The Veil and Womens Behavior - Essay Example

The Veil and Women’s Behavior Clothing represents one of the most potent artifacts that depict culture and social norms. It is not merely a material of necessity but instead a way by which people use to in order to determine what needs to be covered and revealed. The use and choice of dress that individuals wear, hence, are both culturally and socially sensitive and are closely regulated, directly and indirectly, consciously and subconsciously. Laird explained that dressing is a culturally constructed pattern of behavior, which is used and manipulated to express aspects of their identity and worldview (181). There are no universally accepted standards that govern people’s mode of dressing and the norms it entails. However, according to Gottlieb, variations include restraint of sexual passion and protection of one’s chastity (367). There are numerous other motivations and causations but the fact remains that dressing is socially conditioned in order to affect and enforce certain behaviors. This is excellently depicted in the case of Muslim women. Clothing and The Quran The way Muslim women dress is strongly influenced by religious rules. The fundamental principle can be found in the Quran, which prescribes dress requirements for both men and women. This is important because the Islamic text functions as the code of ethics of Islamic societies and that it, certainly, is the basis of the norms by which Muslims live by. Therefore, while the text merely advises, they were closely followed across the Islamic world. Sura 24, 31-32, specifically prescribes the use of adornments for women. To quote: They shall not reveal any parts of their bodies, except that which necessary. They shall cover their chests, and shall not relax this code in the presence of their husbands, their fathers, the fathers of their husbands, their sons, their brothers, the sons of their brothers, other women, the male servants or employees whose sexual drive has been nullified, or the children who have not reached puberty (Sura 24:31). The above text has different interpretations from different Islamic communities. However, it set the standards by which women dress themselves by explicitly stating the rationale behind the rule. This is the reason why women in Muslim countries wore the veil. This piece of clothing depicts all that this paper is interested about. Its usage is typified by several cultural connotations that is why it influences the way women behave and act. The Veil The veil or hijab is the answer to the requirement of covering women’s body up to an acceptable degree. This latter element to the rule gave Sura 24: 31 slightly different interpretations across the Muslim world, which resulted to the variations in how the veil is worn. But the fact remains that the veil became a cultural tool to depict and enforce what is considered ideal behavior in women. Numerous scholars have explained this theme and one may be sure that several interpretations were also posited. Gabriel cited some of the most important of these. He cited to important schools. The first is the Islamic perspective wherein women are being protected and supposedly “liberated” because the veil allows them to determine and be reminded of the importance of certain ideal behavior such as piety, honor, modesty and the concept of guarding morality (4). This is the ideal principle as espoused by the core Islamic belief system on women. Many Islamic women choose to wear the veil on their own accord. In a survey, for example, it was found that 9 out of 10 women in all age groups in Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan approved of the Islamic dress code norm (Hassan 191). The other school explains that the veil became a tool for Islamic communities to isolate women and restrict them from participating in the public sphere. Both of these schools have valid arguments, but what is significant is the way they both highlight how the veil can impact behavior through the sheer symbolisms and norms it represents. Taking the view of the Islamic scholars, the veil teaches women to act morally upright. It cultivates a behavioral system that favors restraint and the ideal female identity. To put this in perspective, imagine when a Muslim woman wears the hijab. By doing so, there is the given connotation that what she is wearing is a mantle of religious import, which could give her a sense of holiness, pride in her beliefs, a call for respect, a sense of isolation and identity, among others. This, of course, may be different in other cases because oppressive communities impose the hijab in the most extreme and fanatical reasons basing on the twisted Quranic prescriptions. For example, the Taliban made women wear the burka in a systematic drive to exact submission and to degrade their status as humans. There is also the case of the Purdah, a veiling used in Pakistan in order to convey spatial segregation and social invisibility (Laird 181). This is the face of the veil or veiling that the other critical school mostly sees. Here, women – through the hijab or its variations such as the burka – are being conditioned to act according to Islamic ideals and various other reasons such as the political, economic and other cultural variables unique to Islamic communities. The argument is that the veil violates women’s rights by restricting their movements – through isolation and segregation - and depriving them freedom and equality. An interesting discourse on this theme has been undertaken by El-Solh and Mabro who cited how the veil depicted the relations of men and women in Islamic society. He pointed to the concept of the code of honor and shame, which supposedly govern such relationship, explaining that honor is mostly seen as the men’s responsibility and shame as the women’s (8). The division, according to the author, is anchored on the fact that honor is actively achieved while shame is passively defended (8). The veil became an inherent variable in this equation because it addresses the issue of female sexuality, which emerged as a value that needs to be defended and controlled. The modern case of veiling, especially in progressive Islamic society, represents a slightly different picture. As more and more women are given rights to the point of being treated as equals, veils start to represent different set of ideals and connotations that impact the way the modern Muslim women behaves in both private and public spheres. According to Laird, the veil in some Muslim communities came to serve as markers of class, ethnic and sectarian identity, including political and religious affinity (180). Conclusion The way women dress in Islamic societies underscores how clothing are used to manipulate, espouse and perpetuate values, norms and cultural identity. That is why it is a potent artifact that influences female behavior. The veil or veiling for Muslim women demonstrated this argument excellently. It is not only considered as the ideal clothing for women, but also represents pressure points that condition women’s actions. In some Islamic societies, the veil reminds women to act according to Islamic ideals while, in others; the veil reinforces the women’s passive identity. As a marker for variables of some Muslim communities, the veil also prescribe behavior as it is used to market class, ethnicity, identity and other political, economic and cultural factors. There are differences in the way Islamic dressing and veiling for women are interpreted. But the fact remains that each of the arguments in these interpretations illustrate how the piece of clothing prescribes, imposes, reminds, “liberates”, and suggests how Muslim women should act, think and live their lives. Works Cited Primary Source Quran. Dr. Rashad Khalifa (trans.) Saratoga, CA: United Community of Submitters. Secondary Source El-Solh, Camillia and Mabro, Judy. Muslim womens choices: religious belief and social reality. Oxford: Berg Publishers, Ltd., 1994. Gabriel, Theodore and Hannan, Rabiha. Islam and the Veil: Theoretical and Regional Contexts. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011. Gottlieb, Roger. Liberating faith: religious voices for justice, peace, and ecological wisdom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Hassan, Riaz. Inside Muslim Minds. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2008. Laird, Kathleen. Whose Islam? Pakistani womens political action groups speak out. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest LLC, 2007. Read More