Now, I’m not saying that you don’t have a personal freedom to cover yourself up. You do, and you may. I don’t think anyone here says that you can’t. However, you cover yourself up because God tells you to. Not you. It’s not your choice. It’s the choice of your religion, and you’ve made your peace with it.

Which is fine. Just remember that you do it because your religion mandates it, not because you don’t want to show your body.

That’s a platitude by people of faith. What most people of faith fail to understand about atheism is that when we say “we don’t beleive in God” — it’s not a matter of faith.

It’s not like I’m putting my faith in the unknowable; it’s that I don’t put faith in the unknowable.

Not embracing dogma is not the same as embracing dogma. I know it’s hard for people of faith to understand, but faith in the unknowable isn’t even a factor in atheism because atheists view putting faith in anything unknowable as archaic thinking.

But as usual, the people of faith — while controlling just abotu every aspect of our soceity — try to portray themselves a victims when in fact it is secular atheists who are the ones who are driven to silence about their views.

Sure, I can talk abotu my atheism in America (and be faced with scorn and accusations of having no morals from the religious people), but in a global scale, there are a lot of places a secular atheist would be in danger expressing his or her views.

Put it this way: an imam (or any other religious proselytizer) is free to preach openly in the West, but Richard Dawkins would last about 15 seconds preaching his views in main plaza of Jalalabad before he was assaulted and even killed.

(I’ve spent years in the Middle East and even there I had friends on more than one occasion warn me very, very sincerely not to tell people I was an atheist.)

… have to because your religion mandates it. BWA-hahahahahah

As for women who are oppressed, i know some of you keep going to the ME for reference. But why not Indonesia or Malaysia, where in Indonesia alone there’s about a hundred million muslims. If you say the Muslim women in these countries, with their colorful and festive hijabs are oppressed, where some of them are ministers and head of businesses then you have already set your mind in stone; no amount of cajoling and argument will change that.

i urge those who dont know, to learn, and those who knows, to learn more about Islam and its tenets, and take everything in context, not just taking it piece by piece and deconstructing it from there. everything have its context.

I think the best policy is education and informed choice. People should know that there are other systems of belief available to them, including atheism.

When people talk about the Hijab as a form of oppression they are mistaking the Hijab for the problem. The problem is oppression of women and it occurs independently of the Hijab. If women are able to make an informed choice and still choose the Hijab then good for them. If they choose not to wear the Hijab then good for them. But no one should be forced to wear it, or deprived of their right to be informed as to their choices.

Yes. You are right. In your particular case you are lucky not to live here: http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.1687095144

Good for you.

Quoting 381:“There is a difference between the government laws and God’s laws….and that is that God’s laws are, of course, divine and He is perfect“

Wow. This is exactly the kind of crazy I was talking about. Thanks for letting us all know that your particular religion trumps all secular law. That’s scary.

Quoting 381: It’s not my problem that you decide to give free reign to your kids. I, however, will not be doing that if God grants me kids.

Right. You will instill in them a fear of hell and force them to adhere to something written by men in 610. If they don’t want to do it you will alternate between threatening them and telling them that they have a ‘choice’.

I stand by my original assessment. This is so sad. Here is what you don’t understand: The ideas in your religion cannot be shown to be false and cannot be tested. BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE TRUE.

That being said, I’m thrilled that a female Muslim voice was brought to the table so swiftly, and hope it is the first of many.

I absolutely agree with you, if the conscious decision has been made to belong to a community/w.e what you wear or not wear is your choice and as long as it doesn’t harm my retinas it’s all good in my book. But the more interesting thing is the psychological and social phenomenon as to how we enforce these traditions and the pressures we have to contend with when we go against the traditions of the community. How they affect our lives, our stress levels etc. We always have to give part of ourselves to belong. Which one are you willing to give? And how moderate is the community you’re part of? Always interesting questions and always so riveting to learn more about the social animal known as human.

