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Head Coverings With Masks - Page 3

post #41 of 124
9/8/08 at 3:14am
There is a woman who comes into the shop where I work very frequently and she wears Saudi niqab. She is hilariously funny and is complete "girlfriend" material. From what I can tell she wears niqab for herself and her God and not her husband. Honestly, I am jealous that her religion gives niqab as a choice. I think having that amount of privacy would be nice and taking all the judgement off your looks would be wonderful.

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post #42 of 124
9/8/08 at 3:34am
Searching around the net, I found reference to Muslim women in England and in Northern Virginia wearing metal masks, but no pictures. The description the person in N VA gave also said that they reminded her of Darth Vader. No more information than that, though.
post #43 of 124
9/8/08 at 11:42am
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...LG:en%26sa%3DN

Like that?

No, not like that... nevermind.
post #44 of 124
9/8/08 at 12:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PoppyMama View Post
There is a woman who comes into the shop where I work very frequently and she wears Saudi niqab. She is hilariously funny and is complete "girlfriend" material. From what I can tell she wears niqab for herself and her God and not her husband. Honestly, I am jealous that her religion gives niqab as a choice. I think having that amount of privacy would be nice and taking all the judgement off your looks would be wonderful.
My biggest question is, why are only women required to wear it?
post #45 of 124
9/8/08 at 12:21pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by odenata View Post
Searching around the net, I found reference to Muslim women in England and in Northern Virginia wearing metal masks, but no pictures. The description the person in N VA gave also said that they reminded her of Darth Vader. No more information than that, though.
Yes, it looks just like Darth Vader. With black veils, the face obscured, and metal mask with breathing holes, it looks just like Darth Vader.
post #46 of 124
9/8/08 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jennica View Post
My biggest question is, why are only women required to wear it?
I have wondered about that too. If being veiled frees women from being judged by their appearance, protects their privacy, and so forth, why wouldn't it be a good thing for men as well? They would protect modesty even better if both sexes wore them, since people would not be able to tell men from women.
post #47 of 124
9/8/08 at 1:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mamabadger View Post
I have wondered about that too. If being veiled frees women from being judged by their appearance, protects their privacy, and so forth, why wouldn't it be a good thing for men as well? They would protect modesty even better if both sexes wore them, since people would not be able to tell men from women.
Yeah, and if it is supposed to be a religious or spiritual thing, then why are men not required to wear them as well? That has never made sense to me.
post #48 of 124
9/8/08 at 2:46pm
I want to remind everyone to please be very careful on this topic. Respectful questions and seeking understanding are very welcome in this forum -- ridicule, dismissive sarcasm, and humor at the expense of others are very much not. Please examine your own intentions on this subject before you post. Thank you.
post #49 of 124
9/8/08 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mamabadger View Post
I have wondered about that too. If being veiled frees women from being judged by their appearance, protects their privacy, and so forth, why wouldn't it be a good thing for men as well? They would protect modesty even better if both sexes wore them, since people would not be able to tell men from women.
Questions like this, I think, tend to arise out of a culture which holds that social markers of gender should be erased to achieve some sort of equivalence between men and women to ensure that neither (but obviously particularly women) is left in an inferior position. Which is fine, but I think the hardest thing for many people, particularly women who feel they have benefited from this ideal, to understand is that this idea is not a universal truth.

