Keys to the Kingdom

[InLove]

OOPS! Seems I have an apology to make!

I am sorry, bob x--I have just read some of your comments on another thread, and I see that you have indeed already done on your own exactly what I suggested, which was to get out there and find out a little more about MW's views. I don't usually slam people the way I did you with my last post on this thread, and it is out of character for me. I kind of knew I shouldn't really do that. Seems I should have taken the advice I gave you, and got out there and looked around a bit more before I said anything.

I know when I am wrong....well, not always at the time, but when I find out, I do try to correct my error.

Again, my apologies.

InPeace,
InLove

 

[Muslimwoman]

Salaam, Sally--

As you know, I can't stay around for much posting due to some other things going on in my personal life, but I just wanted to drop in for a quick word.

as salaam aleykum wr wb habibty

I hope you are keeping a positive mental attitude and will return to us soon, I miss you so much.

This thread certainly took a strange turn, didn't it? I can't help wondering if the artist who created your latest avatar (which is extremely cool, by the way) were not on vacation, would he drop by? That might be interesting, ya think? LOL.

Well of course the artist understands my moderate views but also my respect for the modest beauty of Islamic dress. Of course knowing him, he would certainly have 'something' to say.

Also, I think you will find that a tiny bit of research will show that the information given here about nuns in the U.S. is not exactly correct. Just in case you did not know....

Thank you I was certainly unaware of this in the US. Certainly here in England and back home in Egypt, the Christian and Catholic nuns still continue to dress in traditonal habit. I shall get searching for the US.

I think you have been getting away with harassment, and she is the kind of person who, instead of reporting you, has endeavored to explain for the sake of understanding.

For me this is the key to interfaith dialogue, we must be patient and continue to explain our reasons until the other person can understand (if not accept) our choices. Having posts removed would not allow others to read them and perhaps in the future someone will read this thread and begin to understand, inshallah.

Salaam and may Allah strengthen you
with love and respect
Sally

 

[Muslimwoman]

If they were cloistered, I couldn't very well be "looking" at them, now could I?

I feel that you are more intelligent than that, you are aware I was talking about their choice of dress and that because they are cloistered their dress is not sending out any 'messages'.

By the way if you type [ /quote ] but without the spaces after my comments it will show up as quotes and make it easier to read.

In America the custom of "cloistering" has never (thank God) been a part of the culture.

Why would you say this? Should it not be a persons choice to join the church and devote their life to G-d, instead of materialistic persuits?

Nuns work in schools, hospitals, and soup kitchens. They dress modestly, but since the 1960's no longer wear the old medieval costume--

My friends have posted some good information on this issue and clearly know more than I, shall I shall let you follow their links and see for yourself.

I asked whether your husband masks his face or goes naked, and you say he does neither: why then is it only females who should be wrapped up?

Perhaps you should consider being more enquiring Bob and asking about the dress code for Islamic men, because there is a very strict dress code for them also. I simply answered your questions and you jumped to conclusions.

Sorry if this gets a bit long but I would like you to understand why we dress the way we do. The Quran says that both men and women must lowert their gaze and dress modestly - not just women.

Certain parts of the body are seen as 'private'. So my husband must, even on a beach, be covered from navel to knee. His chest can be uncovered because it is not seen in the same sexual way as a womans chest. That does not mean he can walk in the street in long shorts. He must remain appropriately dressed. Obviously it is very hot in Egypt so my hubby and I tend to wear very little in the home. Depending on who comes to the home, we have to adjust our dress. Some examples if I may:

If my mother and sister in law visit, with the small children - I would put a small dress (to the knee) on and my husband would wear his shorts. There is no fear of us being intimate.

If my husbands female cousin visits - I would put a house dress on but my husband would be required to also put a t-shirt on and longer shorts.

If my husbands male cousin visits - My hubby can stay in his small shorts but I would put on a full dress and cover my hair.

Everything depends on the relationship of the visitor and respect for their position in life. Am I so gorgeous that I would drive his male cousin wild with desire - absolutely not but his cousin is required to remain a virgin until marriage. So would it be fair of me to sit around in skimpy clothes and remind him that he cannot have sex until marriage? What if he is married but is unhappy in his marriage, or his wife doesn't like sex? That is not something I would know, so again I could remind him of what he is not getting and cause him to feel more frustrated. Same rules apply to my husband and our female visitors.

This may sound insane to you but for the Muslim community it is all about respect, respect for others and yourself. Would I allow a man into our home when my husband is not there - no way, because of my reputation. The same applies to my husband. I am currently staying in the UK with my family, so my hubby has a cleaning lady. For both their reputations he sleeps at his parents one night a week so the cleaning lady can come into the home knowing he will not be there. There is then no possibility of rumours and it protects the reputation of both my husband and the lady.