Regarding “X is none of my business and I don’t care about it” I read this somewhere regarding diffusion of responsibility in a crowd. Who calls 911? Everyone assumes someone will and chances are the call will inadvertently be delayed. When does one consider an intervention into what is none of one’s business? Another very interesting question since it can also be applied to the macro world such as countries. When does one invade Iran to, assuming, find the greater good? I do not advocate anything mind you, I’m just putting questions up as they come to me on topics I’m interested in. I have no interest in starting a political debate but that’s the biggest application we currently have regarding interventions and it’s currently an example which many may be familiar with. One can only learn about the culture/person/what have you in order to recognize when it is time to care and when it’s okay not to.

“I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.”

Arthur Hays Sulzberger,
Editor, NYTimes, 1935-1061

One of my favorite all time quotes….

And really, the fact that your justification falls back to the Flying Spaghetti Monster shows me that I should not put a lot of faith — pardon the expression — in your ability to make a rational argument for your actions. Sorry, but if you’re driven by superstition, your credentials get pretty weak. That’s about as good as “I wear this tinfoil hat because of the voices in my head.”

I love BoingBoing and have pressed reload a thousand times today and at least a hundred times every other day, but I think BB made a mistake with this series of posts and this guest blogger. Unicorn chaser? I’d love to see a Dawkins chaser on this one.

Organized religions do seem to tend toward insisting that certain habits are kept and that certain appearances are maintained.

That is oppressive.

But I know some corporate guys who think intelligent, hard-working men should wear ties. That is also oppressive.

Oppressive people always tell other people what to wear. They can’t help it. It’s first thing that springs into their tiny minds.

If I may presume…I believe the choice lies in practicing the religion, and the headcovering is a result of that choice, not something imposed against her will.

An imperfect analogy would be the military. If I choose to join the military, I must wear the clothes, a uniform, that are accepted along with that choice, even if I would not otherwise do so.

There’s a huge difference between believing that your religion mandates that you do something, and feeling forced into it. For example, take churchgoing Christians. Many of them wouldn’t go to church each Sunday if they didn’t believe it was what God wanted them to do, but it’s part of the religion and so they do it gladly. They (usually) don’t feel oppressed, like someone’s twisting their arms, or maybe like someone will beat them if they don’t go. It’s just part of the religion.

She says that if she didn’t think it was required BY HER RELIGION that she wear a headscarf, she wouldn’t do it. That means that if some man told her to do it it wouldn’t matter, if some group of people on the street told her to do it it wouldn’t matter, if some politicians told her to do it it wouldn’t matter. She believes her religion asks it of her (like any ritual or lifestyle in any religion), so she chooses to do it. This isn’t oppression, it’s called following a religion. If you believe that religion is fundamentally oppressive, that’s fine – but then you have bigger fish to fry than some women who choose to wear headscarves.

Either way, you should read her argument carefully and respond to that, instead of immediately lumping her in the “poor oppressed woman” box just because she says she feels like something is required of her by a lifestyle SHE CHOOSES.

You misquoted me when you said “X is none of my business and I don’t care about it”. I do care about it! For someone who is not religious I am very interested in religion and culture, and I think we should know the histories of the communities and cultures around us, and also (obviously) how our own history has been influenced. But we’re still individuals, and I can’t extrapolate group behaviour onto an individual.

Not sure I understand the reference to Iran though…

As for the rest of the berserk anti-hijab lecturers here, GET A LIFE! If the oppression of women upsets you, GO LOOK FOR REAL ISSUES.

Can women vote, get education, get jobs, equal pay, are they safe from sexual harassment? Are they safe from rape?

The last damn thing you need to worry about is a frigging headscarf.

I thank this woman for her comments, but they are of no help to me. For me, it’s not about the hijab (in fact the original discussion is not about the hijab either), it’s about choice.

