(April 12, 2011 at 3:33 pm)Rayaan Wrote: I disagree because whether the burqa is a symbol of oppression or not is determined by a particular society, not by the one who is wearing it.
There are Muslims who wear it because they do it as an act of piousness and because it makes them feel closer to God. They wear it on their own will (although this is not true for everyone). Furthermore, I know that there are some husbands who don't want their wives to put on a burqa because they want their wives to go out into the world and show their beautiful faces to everyone, without covering anything, and yet, their wives still want to wear it.
Also, the fact that so many Muslim women in France are completely against the burqa ban is proof that the object is NOT an oppression for them. Some are even willing to go to jail instead of taking it off. So, I think this is a way of telling the government that being locked up in jail is less of an oppression for them than wearing a burqa. lol.
On the other hand, here in America I see many Muslim women who do comply by the dress codes of their workplace. They really don't make it a big deal to cover their faces. For example, my mother doesn't wear the burqa and my father doesn't force her to wear it either. It's her own decision to wear it or not. And I would estimate that only 10 to 20 percent of the female Muslims in America wear the burqa even outside the workplace, and further, most of them only cover their hair (with a hijab), not the whole face.
I wholeheartedly agree: by "it is a symbol of oppression", i mean in the West. But if you take "Muslim" countries, in many of them women wear burqas (not always forcibly) and these countries also have intolerance, theocracy or dictatorship, religious fanatism, oppression, and the restriction of Human Rights, and all that goes with it.
Burqas are a symbol of those cultures, and these cultures are seen as harmful and dangerous. The only way to stop burqas from being this kind of symbol, and to stop Islamophobia as a whole, is for these countries to stop being so oppressive and opposed to the values of the West.