These ideas do not sit well with western freedom, which I accept but believe me I have never been so confident in my relationship with a man. I know after some months away, I can go back and be completely confident in my husbands fidelity - it simply isn't an issue for us. My husband also knows, because of my beliefs that I would not stray from our marriage in any way. So we have mutual respect. Should that be left to trust? Perhaps but we know people are weak and easily led astray. If I can protect a fellow Muslim from that sin by dressing in a way that does not provoke feelings of lust, then I have done a good thing.

I find this difficult to reconcile with your statement that girls shouldn't have the "right" to have sex with whom they please. We do not seem to be communicating very well: I can certainly agree with you there.

They are two different issues. Should society say "yeah go and sleep with whomever you choose" - no, I do not believe so. If that girl chooses to go against societal norms and have sex before marriage, would I choose to stop her - no. It is her choice, I would try to persuade her against it but I have no right to stop her if that is the choice she makes. I also have no right to judge her for that choice.

it is taken for granted that women deserve to be ogled and harrassed if they do not hide their faces

Again you are just talking about Saudi, you seem to be a bit stuck on Saudi for some reason. There are approximatly 1.4 billion Muslims of which 27,600,000 live in Saudi - do the maths. I am not defending them, I hate the way Saudi treats women but they are a very small percentage and you should try to get away from judging all Muslims by their standards.

Oh now come on, I am western remember and spent more years than I would care to mention living in the west. Are we suggesting that western men do not see it as their right to ogle and harrass women? Do we not use the female sexuality to sell everything from hair dye to power tools, cars to chocolate? We have sold women in the west a myth of freedom and the guys are rubbing their hands together and laughing because they get the goodies on display. That is not freedom. I am now judged by my views, my actions, not by how skinny my ass is or whether my boobs are the right size - it is VERY liberating.

By giving in to this, you seem to be accepting that you deserve the harrassment:

Rubbish, I do it to protect myself in the same way as I would not go out to a biker bar wearing skimpy clothes and get drunk. Would I then deserve to be harrassed? No but would I be? Yes. That is life the world over.

You talk about women "choosing" the veil, but is that really "choice"? It sounds like, a Jew might "choose" to wear a yellow star of David rather than be killed for refusing to do so.

You are still mentally stuck in Saudi. Yes the rules there are offensive and outrageous and women are oppressed and persecuted by virtue of gender, I agree. But again I say judge the religion based on itself, not on one small wierd country full of male chauvinist pigs.

 

[bob x]

I feel that you are more intelligent than that, you are aware I was talking about their choice of dress and that because they are cloistered their dress is not sending out any 'messages'.[\QUOTE]
I intended to put a laughing smiley after that, to indicate that I was making a joke, but the smiley did not make it to the post as it appeared on the board. The browser on my home computer interacts strangely with this board (for a long time I could not sign on here at all).
In any case, the question was not originally put to me "How would I feel about *cloistered* nuns?" but how I would react to encountering a nun in the old-fashioned habit. I am in my mid-fifties, so I can remember the days when encountering nuns so dressed was not at all rare, and in those days it conveyed no message except that they were loyal to the Catholic Church, which might or might not imply ultra-conservative attitudes on their part. But since I turned twenty, the nuns I occasionally meet (nuns are getting thin on the ground in the United States, but there are still the Sisters of Mercy at the Bon Secours hospital, and there was Sister Bertrille who used to teach at one of the local parochial schools, and some of the helpers at the Capuchin soup kitchen downtown I think are nuns though I don't really ask) dress in modest but not unusual fashion (as the bishops now tell them to)-- except some unpleasant representatives of the anti-Pope medieval-throwback faction. I cannot say whether there are any "cloistered" nuns in the United States (it is a big country, and you can find almost anything somewhere), or how they dress if they exist: all I can say is I have never heard of a cloister here; and I am surprised to learn that such things are still common enough in Europe that people on this board think of that first when they think of "nuns".

By the way if you type [ /quote ] but without the spaces after my comments it will show up as quotes and make it easier to read.[\QUOTE]
Maybe; maybe not. That is another feature that only works sporadically for me. We will see how it shows up this time.

Why would you say this ["thank God" that the US has no cloisters]? Should it not be a persons choice to join the church and devote their life to G-d, instead of materialistic persuits?[\QUOTE]
For one thing, cloisters functioned in earlier Europe largely as prisons for inconvenient women, like the "Magdalen houses" which you earlier, somewhat inaccurately, characterized as "lunatic asylums" (the reason I did not recognize what you were referring to). I am principally thanking God that coercive institutions of that kind have never been part of our culture.
But, to move on to the issue here: solitary contemplation definitely has its place, but if it never leads to any positive activity in the world (like the teaching, nursing, etc. which US nuns engage in), I regard it as not just sterile and unproductive, but also as contemptuous of the world God created. No, I would not deny anyone the "choice" to shut themselves up in such a way, but I wouldn't regard it as holy, or even respectable.

This may sound insane to you...[\QUOTE]
Yes, it does. If someone starts a rumor because a cleaning woman comes over, that person is a malicious gossip: why you do allow such base people to control your lives so thoroughly?

