This is part two of the Islam vs. Women series. Click here to read part one.
With the help of third-wave feminism, hijab has been reduced to nothing more than a "choice." The logic of this is essentially, "as long as a woman 'chooses' to cover her hair in the name of modesty, then who is anyone to criticize it?"
Even if we put aside the fact that in many cultures that are governed by Islam, girls and women do not "choose" to wear the hijab any more than they "choose" to be female, we have a problem regarding this fixation on "choice." The problem is that this mindset makes it easy to neglect all the other aspects of the topic that are just as important as choice, if not more so.
Hijab, in its many shapes and forms, is an outdated, backwards, and offensive way to view the human female. It is an overt way of saying, "women are made for sex, and they must apologize for that." I believe that the hijab is one of the biggest obstacles that prevent Muslims from being able to fit Islam into the 21st century.
The Islamic origin of the hijab comes from an interesting event that happened involving the prophet Mohammed's wives and his friend. As Aisha narrated in Sahih Al-Boukhari 146: at night time, the wives of the prophet would leave their homes to go to an open space for the purpose of "answering the call of nature." Umar (one of the prophet’s companions) told the prophet Mohammed to cover his women, because he could see them pee. Mohammed ignored this. Umar finally recognized one of the wives by name. He told the prophet that he recognized which wife it was and named her. Mohammed, a man whose God instructed his guests to only speak to his wives through a partition, suddenly got a revelation from Allah for the Quran verse that stated that women were to cover everything except their hands and eyes.
Two important rules for wearing hijab:
Hijab was meant for free women who have reached puberty, meaning female slaves were not allowed to wear it. Since hijab served to protect Muslim women from harassment and assault, it simultaneously identified "acceptable" prey for men to harass and assault. According to Allah, female slaves were not deserving of such protection.
The people who may see a covered Muslim woman's hair are listed in this Quranic verse (24:31). Essentially, she must cover herself from any male that she may legally or potentially marry at any point in time.
So how does the hijab apply to the 21st century? These days, women don't take a piss in the open desert at midnight and we don't have female sex slaves walking around. Why do we still wear it?
Muslims who support hijab in our day and age tend to list a number of common reasons. Let's go through a few:
1) "Hijab is the Muslimah's way of being modest, as modesty is a trait that Islam requires of Muslims."
There is a powerful insinuation in declaring hijab as one's only or best way of presenting themselves as modest. When you cover your hair to show that you are a modest person, what are you saying about women who do not cover their hair? Worse yet, what are you implying about your own sex when men don't have to give up half of what women do in terms of expressing their modesty through their clothing?
2) "Hijab, and dressing modestly in general, protects me from unwanted attention from men."
When we consider the reported statistic of most sexual assault cases being perpetrated by family members or acquaintances, and Allah and his prophet's directions for Muslim men to do as they please with their wives in bed, I'm not sure how hijab is really meant to protect women when they are at their most vulnerable. It sounds to me like sexual assault and rape are only unacceptable in certain conditions but perfectly alright in others (read the "consent" section in my previous post for more on the topic).
More importantly, this reasoning not only sets the bar extremely low for men's ability (or lack thereof) to control themselves, but it also places the responsibility of sexual harassment and assault on the victim.
3) "Hijab is my way of showing Allah that I am dedicated to him and committed to Islam."
Why do you have to give up so much in order to show your dedication? Why do men get to do the five pillars and call it a day, while you have to add hijab to the list?
The answer is because Allah believes men when they say that they cannot control themselves because they can see your beautiful hair, your beautiful neck, your beautiful stomach, your beautiful legs, your beautiful ankles, etc. Allah stands with men when they say that they assaulted you because you were so beautiful that they simply lost control of themselves, as though you were a siren or succubus.
4) "Hijab fights western values that sexualize and objectify women. The hijab makes it so that you focus on me, and not my sexual value."
So you figure that in order to escape "western values" that you believe are filled with mindless sex puppets (because nobody has ever accused women from "this ethnicity" or "that country" of being scantily clad whores that just want to show their bodies and sleep around), your solution is to cover your entire hair and body.
Because you figure that while "the west" considers things like cleavage and thighs to be vulgar, you believe it ought to be that wrists, ankles, and the hair on your head should be vulgar along with the rest of your body. How progressive of you.
This is the truth about hijab.
Hijab silences girls and women, crushes their self-esteem, and, more importantly, makes it sickeningly easy for the men in their life to control them. They're not allowed to leave the house without covering up their hair and body (and sometimes face), so it's really not difficult for men to take it from there. Truthfully, girls and women lose no matter what. They get molested and raped anyway. Hijab doesn't stop anyone from doing anything, and its everlasting purpose is to sanction viewing women as sexual objects that are made for fucking, breeding, and owning.
Hijab cannot be empowering by its own definition. It has almost nothing to do with women. It is made by men, for men. It reduces women to little more than valuable objects. Women must "protect" themselves from men's primal, God-given instincts. Women must "protect" themselves from being sinning, lustful harlots, because that is their true nature: sirens put on this earth to test men's virtuousness.
Hijab is the practice of rape culture. Hijab is the statement that every abusive, gaslighting, possessive, misogynist man has thrown at a woman: "you are a whore, because all whores are women and all women are whores. Now apologize."