The hijab (etc) is immodest

[The Grand Nudger]

The whole thing is a massive diversion - and the notion that public displays of modesty are fundamentally at odds with their own purpose is hardly controversial. Despite it's current misuse, they're a classic example of virtue signalling, in any culture. Explicitly so when they take the form of religious commandments of virtue. We had them here as well, hence the pejorative use of the term puritanical.

While we generally take that sort of thing to be the opposite of pornographic, it is and was it's own fetish.

[WinterHold]

In the US, for example, a woman who decided to go naked from the waist down at the supermarket would be chastised. 

As do men, but not if they go to some other places like a nudist beach, while women in Muslim countries don't have that kind of freedom and must be covered all the time everywhere.

I have two objections:

1) Taking a picture in a tribal rural area in Afghanistan then generalize it on the whole Muslim world is an act of deception, a woman living in a rural Afghani village is indeed different from a woman living in a big Muslim city like Cairo.

2) Enforcing your views obsessively on women who decide to wear HIjab is an act of forcing beliefs on others. Weather you liked it or not, Millions of women choose to wear this dress, clashing with them over it is a direct attack on their freedom to choose what they want. Your bigoted enforcing is a direct clash against the freedom of women who chose to wear the hijab.

[The Grand Nudger]

Or, people often find themselves personally attached to questionable norms.

Remember, you don't have to go to bat for every silly or fucked up thing that you identify with culturally, lol. You'd think that much would have been made apparent to you almost by osmosis after your time on these boards.

[WinterHold]

Or, people often find themselves personally attached to questionable norms.

Remember, you don't have to go to bat for every silly or fucked up thing that you identify with culturally, lol.  You'd think that much would have been made apparent to you almost by osmosis after your time on these boards.

You don't have to take gigantic turns around my words.
The arguments against FM's babbling is simple, here are they again:

AtlasS33 said:
https://atheistforums.org/thread-60116-p...pid1954044

1) Taking a picture in a tribal rural area in Afghanistan then generalize it on the whole Muslim world is an act of deception, a woman living in a rural Afghani village is indeed different from a woman living in a big Muslim city like Cairo.

2) Enforcing your views obsessively on women who decide to wear HIjab is an act of forcing beliefs on others. Weather you liked it or not, Millions of women choose to wear this dress, clashing with them over it is a direct attack on their freedom to choose what they want. Your bigoted enforcing is a direct clash against the freedom of women who chose to wear the hijab.

---

In other words: what pains you in a woman rejecting showing her thighs or breasts to you?
Is rejection that painful, to you as a man? leave women alone to decide what they want.

[The Grand Nudger]

Nothing, what pains you in having a conversation that isn't about wanting to stare at tits? If that's what you think the objection is....I can't help you.

It's that practices like these, wherever we find them, are based on questionable assumptions about human behavior and often to the detriment of the participants themselves - and at least in this case, present an almost comical level of internal contradictions. If you want to go have an argument about a woman's right to choose...go have it with someone who would disagree. Like the people who enforce precisely these norms.

[Brian37]

The original purpose of what has now become traditional dress was modesty, and arguably justified as a way to protect women from rape in a barbaric time and region, but now it's purpose is tradition and a way to announce that you're a Muslim.

I wouldn't put it like that. In all of antiquity even outside Islam, girls and women were seen more like property than equals. Sure it was to prevent rape, but more so that your property doesn't get damaged. 

Even in America females were blamed for their own rapes and women just hundred years ago were expected to dress a certain way too, even if not covering up their heads.

Body autonomy for women has been a recent progress in the west. While I would never suggest banning the hijab, I would argue what Ayaan Hirsi Ali has, being a former Muslim herself. I would argue that while Muslim women in the west have the freedom to wear it, that is not the case in much of the Middle East, it is mandatory, and the woman can be punished or even beaten for not wearing it. It is gender role clothing, just like LDS and Amish and it is patriarchal in meaning.

[Belacqua]

To say that we should respect all cultures equally is a red herring. No two cultures are equal.

Same with tradition, they should be treated on basis of merit, not because we respect them or whatever.

Yes, I agree. 

The question is what standards we use to "treat" them on basis of merit. I think the worst standard would be, "they're not like us so they're bad." 

My own background is American, so I tend to think that freedom is something to aspire to. But that's not absolute. I'm not arguing that people should be free to go nude to the supermarket. And imposing my idea of freedom onto other cultures can actually serve as insistence on conformity.