If that girl chooses to go against societal norms and have sex before marriage, would I choose to stop her - no. It is her choice, I would try to persuade her against it but I have no right to stop her if that is the choice she makes. I also have no right to judge her for that choice.[\QUOTE]
Most Muslims do not seem to agree. Certainly the Qur'an does not, treating it as a criminal matter for society to punish.

Again you are just talking about Saudi, you seem to be a bit stuck on Saudi for some reason. [\QUOTE]
Variants of the same kind of culture are found in Morocco (the only place that I brought up as an example: you were the one who brought up Saudi), or Pakistan or Nigeria (both have had recent cases where raped women were treated as having "confessed" to sex and therefore threatened with death), etc., any of those places where a woman is treated as if she is asking for abuse if she does not keep thoroughly hidden. But Saudi Arabia isn't just "one weird little country", it is Muhammad's country, and I do not see how you reconcile disparaging their variety of Islam out of one side of your mouth, and yet presenting yourself in the face-veil which so strongly symbolizes that style of Islam. (In another post you said you were surprised to find such a reaction, which only goes to show how very alien our worlds are to each other: around here the face-veil is second only to the bomb-vest as a symbol for Islam at its worst.)

Rubbish, I do it to protect myself in the same way as I would not go out to a biker bar wearing skimpy clothes and get drunk. [\QUOTE]
What you are saying is that simply showing your face, to Muslim men, is like showing yourself drunk and barely dressed, to a bunch of bikers. Are Muslim men so much lowlier than bikers?

You talk about women "choosing" the veil, but is that really "choice"? It sounds like, a Jew might "choose" to wear a yellow star of David rather than be killed for refusing to do so.
You are still mentally stuck in Saudi.[\QUOTE]
I didn't say anything about Saudi: I was responding to your own account of why you sometimes put on a face-veil, because you take it for granted that it is normal for Muslim men to abuse you if you hide yourself to any lesser degree; you did not say in which countries you feel compelled to do this.

 

[Muslimwoman]

The browser on my home computer interacts strangely with this board (for a long time I could not sign on here at all).

Ah computers, marvelous things - when they work. I had trouble in Firefox so use IE for this board, if that helps.

In any case, the question was not originally put to me "How would I feel about *cloistered* nuns?" but how I would react to encountering a nun in the old-fashioned habit.

No we were discussing the 'message' that religious dress sends. I suggested that a nun does not wear a habit to send a message and you did not agree. So I brought cloistered nuns into the discussion, as they wear the old fashioned habit but are clearly not trying to send any message to the public at large. I feel that they demonstrate very well that a choice of religious dress is for reasons other than sending a public message.

and I am surprised to learn that such things are still common enough in Europe that people on this board think of that first when they think of "nuns".

The issue was not about nuns choosing to be cloistered or not but why you react in a certain way to their method of dress (be they cloistered or not). The usual reaction to a nuns habit is that of respect, she is treated as a human being not a sex object.

For one thing, cloisters functioned in earlier Europe largely as prisons for inconvenient women,

That is largely true yes but some women also chose that life. They also offered a sanctuary to women who had no legal rights at that time and were merely property. So there was good and bad.

like the "Magdalen houses" which you earlier, somewhat inaccurately, characterized as "lunatic asylums" (the reason I did not recognize what you were referring to).

The Magdalen Houses were in Ireland. In England women were simply sent to the local lunatic asylum. Newcastle hospital is one good example. There was a woman found there as late as the 60's (or may have been early 70's) who had been an inmate for over 30 years, she was an unwed mother. When this was made public there was an outcry for her release but by that time she had actually become insane due to living under the conditions she had been under. It was common practice here.

Yes, it does. If someone starts a rumor because a cleaning woman comes over, that person is a malicious gossip: why you do allow such base people to control your lives so thoroughly?

They do not control our lives, we can choose to allow her in the apartment when my husband is there but we choose to protect ourselves from gossip. The lady chooses not to come in if my husband is alone, thus protecting herself from gossip and false accusation. Our society as a group chooses not to put itself into questionable situations. We then do not have the issue of malicious gossip or trying to defend ourselves.

Most Muslims do not seem to agree. Certainly the Qur'an does not, treating it as a criminal matter for society to punish.

Now look at what the Quran and Sunnah say is required to prove such a matter and thereby allowing punishment. To prove adultery or fornication there must be 4 male Muslim witnesses, of just character, that physically see the penis enter the vagina. Video, photo's, etc are not acceptable. So we are warned against such sin, told of the punishment to discourage us, yet the only way to prove such a matter would be to have sex in the town square. Now, how likely is that?

Variants of the same kind of culture are found in Morocco (the only place that I brought up as an example: you were the one who brought up Saudi), or Pakistan or Nigeria (both have had recent cases where raped women were treated as having "confessed" to sex and therefore threatened with death), etc., any of those places where a woman is treated as if she is asking for abuse if she does not keep thoroughly hidden.

