Is Islam a form of oppression against women?

[Spiritual Warfare]

Why do women wear scarves and why are they seen as beautiful? Why do women want to wear scarves? My friend asked a Muslim girl why she wore a scarf, and she became upset and said, "This is my pride," and all her friends attacked my friend, saying, "Shut your mouth and stop asking stupid questions!" What do you think about this and religion Islam in general?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

 

[Pro24]

2 hours ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

Why do women wear scarves and why are they seen as beautiful? Why do women want to wear scarves? My friend asked a Muslim girl why she wore a scarf, and she became upset and said, "This is my pride," and all her friends attacked my friend, saying, "Shut your mouth and stop asking stupid questions!" What do you think about this and religion Islam in general?

Religion is full of shit. 

[Basman]

Women are generally oppressed until at least SD stage Orange.

In my understanding, under SD Stage Blue sexuality is repressed under strict guidelines and women are made to conceal their feminine features as a way to preserve marriage and purity culture (sexually attractive women create lust in men and undermine monogamy as defined by their religion). Generally, its seen as more problematic when a woman is sexually deviant than a man as well because it creates uncertainty who's the child's father (and is culturally shameful in context).

Edited October 11 by Basman

[Atb210201]

The logic behind it is protecting themselves from inappropriate lustful male gazes.

Edited October 11 by Atb210201

[zazen]

When you say scarf do you mean head scarf or shawl / loose cloth for the body? Women have worn scarves even predating Islam and across different cultures and continents. The main motivation is for modesty. Modesty isn't oppression, in fact its a shield against potential oppression and harassment done at the hands of men who let nature get the better of them. It's to avoid objectification and the wrong kind of attention.

A distinction can be made between sexy and beautiful. Being sexy invites lust - the wrong kind of predatory attention, whilst beauty doesn't. Though, extreme absolutist interpretation of religion or traditions go so far as to even hide beauty which is taking things to the extreme. The perception of modesty as oppressive is when that modesty is enforced rather than chosen voluntarily.

We can easily understand why modesty is important around the body, which is the most visibly provocative form, but the reasoning for covering the hair in particular isn't so obvious. It used to be a status symbol to be veiled or cover the hair because the hair was seen as a symbol of beauty, fertility and health. To cover it was to take pride in the fact that it holds a special place in their life, it was like the virtue signalling of the day.

There is also a spiritual/esoteric reasoning. I read in some of Osho's work once regarding this also - that the covering the of the head is a way to conserve energy leaking out from it, and to accumulate energy at the crown chakra to help one ascend in their journey. It's interesting that this occurs across cultures and continents - somehow, they seem to come upon the same practices despite not being able to communicate or interact back in the day. So there may be something there also.

Regarding Islam and women:

 

 

 

Edited October 11 by zazen

[PurpleTree]

9 minutes ago, zazen said:

There is also a spiritual/esoteric reasoning. I read in some of Osho's work once regarding this also - that the covering the of the head is a way to conserve energy leaking out from it, and to accumulate energy at the crown chakra to help one ascend in their journey. It's interesting that this occurs across cultures and continents -

 

 

 

Nice. So that’s why Tim Pool (the Russian tool) is always wearing a beanie.

[Ero]

The hijab and burka is required per the Salafi school of Sunni Islam, and is similar to the one practiced by the Taliban (Deobandi). The Balkans have large Muslim populations (Bosnia, Albania, Turkey) which practice the Hanafi School of Sunni Islam, which does not require women to cover themselves. 

Be careful not to make gross oversimplifications without first at least trying to familiarize yourself with the history and interpretations of Islam. Shows general laziness.  

Edited October 11 by Ero

[PurpleTree]

2 minutes ago, Ero said:

The hijab and burka is required per the Salafi school of Sunni Islam, and is similar to the one practiced by the Taliban (Deobandi). The Balkans have large Muslim populations (Bosnia, Albania, Turkey) which practice the Hanafi School of Sunni Islam, which does not require women to cover themselves.  

An Albanian Muslim weed buddy (back in the days)

once told me that they say about Arabs (Saudis etc) they veil their whole body but don’t wear underwear.

[Ero]

1 minute ago, PurpleTree said:

An Albanian Muslim weed buddy (back in the days) once told me that they say about Arabs (Saudis etc) they veil their whole body but don’t wear underwear.

Hah, you will be surprised how true that is. Reminds me of Andrew Shulz's show in Saudi Arabia joking about precisely this. 

[Basman]

4 minutes ago, Ero said:

The hijab and burka is required per the Salafi school of Sunni Islam, and is similar to the one practiced by the Taliban (Deobandi). The Balkans have large Muslim populations (Bosnia, Albania, Turkey) which practice the Hanafi School of Sunni Islam, which does not require women to cover themselves. 

Be careful not to make gross oversimplifications without first at least trying to familiarize yourself with the history and interpretations of Islam. Shows general laziness.  

Different religious groups have varying degrees of feminine repression, but it is correct to say that generally women in SD Stage Blue communities have to "cover up". You'll never see a devote Muslim woman in a sling bikini. That is not a gross oversimplification.

[Ero]

1 minute ago, Basman said:

Different religious groups have varying degrees of feminine repression, but it is correct to say that generally women in SD Stage Blue communities have to "cover up". You'll never see a devote Muslim woman in a sling bikini. That is not a gross oversimplification.

