Women's Dress and Modesty

• RedShirt77 Practices of "modesty". As disproportionately applied to women are a practice designed to limit the sexual options of women. In societies where men are often the economic drivers it prevents women from forming even minimally flirtatious of relationships with men that might be alternatives should their primary love interest turn out to be abusive or mistreat them. Its common in patriarchal societies, particularly those that are religiously orthodox and/or allow polygamy. forgive me if I don't stand up to applaud the "modernization" of the practice of treating women like a sports car you keep under a cover to keep the neighbors from coveting it.

From a website and comments there about how the market for hiijab and “wrappings” for Muslim women are invariably turning into another source of discomfit for women, who do not want to be exploited, as objects, so others (even Muslim businesses) can make money.

I disagree with the comment above from that discussion, because it is not (as the non-Muslim believes) that the society insists on the women to be covered (although Saudi Arabia does), but that women choose to cover for religious reasons. Hiijab is first and foremost a religious duty, ordained by Allah in the Qur’an.

As for women’s “sexual options/promiscuity” being hindered, that’s exactly one of the results. If only some of the Muslim women cover and others don’t; esp. if those uncovering are wearing less and less modest clothing, what happens is that the same problems in the West with promiscuity, fornication, adultery, dating, date rape, and the list goes on, will happen to Muslims to the same degree it happens presently in non-Muslim countries. That would be a downward moral spiral, not a good thing, nor “freedom of choice”. Muslim women and men generally don’t want that.

Hiijab is not only to protect from harassment of a sexual nature, or cover the woman wearing the hiijab, but to protect the general society from these real dangers. I find this nothing short of a miracle, in this day and age.

For women who have been married, and then divorced or widowed, there is more freedom (her right to seek a spouse, not a boyfriend) than there is for the virgin girls. Mature women (those who have been previously married is the idea here), have the right to marry anyone of their choosing of the category of permissible men; Muslim, responsible age, similar interests and level of education,body type, and any other criteria she believes will help her to choose a compatible husband are all reasonable considerations.

As for the virgin women (or “girls”; a commonly used expression in Arab Muslim societies) they are given the choice to accept or reject the proposal of anyone within the category of permissible youth/men. “And her acceptance is her silence”, while her rejection must be said aloud, as clearly stated in the traditions.

- DD

http://www.youtube.com/user/DiscoverIslamTV

13/10/2009 by DD (from MyIslamfeed)

Extremism in the Home/Work Environment

I am on my way to realizing a dream, of telling everyone who cares to listen, or read about my opinions on many topics of interest.  I have just finished revising, adding a dictionary to one of my blogs, which I will post immediately after I can get the 'box' away from the 'kid'.  The kid apparently is an extremist, according to the definition, usually one with extreme religious or political ideas, sentiments - who will stop at nothing to reach his goals…I'm coming back to that…

In our home there is such a thing as a 'black box'…this 'box' (for short) is not the black box recorder on airplanes, no, it's the 'black box' otherwise known as 'wifi' of which most ppl who have one, it's sufficient to give them broadband, internet access, or whatever…so they can enjoy unlimited connectivity, at least that's what I thought. I apologize profusely - my ignorance of internet technology runs long and deep… kind of the 'China Wall' of ignorance in our home...

Enter, 'kid' no 1. He enjoys playing cd's/ games on the p.c. which his father generously 'loans' him until he is old enough to afford his own, in which case he'll be adult enough to have other things to do…like, oh I don't know, things that guys do, as a religious young man (hopefully), getting a part-time job while he's studying in University…

…problem arises…the 'wifi' has another box to help it, a helper…called the 'beige box'.  Black boxes (like ours) are vertical, thin from one view, from another view a lot wider (still only 5? Inches).The beige box is vertically challenged (apparently a joke I've stolen. If I get sued, I plead no 'mens rea', which means -  I don't know, it's not me, somebody else stole my joke before I used it…or in Latin, prove it!) This short flat, somewhat smaller other-colored 'box' makes a network between the p.c. in the 'kid's' room to a laptop in an unnamed person's bedroom, which is shared by a few ppl at the moment…the bed and the bedroom are shared… the laptop has a username, which is really stupid, like it knows it exists to begin with, so someone called it 'Toshiba' which is, how original? Anyway, our home has doors and in between the doors there is space, some floor, and a few meters of electrical wiring, part of the "matrix" I guess. If I tried to remove any of it and couldn't replace wire A where wire B should go, then you know, some things understandably feel lost; but we also have printer and laptop battery competing for space in the "ac. power" which are always moaning about something, like "low battery"…other ppl/wires that feel 'left out' complain about being "disconnected", etc. I've read some of these complaints by other users…basically I can't wrap my head around most of the jargon, or the explanations in any of the help articles/blogs…let K worry about it!   

…not getting any place with this…my freedom of speech is seriously being curtailed here, by 'kid' no 1...by the time 'older brother' no 1, the numero Uno, shows up for afternoon post- lunch/school's-over before-dinner- break…and wants to munch in front of the p.c. which will quickly turn into 'war of the networks' in our tiny abode, mostly a war of words, but then things sometimes get nasty…which has led to problems with the laptop, which with all its emotional problems cannot handle another stressful situation coming from the boys' room… she goes,”mmbbzzttt”. Toshiba is on sleep, may be narcoleptic, hmmm…how often does it happen, you wonder?…almost as often as big brother comes, takes the main network cable away, and another time, literally pulled too much on one of the cables (an extension) running at the time, under the door as well as through the space between the doorframe and the door to desktop, quickly and painfully cut some wiring, which resulted in the same loss of network connection …so only one person, or at least one computer with several ppl watching illegal downloaded stuff IS SATISFIED while I have to wait for a minimum 3 hours until the kids mafia feel placated enough to return to me my 'black box', my "dream box" (which I'll call it from now on).This family problem, which can be quite divisive along, children to children, parent to children, parent to parent lines, reminds me of  a song  called, "good fences make good neighbours" from the late 80's - 90's? A onetime famous boy band stole the name, I guess, from a poem by Tennyson? I can see a metaphor here, the network cables, the discord, the "wall of China", it's all beginning to make sense…I can see a wall, not the wall of China, it's not there, another wall, much taller probably than the Wall of China, also very long…it runs between homes, through homes! It goes on and on, running through the land, separating families…like the "matrix" in my home, sowing fear and discord, leaving pain and hurt, ruining their lives, disrupting life, separating families - some whose homes have literally been split down the middle. It's in Palestine; the wall is simply called "the Wall". 

 'Toshiba' is doing much better these days, I have devised a schedule, not really written in blood, but which might stop the wrong that the poor laptop, as well as 'kid no 1' has been feeling these days. Thus I explain that extremism is not always religious or political; by definition it IS "getting what you want by hurting another opposing person, group, or point of view"

"…and me", as all good stories go, "I'll be walking into the sunset", huh?

I'll be FINISHING UP this writing before you can say "blog". *

DICTIONARY

Mens rea: a judicial (term)/legalese, from the Latin; lawyers use it to mean, "my client is innocent because he 'didn't mean to' do the act/ crime"…but if the judge and/or jury believe otherwise then the defendant is found guilty (anyway). This happens a lot when circumstantial evidence is in play.

Fundamentalist: "the practice of following very strictly the basic rules     and teachings of any religion…" 

*THE END                     

Comments

Diamond Draw - 17/10/2009 5:19:39 PM

The Berlin wall is a better metaphor than the Wall of China, which was built to keep out marauders and its enemies