I did an entire thread about this issue somewhere, will see if I can find it later, it has some very interesting facts and figures.

What you are talking about are areas under Sharia law - which I in no way support. The only country in the world that is actually fully under Sharia law is Saudi. The other countries simply have pockets of local villages that decide to introduce Sharia themselves (like local government). There are Muslim societies fighting against these attrocities to women. Having said that most of the cases I can find state that the womans silent confession is her pregnancy - sort of a give away. They never stated that they were raped until their pregnancy showed. That is not to say some were not raped and women are seriously discouraged in these areas from going to the police, as if they cannot prove they were raped they are then subject to punishment for fornication or adultery. I believe Sharia states that a woman must scream and try to defend herself, she should then show some defensive marks.

In Pakistan some women have been ordered to be gang raped by court officials - this is nothing to do with our religion, it is a throw back to India's old 'honour killing' days. This is another example of culture meeting religion and people thinking the religion allows it - Islam does not in any way allow the raping of women (there is the issue of slavery and sex with slaves, there is also a whole thread on that issue you can read rather than discuss it again here).

But Saudi Arabia isn't just "one weird little country", it is Muhammad's country, and I do not see how you reconcile disparaging their variety of Islam

I disparage them, as virtually all Muslims do, because they have invented so many things that have nothing to do with our faith. The world then looks to them, because they are the country of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) and think that is Islam. It is a very bad advert and so far removed from the teachings of our faith. There is nothing in the Quran that says women are not allowed to ride camels or donkeys, so why can't they drive cars? There is nothing that in any way would allow the religious police to murder 15 school girls, trying to leave a burning school, because they do not have their face covered. There is nothing that would allow men to have sex with their female employee's. They have gone so far astray and it is effecting every Muslim in the world. So yes I disparage them for the damage they are doing to our faith.

and yet presenting yourself in the face-veil which so strongly symbolizes that style of Islam.

The symbolism of the face veil is piety, modesty and a personal relationship with G-d. I cannot help that you see it differently. If you wear cowboy boots should I assume it to be your choice of dress or a message of your lifestyle and political views?

around here the face-veil is second only to the bomb-vest as a symbol for Islam at its worst.)

I would suggest then that 'around here' needs to get out more and stop literally judging a book by it's cover.

Did you hear about the recent attempted terrorist attacks on British airports? These were carried out by doctors, they dress as everyone else, they have non Muslim friends and they lived what appeared to be normal european lives - yet clearly they were extremists. You cannot judge an extremist by their clothing. I can also show you many moderate, peaceful Muslim leaders that dress in very Islamic clothing, have long beards, etc but preach peace.

Before I went to live in the Middle East I had similar views to yours but I quickly learned by talking to the women there. All this "we are coming to save you from your oppression" is met with shrugs of "what oppression"? Muslim women on the whole want to wear their hair or face covered, it is about faith not society. Here are a couple of Muslim websites run by women for women, they may give you an insight into the issue:

If you look at the first topic on the right, it is dress and has some very good articles about Islamic dress:

Welcome to the Website of Muslim Women's League

This lady has spent years studying Islamic dress for women and the verses of the Quran and Sunnah that require modest dress, she goes into the root arabic words used, she also agrees that the face veil is only oppressive when it is not a choice, worth a read:

Understanding the Face Veil

 

[Muslimwoman]

What you are saying is that simply showing your face, to Muslim men, is like showing yourself drunk and barely dressed, to a bunch of bikers. Are Muslim men so much lowlier than bikers?

I wanted to comment seperately on this to make sure I get my point across. My choice to wear the face veil when I travel is for a few reasons but they are all my own:

1. I do not like strange men looking at me, so I cover myself. I could choose to just let them look and ignore them but my days of being a sexual object are over. That is not an arab thing, men all over the world ogle and I now say NO, you don't get to ogle me, my body is now my own.

2. It shows respect for my husband that I choose not to let strange men look at me. It is a public statement that I am for my husbands eyes only and a statement my husband and I are very proud of.

3. Some arab men think that because I am european I still have some of my old european traits and am therefore open to being chatted up. The veil stops this idea in it's tracks.

My choice of dress is mine alone. I cannot speak for every Muslim woman in the world. My choice is about my faith, my modesty, about being my own person and not an object. I am not in competition with my Muslim sisters, I do not want admiring glaces from men. The respect I do have now comes from the person I am not the amount of makeup or weight I carry. I used to use my sexuality to get what I want, and it worked most of the time, but now I have to use my brain and I feel more confident, more liberated and have more self respect.

That is not saying that women that wear other clothing have a lack of self respect, a womans dress is her choice and her level of confidence comes from within. I do get a bit peeved when I am told that I dress to meet some stereotype or tourists look at me with sympathy (the poor deluded woman). I am a very strong woman and I make my own choices, if I choose to wear a face veil or just wear the hijab, that choice is mine alone and I am proud of the choice I have made for my life.

