So, pray tell, why is it that there are Muslim women who live in countries where they do have power, freedom, equality, and independence (like Canada), and yet they still choose to wear the hijab (and, in some cases, the niqab, which covers much more of the face)?
I also can’t help but notice that you haven’t responded my question about how a hijab (a Muslim garment which covers a woman’s hair) is, by its nature, oppressive, but a turban (a Sikh garment which covers a man’s hair) is not.
If you want to help Muslim women who are disempowered, you can’t say, “I, a white man, have decided that this thing you wear is a symbol of the oppression of Muslim women. Take it off.”
True empowerment can only come when you give them the choice of whether or not to take it off. If someone has the choice to take the hijab off, but refuses to do so (as many Canadian Muslims do), then you might want to entertain the notion that it has meaning beyond “symbol of oppression,” and that by telling them they should take it off, you might be the one oppressing them.
I don’t know how it is in Pennsylvania, but here in the armpit of the Midwest, you’ll run into a fair amount of bigotry against the Amish. When a local colony was hit by a tornado a few years ago, the funnel cloud passing right by the school and killing a person in their home, I remember being horrified by one of my parents’ friends response: “Good.” Old people, amiright?
There was an old fairy tale I remember reading as a kid, where a man married a woman who was under a curse which made her 'ugly" for 12 hours of each day. The wife told him to choose which time she was to be hideous, by day or by night.
He chose day first, so that she might be decently treated by their neighbors and all the other townspeople.
The wife berated him for being willing to sleep beside a “monstrosity.”
So the husband changed his mind and said that the wife should be hideous by day, so that they could enjoy each other’s company at night.
Again, the wife berated him, calling his reasoning selfish.
Finally the husband conceded that his wife must choose for herself which option would make her most content, and the spell was instantly broken.
Why? Because he had given his wife what every woman wants; the ability to decide her own fate.
ETA:
Since I couldn’t remember what book this was, other than the main synopsis I did a quick query.