[WinterHold]

The original purpose of what has now become traditional dress was modesty, and arguably justified as a way to protect women from rape in a barbaric time and region, but now it's purpose is tradition and a way to announce that you're a Muslim.

I wouldn't put it like that. In all of antiquity even outside Islam, girls and women were seen more like property than equals. Sure it was to prevent rape, but more so that your property doesn't get damaged. 

Even in America females were blamed for their own rapes and women just hundred years ago were expected to dress a certain way too, even if not covering up their heads.

Body autonomy for women has been a recent progress in the west. While I would never suggest banning the hijab, I would argue what Ayaan Hirsi Ali has, being a former Muslim herself. I would argue that while Muslim women in the west have the freedom to wear it, that is not the case in much of the Middle East, it is mandatory, and the woman can be punished or even beaten for not wearing it. It is gender role clothing, just like LDS and Amish and it is patriarchal in meaning.

There are differences between men and women biologically; and it was even proven scientifically that many hormones in a man's body are absent or lacking in a female's and vise versa.

Men are not equal to women at least biologically; we didn't even go to the effects of different hormones on the brain. Saying both are equal is a very loose and ambiguous claim. Ignoring this fact brings issues to the society, and maybe the shocking numbers of divorce in the U.S and Europe is an evidence to that; it's very wrong to insist on calling "oranges" "apples". They are equal though in terms of rights.

Women are not the same being as men, we can start at the evolutionary roles that both did based on the nature of their bodies -men hunt; women raise kids-, archeology proves too how ancient people knew these roles based on the de-facto capabilities they are born with.

I think and believe that nothing is wrong with women, but everything is wrong with the male-culture that enforces its image on women, forcing them to satisfy the male mind at all times -like making them dress as sluts to enjoy looking at them-.

[Mr Greene]

Da Fuq you smokin'?

I think you need citations for those claims.

[Belacqua]

There are differences between men and women biologically; and it was even proven scientifically that many hormones in a man's body are absent or lacking in a female's and vise versa.

Men are not equal to women at least biologically; we didn't even go to the effects of different hormones on the brain. Saying both are equal is a very loose and ambiguous claim. Ignoring this fact brings issues to the society, and maybe the shocking numbers of divorce in the U.S and Europe is an evidence to that; it's very wrong to insist on calling "oranges" "apples". They are equal though in terms of rights.

Women are not the same being as men, we can start at the evolutionary roles that both did based on the nature of their bodies -men hunt; women raise kids-, archeology proves too how ancient people knew these roles based on the de-facto capabilities they are born with.

These days trans and gender fluid people are asking us to look again at what we used to call biological differences. The whole thing may not be as simple as we thought. 

Nor am I convinced that gender roles in certain hunter/gatherer societies were as hard and fast as we might think. And even if they were, we're not hunter/gatherers any more. People are adaptable. 

The main thing is that we not reify tradition or habit and declare it to be pre-determined. It's nomos, not physis. Things change, and that's OK. 

I think and believe that nothing is wrong with women, but everything is wrong with the male-culture that enforces its image on women, forcing them to satisfy the male mind at all times -like making them dress as sluts to enjoy looking at them-.

This I think is very relevant. Social pressure on women is very strong. 

I know it's not either/or, but sometimes you see side-by-side photos of women in which people claim liberation has occured: on one side they are wearing hijabs, and on the other side mini-skirts. Yet both choices may have been determined by others. Give up your hijab and wear this designer outfit. Liberate yourself from tradition so you can participate in the fashion which the media tell you is the only attractive thing. 

If we say that someone is free because she dresses just like an American, that may be too simple. There are also pressures to dress like Americans that are, in their own ways, difficult to avoid. 

I think it is probably easier, in one's own mind, to flout dress codes that are imposed from above, and harder to ignore dress codes imposed by one's peers. I used to live in a little Japanese rural village where the high school had a strict dress code. The boys' solutions to this were hilarious. For example, they would sew purple silk linings into their pockets that weren't visible during the day, but on the train ride home the would pull the pockets inside out to show their disobedience. It was a lovely decadent touch. When I lived in Spanish Harlem I used to see Catholic high school girls getting on the subway and rolling up the tops of their skirts, to make them much shorter. 

This is in contrast to the high school I went to. We had no official dress code, but we all dressed exactly alike, and this was enforced by peer pressure. Ill-fitting jeans, or the wrong brand, brought mockery all day long.