If you see my choices as sending a message to you, other than I am not yours for the taking, then that I am afraid we shall both just have to live with but it saddens me that you cannot see past a piece of cloth.

 

[bob x]

I posted a long reply last night, but that was on my home computer and Windows decided to crash completely when I hit Submit... I see it did not show up on the board, so I will try again.

The issue was not about nuns choosing to be cloistered or not but why you react in a certain way to their method of dress

I have repeatedly emphasized, without succeeding in getting you to hear, that the reaction is not to dress (in your case, I have never seen your dress) but to the attitudes: of course I could be mistaken in inferring attitudes from dress, just as, if I see a man in uniform and "leap to the conclusion" that he is in the Army, he might actually just be going to a costume party-- though I would think it odd if he got all huffy at me for thinking the uniform said what I naturally took it to say. Of course if it turns out the person's attitudes are not what I would infer from the dress, that will change my reaction, but many forms of dress do send strong signals: yes indeed, cowboy boots worn by someone who is not actually in the cattle business are intended to send a message.

We miscommunicated about nuns in habits because you did not know that such creatures are nearly extinct here, nor did I know that the habit in Europe, as formerly in the US, remained common, denoting nothing but loyalty to a certain Order within the Catholic Church (which could cover a wide variety of possible attitudes). It is a "uniform", certainly: in the present-day US it denotes membership in a movement which rejects modernity and toleration entirely. For a cloistered nun, it would denote membership in an Order which rejects "the world" in its entirety: and no, I cannot respect that.

The usual reaction to a nuns habit is that of respect

Interesting. It is educational to see how different our worlds are: in the US, back when the old-fashioned habit was still a common sight, nuns in habits were often made fun of (probably the reason the bishops have told them to stop dressing in so alien a fashion) and the habited-nun still remains a common cartoon figure long after they have mostly vanished in reality. I would have thought that famously secularized Europe would have this attitude even more so.

That is largely true yes but some women also chose that life. They also offered a sanctuary to women who had no legal rights at that time and were merely property. So there was good and bad.

I was just finishing a book on the religious history in Europe (The Reformation: A History, by Diarmuid MacCollough). On the origin of cloistered nunneries, pp. 642-3:
"The most extreme case was in Venice, where in the period 1580-1642 around half the women in the city's wealthy ruling class became nuns, thus saving their families a fortune in marriage dowries, as well as performing a useful task of prayer for their loved ones. The Patriarch of Venice Giovanni Tiepolo rather gave the game away when he described these nuns as 'locked up in convents as if in a public tomb... making of their own liberty... a gift not only to God, but to the fatherland, the world, and their closest relatives.' [note here cites J.G. Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice, pp. 3-4]
"The mushrooming of female participation in the regular life was far more than just a cynical development in the economy of wealthy families. Much of its impetus came from women who wanted to play their full part in the movements of renewal that the Church was fostering. It was thus a powerful reaffirmation of an independent role for women in the Church, but just because of that the male Church authorities had mixed feelings about the growth: all those nuns needed controlling. The men were especially determined that women should not exercise an active ministry in the Church; their ministry must be an enclosed life of prayer and contemplation, with minimal contact with the outside world. Even before the Council of Trent, the battle-lines were being drawn up. As with so many Counter-Reformation policies, it was Fernando and Isabel's 'Reformation before the Reformation' in fifteenth-century Spain that began the campaign to confine women to the cloister, but Trent formalized the move, followed up by a papal Bull from Pius V in 1566...
"The new move to enclosure faced formidable opposition. Many well-born nuns had only regarded life in the convent as a bearable option because there would be plenty of possibilities for a social life involving the wider world, and they were appalled when new grilles were installed at the convent entrance... Yet by no means all the opposition to strict enclosure was from outraged social butterflies. Many women desparately sought to play an active part in the revivalist work of the Church in the world at large, particularly as they watched the achievements of the friars and the Jesuits. The problem was that there was very little precedent in western Christianity for such a role for women, and there was the alarming contemporary parallel of female prophets among the radical sects of the Reformation."

 

[bob x]

Now look at what the Quran and Sunnah say is required to prove such a matter and thereby allowing punishment.

The issue is not whether it should be rare or common, but whether it is proper for governmental punishment to exist at all.

What you are talking about are areas under Sharia law - which I in no way support.

I don't see how you can reject the entire Islamic legal tradition, without rejecting Muhammad himself. What variety of Islam do you affiliate yourself with?

In Pakistan some women have been ordered to be gang raped by court officials - this is nothing to do with our religion, it is a throw back to India's old 'honour killing' days.

I'm not going to let you get away with that. India has its own atrocities ("dowry killings" for example) but "honor killings" are only found among Muslims. I am not saying the Qur'an gives warrant to it, but it is an outgrowth of specifically Muslim sexual attitudes.

I do not like strange men looking at me, so I cover myself. I could choose to just let them look and ignore them but my days of being a sexual object are over.