Clearly, she is free to make hers. My heart soars for her. However, she must admit that many are not free to choose at all – whether on threat of violence or because they do not exist in a world that offers them a choice – this woman does not live in that world. NO CHOICE – that is what I disagree with. I feel certain that she is not comfortable with that either.

“We’re all adults, we’re all responsible for our own actions”

Now this I believe – this to me, makes sense. And so, men are responsible for their actions in the presence of the opposite sex – regardless of their perception of modesty.

For me, temptation lives around us and within us – how we comport ourselves, both externally and internally, in the face of this is the measure of our strength of faith.

It neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.

(With apologies to Thomas Jefferson)

Thanks Antinous!

consider that atheism is a religion. You can’t prove scientifically that there is no god. That is an untestable hypothesis. Therefore, if you BELIEVE that there is no god you must be taking that on FAITH.

I respect your right to follow whatever faith you choose, but please recognize that you are as much a slave to your atheist upbringing as people of other faiths are to their tradition. You berate others you perceive as being blinded by faith, while you yourself are blinded by your own racist and sexist BELIEF that women of a particular cultural background are incapable of making intelligent choices simply because they are women of a particular cultural background.

It seems to me that your religious background has been rather intellectually oppressive, leaving you incapable of understanding people different from yourself. Rather than attempt to understand Mariam’s point of view, you have used this thread as a pulpit, proselytizing about the superiority of your beliefs. How ironic!

People of all faiths should do their best to understand and appreciate each other, including atheists.

Yours truly, Lupi

The full covering of the face leaves me feeling uncomfortable though.

> The ERA , written by Alice Paul and introduced in every Congress since 1923, failed to gain ratification before its June 30, 1982 deadline.

We haven’t exactly hit the pinnacle of equality, its true, but one of the central principles of america in my mind is freedom and getting more free.
I think volunteering to wear the uniform of a society that oppresses women in a number of ways is pretty counter to that.

And I don’t really buy the, “its a different culture” stance. In many ways it is the same culture. The pilgrim women weren’t dressing like that for fashion or practicality. It was the same religious doctrines from the same part of the world. They declare women property and that husbands should be able to keep all other men from ever looking at their wives.

We have moved on from requiring that type of subservience from women. Cultures may have different views that are sometimes just different, but sometimes one idea is just better than another. Liberty over subservience is one that clearly wins out.

Maybe for some women the head covering is just a symbol with no real life impact, but for many others it is part of a pretty profoundly bad situation. In the process their faith is used as a weapon against them.

Now she may welcome the fact that she is demeaned or is asked to do things differently; that, however, does not change what it is.

Of course, I am quite indifferent about people doing whatever the hell they want – it is none of my business and they are free to do as they will.

However, as a fellow human, it is deeply paining to see what religion does to people.

I would express the same sympathy to any other religious person, immaterial of what the religion is.

on this ongoing thread we saw again and again the mentioning of Iran, and then the counter argument that one should not cite as example the worst regime. But that is the point, Iran wasn’t always like this, it had a vibrant liberal population and yes… women who ware free to dress as they pleased. that is not the case anymore, oppressive religious So please stop with this tired line, its a personal choice, not a political statement. the personal is political.

You are free to dress as you please, its your right, but understand that this specific dress code is oppressive to many who do not wish to dress this way, and do not have your choices.

When we see people wearing the confederate flag, it is well within their rights, but their political views are literally visible for all to see. Maybe Islam gets a bad rep, but it is not on the whole, completely unmerited.

we are living in a society that the right to abortion is still very contested. It would be nice to hear a solidarity from Muslim women to this cause, and help the overall political image.
give some take some as they say.

The idea that this woman who states that she, by her own choice, practices a religion that you disagree with is brainwashed and incapable of truly free choice is the exact argument I’ve heard made about athiests by evangelical christians. Next you’ll be saying the “hate the sinner, love the sin” crap your brand of intolerant offensive ideology spouts.

You are becoming the thing you detest. Please stop.