripture, culture, or sheer whimsy.

It is, sorry to offend Mulla Omar and Jacques Chirac* equally with such a small phrase, no big deal.

Not to men, anyway. I am not such a fool to suggest that any wardrobe decision is not a big deal for the woman who makes it.

So what is the obsession that men continue to have with women’s costuming choices? Why are Mulla Omar and Chirac and his gaggle of old French farts so steadfast in their conviction that only they can decide how women should dress?

I have personally never known even one woman who is not perfectly capable of deciding this for herself (OK maybe on some occasions she may require the help of a few close friends and kinswomen, a few hours and a handful of trips to the mall) but the friends she calls to help her choose, astonishing as it may seem, never include illiterate clerics or dyspeptic French politicians.

Every man believes – no, he knows – that his country has the most beautiful women, and the most superior method of oppressing them.

In the east, a woman’s greatest value is as a producer of sons. In the west, her greatest value is as an object of sexual desire. There are women in both east and west who have bought into these respective notions, to varying degrees, and there are women who have rejected them, to varying degrees. But neither east nor west has any room to scold the other without making itself very vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy.

Westerners who ask, why should women cover themselves up, are unable to answer the question, why should women be required to display themselves?

If women in the east find it advantageous to keep themselves swathed in identical black curtains in the workplace, women in the west find it advantageous to adorn themselves and commit strategic discreet displays of flesh, and mortification of same, wearing painful, crippling shoes whose only purpose is to render their visible legs more attractive to men. That and their terrific skills will give them a leg up on that promotion. And the hours spent styling their hair, applying cosmetics, and starving themselves to accomodate the popular standard of beauty and accomodate the constricting waist cinching clothing designed to show off their curves in a pulled together and professional manner, those help too.

The west enjoys putting on a great show of compassion for the little girl who one day is stopped on her way to the playground and told that from now on she must cover herself, but is not so concerned about their own little girls, who from even earlier ages begin to suffer from self-disgust because no matter what they do, they will never be six foot tall blonds who weigh 110 and ten pounds. These little girls even develop what are known as “eating disorders,” attempting to conform, to be worthy of sexual desire, which is how they perceive love.

For their part, their brothers are encouraged to look up for pale yellow, and pay no attention to snapping of devilish black eyes or the rapier wit of the short, plump sister who will never resemble Paris Hilton but might well give Hawking a run for his money, if she is not persuaded to go to business school instead, wearing, of course, professional tailored suits after losing the weight.

Is it any surprise then, that even Arabian women who loathe the princes as much as anybody, would raise an eyebrow at Karen Hughes to ask, and driving cars, you say, is worth THAT?

One of the most offensive aspects of compulsory hijab, aside from its being blatantly un-Islamic (There shall be no compulsion in religion, said the Prophet) is the grave insult to men.

Yes, yes, I know.  We are beasts. We are rats. But are we really such beasts, so lacking in even the most rudimentary capacity for self-control, that the very sight of a woman’s face, her knees, whether she be (in our eyes) drop dead beautiful or remind us of grandma, will trigger in us an uncontrollable urge to throw her down and rape her in the dirt?

Are we to be considered so incapable of true love that we cannot even look at, have a conversation, or lunch with a woman without forgetting all about the one to whom we have given our heart? Is it so certain that we will throw away the love of our life, our happiness, simply because this bare-kneed woman whose face we see likes sushi or baseball and our respective spouses do not?

And if we are such subhuman monsters as all that, would that not make us even less qualified than previously argued to dictate to women what they should or should not wear?

It is unlikely that Mr. Chirac would be very enthusiastic if some politician from the Amazon basin passed a law that forbade French women to cover their breasts in public. He might even go so far as to remove his daughters from the public schools before sending them out topless into the streets of Paris.

And if Mulla Omar should ever be captured by pro-literacy militants and learned to actually read the Koran in a language he understands, he might be in for some major surprises.

If you did not click on it earlier, go ahead and read this blogrant as I can feel myself tempted by the stumbling block of duplication of effort. 😉

* google the phrase “France hijab law”