It is perfectly normal for people to look each other in the face. Regarding every human-to-human interaction as sexual seems to be rather morbidly obsessive.

It shows respect for my husband that I choose not to let strange men look at me.

So, since your husband never masks his face, he doesn't respect you???
I tried before to get you to comment on the fundamental asymmetry here, but while some of the information you presented about male Muslim dress was interesting, nothing touched on why your face "belongs" exclusively to your husband in a way that his does not "belong" to you.

Some arab men think that because I am european I still have some of my old european traits and am therefore open to being chatted up.

There is some danger of miscommunication again: to Australians, I know "to chat up" means what in American is called "to pick up" (talk with the aim of getting her in bed), but in American "to chat" is just "to talk casually". I do not know at what end of the spectrum your word-usage is here: do you avoid speaking to males at all, about the weather or whatnot, unless you have business to transact or a prior relationship? Do you assume that men always "just want one thing" and therefore should be interacted with as little as possible? Is your voice likewise something to be hidden away, "belonging" exclusively to your husband? If Arab men are denied any normal social interchanges with women, as well as not allowed to look at their faces, it is no wonder if some are in a constant state of anger and frustration.

My choice is about my faith, my modesty, about being my own person and not an object.

A person has a face. A lump in a bag is an object, a piece of property.

it saddens me that you cannot see past a piece of cloth

Excuse me? Isn't the whole point of the piece of cloth to forbid me to see past it? The message it sends is that you profoundly distrust the whole male gender that you will not interact with us as one human being normally would with another. You are talking openly to me here, through the anonymity of the keyboard, but would you talk to me on the street?

 

[InLove]

Hi bob x--InLove again (sorry)

I feel like I may be sort of intruding again, but you have said something that I just can't let pass without a comment--the part I have put in bold letters, especially (I did not want to refer to anything out-of-context).

I have repeatedly emphasized, without succeeding in getting you to hear, that the reaction is not to dress (in your case, I have never seen your dress) but to the attitudes: of course I could be mistaken in inferring attitudes from dress, just as, if I see a man in uniform and "leap to the conclusion" that he is in the Army, he might actually just be going to a costume party-- though I would think it odd if he got all huffy at me for thinking the uniform said what I naturally took it to say. Of course if it turns out the person's attitudes are not what I would infer from the dress, that will change my reaction, but many forms of dress do send strong signals: yes indeed, cowboy boots worn by someone who is not actually in the cattle business are intended to send a message.

My dad, who is not a cowboy, and about as far away from a fashion monger as one can get, owns exactly four pairs of footwear--an old brown pair of cowboy boots for working around the yard, a newer pair of brown cowboy boots, a black pair of cowboy boots, and a pair of moccasins for around the house. He wears them because he likes them, they feel good on his feet, and they are practical. I guarantee you, he is not into sending messages with his footwear or any other part of his clothing. I just thought you, along with any readers out there who might think anyone in cowboy boots is trying to send a signal, should know that sometimes, footwear is just footwear.

Sorry to interrupt again--please do go on with the discussion at hand.

InPeace,
InLove

 

[bob x]

Very well, I stand corrected. Now please don't tell me that he voted for W twice.

 

[InLove]

Very well, I stand corrected. Now please don't tell me that he voted for W twice.

Why would you assume that?

 

[bob x]

What people in cowboy boots do you think I ever meet?

 

[InLove]

What people in cowboy boots do you think I ever meet?

Oh, I see. Well, now you know!

That is the problem with stereotyping. If you see someone in cowboy boots or even a t-shirt with a GOP emblem on it for that matter, if you automatically say to yourself, "That person is, without a doubt, a supporter of W" then you may make an incorrect assumption. Just the same as if you see a woman in a face-veil, and you automatically assume she is a supporter of the Taliban, then you might be wrong. It can lead to lots of misunderstanding.

InPeace,
InLove

 

[Snoopy]

Just the same as if you see a woman in a face-veil, and you automatically assume she is a supporter of the Taliban, then you might be wrong. It can lead to lots of misunderstanding.
InPeace,
InLove

I know. I'm still waited to be offered some Turkish Delight.

s.

 

[Muslimwoman]

I don't see how you can reject the entire Islamic legal tradition, without rejecting Muhammad himself. What variety of Islam do you affiliate yourself with?

Who said I reject the entire Islamic legal tradition? I would accept any punishment laid down in the Quran, if I committed a sin as told in the Quran. What I do not accept is punishment based on the hadiths, many of which are known to be down right lies (called weak). There is not one single verse of the Quran that mentions stoning, so I do not accept this as a punishment. That does not mean that I reject all Sharia or the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).

I'm not going to let you get away with that. India has its own atrocities ("dowry killings" for example) but "honor killings" are only found among Muslims. I am not saying the Qur'an gives warrant to it, but it is an outgrowth of specifically Muslim sexual attitudes.