While one can get into the religious arguments on the subject, in the end men and women are not the same where they choose not to be simply because they do not want to be. We want to have different roles and we want to tell one another apart. To do otherwise would be to artificially impose a means of equality for the sake of the comfort of observers moreso than participants.
post #50 of 124
9/8/08 at 3:30pm
Most Muslim men dress rather modestly as well and some wear head coverings of some type. We notice the womens concessions to modesty more because they are more divergent from modern Western fashion. There are other faiths in which the traditional garb of the men is more "attention worthy" than that of the women. That almost never gets mentioned in these discussions. Just something to think about.
post #51 of 124
9/8/08 at 3:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kama'aina mama View Post
Most Muslim men dress rather modestly as well and some wear head coverings of some type. We notice the womens concessions to modesty more because they are more divergent from modern Western fashion. There are other faiths in which the traditional garb of the men is more "attention worthy" than that of the women. That almost never gets mentioned in these discussions. Just something to think about.
What do you mean by "modestly"? Do you think that men and women typically don't dress modestly, and that Muslim men and women stand out as dressing "modestly"? I guess I never thought of an uncovered head or face as immodest, so this is a new concept for me. And I don't really see how Muslim med dress more modestly then other men?
post #52 of 124
9/8/08 at 3:48pm
I want to point out that "required" is a complicated term. Some feel they are required and some don't. Some are forced by others but it is not intended to be that way. If you do some searches here you can read about the inner work women do when they decide whether or not to wear hijab/niqab/etc. it is not cut and dry. Men also have "ideals" for how they should dress and when cultural dress is not worked into it they do tend to look more like every other man because it is more normal for men to be covered loosely and women tend to dress more body conscious.
post #53 of 124
9/8/08 at 3:59pm
Muslim men are supposed to not wear tight clothing, they should wear their t-shirts (or preferably longsleeves) longer than the bum, and the beard is also a part of the "male hijab" in islam.
post #54 of 124
9/8/08 at 4:08pm
Yeah... what poppymama said. A man in a Western style business suit or a pair of slacks and a long sleeve shirt is meeting what most Muslim men consider to be appropriate modest dress for themselves. A woman wearing many of the feminine garments comparable is not. That is not soley because the standards for women are higher but also because, while we don't generally view it that way or name it that way, it is traditional in the West for male clothing to be modest, as a general rule and for feminine clothing, at this time, to be quite immodest.

On a scale of one to ten,

10 = full burkha, face veil, etc....
8 or 9 = traditional Muslim male garments including a head covering of some kind
7 or 8 = mans three piece suit
4 or 5 = much of the clothing worn by women in the West

So it is not simply that the benchmark for modesty is higher for women, although it could be argued that it is (and there would be a counter arguement, probably... I'm not sure...) it is ALSO that the custom for modesty is higher for men than for women is higher at this time in the West... so the gap between that 7 and 9 for the man is noticeable but not huge while the gap between the 4 and the 9 or 10 for the women is quite noticeable.
post #55 of 124
9/8/08 at 4:16pm
Thread Starter 
I wear jeans and a t-shirt in the summer, and jeans and a long sleeve shirt in the winter. Would this be modest for a Muslim man? Would it be modest for a Muslim woman?
post #56 of 124
9/8/08 at 4:26pm
I dont want to say what is modest or not. In my oppinion, it is not enough for a muslimah to wear jeans and t-shirts. For a man, depends how long the t-shirt is, and how baggy the jeans are... My husband would not wear anything that shows his butt, he wears his t-shirts (or preferably longsleeves since he wants to hide his tatoos) to his thighs, and his trousers are baggy. He is not a jeans-person though, and never wears them anyway.
post #57 of 124
9/8/08 at 4:39pm
just to speak to the different cultural reference points issue...

am jewish, i live in israel, i cover all my hair with a scarf...


every.single.time. i see this thread title i think of women with scarves like mine in gas masks (ever since like 20 yrs ago the israeli gov't distributed gasmasks to all citizens).

i dont think that is what most mdcers would link to this thread title.
post #58 of 124
9/8/08 at 4:43pm
Um, the talk of men's modesty in Islam does seem to be leaving off the disparity in widely accepted religious standards for minimum coverage: for men the area from the navel to the knees, and for women all of the body save for the face, hands, and oftentimes feet. Whatever else may be preferable to be covered, whatever disagreement there may be with how much wiggle room there is in the women's standard, the fact of the sharp difference between the two minimums is something that I think can not be brushed aside by the fact of the existence of modesty requirements for both when the subject is more concern over difference than concern with modesty itself.
post #59 of 124
9/8/08 at 4:55pm
No one is brushing it aside. We are discussing the fact that in addition to that it is more noticeable when women follow religious modesty standards than when men do because of the modesty gap in Western society.
post #60 of 124
9/8/08 at 4:57pm
I think different cultures wear beautiful things..my favorite is the sari..it is just so beautiful to me. I really don't know why the mask is frightening to you but if it were to frighten your child I would do as others have already said and explain that people from different cultures and religions dress differently. I think that should be enough but if you want to continue the conversation you could talk about how throughout history people have thought of others as frightening because of how they dressed or the color of their skin or their beliefs or a disability and how some people won't be friends with others who are different and sometimes even are mean to them and get others to be mean too..but aren't we glad we are smart enough to know to find out why people are different and that we can like them because deep down we are all the same...and we wouldn't want people to not like us because we live in America or have a small house or our hair is red so we should treat others the same way. Maybe check out some books at the library on different cultures/religions.

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