You not gonna see a "devote Christian" in sling bikini. Of course it's up to the spiral stage. Pull up to an Albanian beach and you will see many muslim women in thongs. That range of cognitive development under the same framework (be it christian or muslim or whatever else) is precisely why it is indeed a gross oversimplification. 

[Basman]

9 minutes ago, Ero said:

You not gonna see a "devote Christian" in sling bikini. Of course it's up to the spiral stage. Pull up to an Albanian beach and you will see many muslim women in thongs. That range of cognitive development under the same framework (be it christian or muslim or whatever else) is precisely why it is indeed a gross oversimplification. 

Those women are not solid SD Stage Blue. It is still correct to say SD Stage Blue religion is oppressive of women. Your not giving the OP the benefit of the doubt because your are defensive of your religion and getting hung up on the Islam angle.

Also, share pictures or your lying.

[Ero]

Just now, Basman said:

Those women are not solid SD Stage Blue. It is still correct to say SD Stage Blue religion is oppressive of women. Your not giving the OP the benefit of the doubt because your are defensive of your religion and getting hung up on the Islam angle.

Also, share pictures or your lying.

I was raised Eastern Orthodox and not Muslim, so watch your projections. One doesn't need to be from a particular religion to see the clear biases. I was raised in the Balkans, so I am describing to you first-hand experience.

Secondly, observe that OP is talking about Islam specifically and not SD Blue stage in general, which makes his general framing islamophobic, building on top of gross oversimplifications, as I pointed out above. Suppression of women is not a feature of islam, but of a specific school of islam, which can be categorized by highly fundamentalist/ stage Blue dynamics. But that doesn't encapsulate the entirety of religion. The Catholic Church was involved with the slave trade. Does that make all christians colonialists? Step out of the bubble. 

[PurpleTree]

11 minutes ago, Ero said:

I was raised Eastern Orthodox and not Muslim, so watch your projections. One doesn't need to be from a particular religion to see the clear biases. I was raised in the Balkans, so I am describing to you first-hand experience.

Secondly, observe that OP is talking about Islam specifically and not SD Blue stage in general, which makes his general framing islamophobic, building on top of gross oversimplifications, as I pointed out above. Suppression of women is not a feature of islam, but of a specific school of islam, which can be categorized by highly fundamentalist/ stage Blue dynamics. But that doesn't encapsulate the entirety of religion. The Catholic Church was involved with the slave trade. Does that make all christians colonialists? Step out of the bubble. 

What is Islamophobia exactly in your definition?

[Ero]

The definition is "Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general"

Strawmanning and gross oversimplification are prejudices by definition "preconceived, biased, or irrational attitude or belief about a person or group, often based on their perceived characteristics"

Refusal to engage with facts that I just provided about the history and interpretation of Islam and instead assuming that I am muslim (in fact the opposite, my family fled from genocide perpetuated by muslims) demonstrates hostility and refusal to accept arguments do not have to come from a personal identification - definition of irrational. 

Should I keep going?

[PurpleTree]

1 minute ago, Ero said:

The definition is "Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general"

Strawmanning and gross oversimplification are prejudices by definition "preconceived, biased, or irrational attitude or belief about a person or group, often based on their perceived characteristics"

Refusal to engage with facts that I just provided about the history and interpretation of Islam and instead assuming that I am muslim (in fact the opposite, my family fled from genocide perpetuated by muslims) demonstrates hostility and refusal to accept arguments do not have to come from a personal identification - definition of irrational. 

Should I keep going?

So when i think that immigration (mostly Muslim refugees ) from the middle East and some other places recently to Western Europe Isn’t so great. Does it make me an Islamophobe?

[Ero]

Just now, PurpleTree said:

So when i think that immigration (mostly Muslim refugees ) from the middle East and some other places recently to Western Europe Isn’t so great. Does it make me an Islamophobe?

Wouldn't say so. I myself do not support the free immigration policy of the EU, it clearly wasn't sustainable. Now they are in fact paying Turkey to keep them there: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-eu-is-helping-turkey-forcibly-deport-migrants-to-syria-and-afghanistan/, so the even EU agrees having seen the consequences. 

The point was more so towards the framing of OP and was not meant as a character attribution, rather pointing to the simple origin of the bias - irrational and highly biased ideas about a group of people. 

[Scholar]

The ideological tenants of both Islam and Christianity have ingrained in them various forms of irrational discrminatory attitudes.

The degree to which this will manifest in a group of religious believers is how seriously they take their religion. But don't be confused, even moderate Christians and Muslims perpetuate highly discriminatory attitudes, mostly in regards to things society largely still holds biases against. And in many cases these biases stem from historical religious dogma in the first place.

Edited October 11 by Scholar

[Ero]

8 minutes ago, Scholar said:

The degree to which this will manifest in a group of religious believers is how seriously they take their religion.

Pretty much. Hanafism and Salafism are essentially that - interpretations of the degree to which one should take the Quran literally. You can also have pretty spiritual versions of the religions, such as Sufism and Eastern Orthodox Mysticism. Both of those have very little to do with rules and more with spiritual practices. 

Edited October 11 by Ero