Perhaps you would like to check this out, it is from the Hindustan Times. Please note that none of the names of victims are Muslim names, the issue is regarding the caste system which does not exist in Islamic society, they are called "honour killings" and further down in the article it says that these people belong to Hindu society:

Honour killings on the rise in India: Women's group : HindustanTimes.com

Isn't misconception and misinformation a glorious thing.

It is perfectly normal for people to look each other in the face. Regarding every human-to-human interaction as sexual seems to be rather morbidly obsessive.

I do not regard every human to human interaction as sexual in nature but I am aware that some interactions are sexual in nature and it is those interactions I wish to avoid.

So, since your husband never masks his face, he doesn't respect you???

Can you name me a large society where men and women's beauty is considered equal?

In virtually all societies women are seen as having a sexual beauty. Perhaps that is why women are used as models to sell power tools, yet male models are not used in the same way? Yes male models sell aftershave but even then the advertising companies are appealing to the women who buy their men aftershave. Yet womens perfume also uses female models, to entice women to believe they can be that beautiful if they use that perfume. So is your suggestion that the beauty of women and men in western society is seen in the same way?

There is some danger of miscommunication again: to Australians, I know "to chat up" means what in American is called "to pick up". I do not know at what end of the spectrum your word-usage is here:

This end of the spectrum.

do you avoid speaking to males at all, about the weather or whatnot, unless you have business to transact or a prior relationship?

I am selective who I speak to and in what situations. If I am with my husband or one of my inlaws then I would speak to anyone about anything. If I am by myself, perhaps shopping and the male is 'eligable' then no I would engage in conversation. I would be polite and say hello, maybe discuss the weather while he serves me but that would be it. If the shop keeper was not 'eligable' then I would have a discussion with them.

Do you assume that men always "just want one thing" and therefore should be interacted with as little as possible?

No I do not assume this. I am aware that some men just want one thing, so I choose to avoid finding out which ones are which.

Is your voice likewise something to be hidden away, "belonging" exclusively to your husband?

No my normal voice is not exclusive. What is exclusive to my husband is my soft 'I am flirting with you' voice.

If Arab men are denied any normal social interchanges with women, as well as not allowed to look at their faces, it is no wonder if some are in a constant state of anger and frustration.

So are you now saying that men need to interact with strange women and look at them in order not to be frustrated or angry?

A person has a face. A lump in a bag is an object, a piece of property.

Now you are just being offensive. Even with the veil I am still a person, I have views and feelings, I am not reduced to a 'lump in a bag'. I would suggest that if that really is your view of another human being then you have some very nasty, unpleasant ideas.

You are talking openly to me here, through the anonymity of the keyboard, but would you talk to me on the street?

That would depend entirely on the situation.

 

[JosephM]

Hi Muslimwoman,

Thanks for the interesting links concerning veiling in your post above. I must admit that in the past when I saw a woman veiled it drew my attention and actually led more to me staring at her than if she had not worn a veil. I guess this is because it stands out here in the US as different than norm. By the way, is your avatar a picture of you? If so you are even more beautiful covered as it leaves one with a mysterious aspect in a way. Anyway, enough of my chit-chat and thanks again.

Love and Peace,
JM

 

[Muslimwoman]

Thanks for the interesting links concerning veiling in your post above. I must admit that in the past when I saw a woman veiled it drew my attention and actually led more to me staring at her than if she had not worn a veil. I guess this is because it stands out here in the US as different than norm. By the way, is your avatar a picture of you? If so you are even more beautiful covered as it leaves one with a mysterious aspect in a way. Anyway, enough of my chit-chat and thanks again.

Thank you for your comments Joseph. No the picture is not me, it is an avatar created by 17th for me.

Veiling is an interesting issue, I have discussed on another thread my feelings that at times it creates an attractive mystique that is actually what it is designed not to do. Also many young women choose the veil and then put an inch of black eye makeup on, which again is going completely against the point of veiling. For some young women this is exactly why they are choosing to wear the veil, because some men are attracted to the mystery. I imagine some are very disappointed when they finally get to see what is underneath lol

Salaam
MW

 

[bob x]

"Who said I reject the entire Islamic legal tradition?"
What you said was, "What you are talking about are areas under Sharia law - which I in no way support." You did not say you support "good" Sharia law as opposed to "bad" Sharia law: you said you "in no way" support Sharia law at all. Evidently that is not what you meant, but I get tired of being rebuked for taking such strong signals as "no way" to mean what they say.

On "honor killings" in India: the name is the same, but the practice is not what we find in Muslim countries.
"Rani and Jasveer both were from different castes, with Jasveer's killers belonging to Rani's caste.
"They cut off his hands and legs and then killed him for "daring" to marry one of "their" women," recounts Rani.
In another instance, a woman from Uttar Pradesh who belonged to a caste of barbers -- considered by traditional Hindu society as one of the lower castes --was repeatedly raped and finally killed by a group of higher caste Yadav men.
Her crime? Her son had married a girl from the socially and economically more prosperous Yadav caste."
What we find, uniquely in Muslim countries, is the murder of girls by their own family members, and this is what I understood the term "honor killings" to refer to (there was a recent book on the topic by a Jordanian woman who had survived being soaked in gasoline and set alight by her brother). I am interested to learn of the similar phenomenon in India, but it does not relate to the "presumption of female criminality" attitude found in so many Muslim countries.

"Can you name me a large society where men and women's beauty is considered equal?"
This attitude I find very strange. Of course males and females have different looks, but you do not actually find males beautiful? And do not think anyone else does either?

"I do not regard every human to human interaction as sexual in nature but I am aware that some interactions are sexual in nature and it is those interactions I wish to avoid."
By avoiding practically all interactions? That is what "I am aware that some men just want one thing, so I choose to avoid finding out which ones are which. " sounds like.

"So are you now saying that men need to interact with strange women and look at them in order not to be frustrated or angry?"
Interacting with strangers as human beings to human beings is necessary to society. Arab males, apparently, hardly ever get to interact normally with females, so it is no wonder they are bad at it. They have to fill in the blanks with fantasizing, which makes the sexual obsessions much worse.

"Now you are just being offensive. Even with the veil I am still a person, I have views and feelings, I am not reduced to a 'lump in a bag'."
But you do not let yourself be seen as a person, only as a lump in a bag: naturally you will be treated that way, when you have chosen to present yourself that way.

InLove: "What people in cowboy boots do you think I ever meet?
Oh, I see. Well, now you know! "
The long post that the cyber-gods ate had a fuller sentence on cowboy boots, more or less like: "In Montana or Texas, cowboy boots might just be a normal choice of clothing with no message intended, but here in Michigan, where the open-range-cattle business has never existed, anybody wearing cowboy boots is, indeed, ostentatiously trying to make a point." If I met someone here in Michigan who was wearing boots, unless it turned out he was from somewhere else, I would be quite safe in guessing his political views. You, oddly, wouldn't even infer political views from "a t-shirt with a GOP emblem on it".
"Just the same as if you see a woman in a face-veil, and you automatically assume she is a supporter of the Taliban, then you might be wrong."
Yes, of course I might. I see that MuslimWoman is strongly opposed to *compulsory* veiling, although she does not see anything wrong with a society in which veiling is "chosen" under a high level of duress, taking it for granted that Arab men should naturally be expected to leer and make lewd suggestions to any woman who shows her face.

 

[Muslimwoman]

What you said was, "What you are talking about are areas under Sharia law - which I in no way support."

You are very good at jumping to conclusions Bob. Look at the bold bit. I said I in no way support the areas under Sharia law. That means I do not support the practices of the Saudi's or other areas.

On "honor killings" in India: the name is the same, but the practice is not what we find in Muslim countries.

Your prejudices run very deeply don't they. Here is another article. This is a piece form the following link. Marundupandian was the brother of the bride. So in your view, if a brother and uncle kill you then it is not an honour killing unless you are Muslim?

Marudupandian, accompanied by an uncle of Murugesan, brought her back to the village. Both were allegedly forced to drink some poisonous liquid in the presence of scores of people, who were mute witnesses to the agony of the dying couple. The bodies were burnt, leaving no evidence of the gruesome incident.

Killing for `caste honour'

Here is another one but perhaps as the killers were the brother and cousin but not Muslim this does not count as an honour killing either?

In July 2006, 25-year old Samaira Nazir's killers were jailed for life. Her 21-year-old brother and teenage cousin murdered her for wanting to marry "an unsuitable boy". Campaigners say so-called "honour" murders in the UK are happening more often and that large numbers of British Asian women across the country are seeking help. Can you help The Asian Network Report examine why "honour"-based violence and abuse is on the increase? The police are trying to understand why these crimes happen - do you?

BBC - Asian Network - Documentaries

But you do not let yourself be seen as a person, only as a lump in a bag: naturally you will be treated that way, when you have chosen to present yourself that way.

My self respect suggests to me that I am much more than a face or pair of legs or cleavage. My mind and heart is what makes me me, not the colour of my lipstick.

If you refer to me as a lump in a bag once more I am going to give up on this discussion, I pointed out that I find it offensive, so would suggest you do not use it again.

 

[BlaznFattyz]

Veiling is an interesting issue, I have discussed on another thread my feelings that at times it creates an attractive mystique that is actually what it is designed not to do. Also many young women choose the veil and then put an inch of black eye makeup on, which again is going completely against the point of veiling. For some young women this is exactly why they are choosing to wear the veil, because some men are attracted to the mystery. I imagine some are very disappointed when they finally get to see what is underneath lol

Salaam
MW

anything that you do out of love, respect, and honor of god is good as long as it doesnt hurt anyone. i think many people in the world just hope that it is you making a decision; and not going along with the decision already made up for you and then you are just going along with it, all the while telling yourself you actually made the decision because it makes life work for you that way.