inspired by lemmitors at https://lemmy.ml/post/49343381
any guy in it just for women to wear skimpier clothing should probably be investigated.
If you’re one of those people super against hijab, do a say, duckduckgo image search for “women in headscarves”. You will see many cultures represented. They aren’t all Muslim, even. Which ones are ‘bad’ and which ‘good’? Would you also ban Orthodox Christians/Jews, or Hindu women from covering their hair? Rasta women?
Type anything negative about Israel and the entire comment section is people saying how this doesn’t representat Judaism even when nobody mentioned it
But type something negative about Muslims and all the Reddit Athesists get in line to dunk on them and explain how evil they are. Gleefully discussing about publicly discriminating their clothing.
https://tariqacknickulous.substack.com/p/arabs-and-muslims-the-real-victims
Noam Chomsky highlighted this shift through his own experience as an American Jew, noting that by the 1950s antisemitism in the U.S. had been pushed underground, and Jews were gradually integrated into elite institutions. In its place emerged a new “legitimate” racism: anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias. Unlike antisemitism, which by the late 20th century had to be hidden, hostility toward Arabs and Muslims could be expressed openly in films, books, politics, and policy:
“Antisemitism is no longer a legitimate form of racism. Anti-Arab bias, is a legitimate form of racism, meaning you don’t have to hide it. In most forms of racism you have to pretend you’re not a racist, so you have to pretend ‘I’m not antisemitic, I’m not anti-Black.’ You may be, but you don’t advertise it. Anti-Arab racism, you’re allowed to advertise. This was way before September 11 […] you see it in films, in books, in attitudes, it’s just not even hidden. Nobody will come out and say, ‘I’m an anti-Arab racist,’ but it’s everywhere, and every Muslim or Arab in the country knows it.
My ultimate answer is that I feel internally conflicted and don’t know what to think anymore.
I don’t like when oppressive governments are bad to women. But I’m not super worldly so…
Got it. Religious freedom as practiced in west is great. Can we move on to more advance topics now?
What the hell are you smoking??? Try walking around with a khimar in east germany e.g.
Try wearing red in crips territory. What youre talking about isnt related to religious freedom as adopted in western cultures.
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How about the state not forcing a dresscode at all?
In fact, the more women in a country that have the ‘right’ to wear Muslim head coverings, the more likely they do not have the right not to wear them or any other human rights for that matte
Forcing a dresscode on women is human rights. You heard it here first folks
Almost every war on the planet was/is propagated by using religion to recruit its supporters and soldiers.
What no theory does to a mf
Jesus Christ do y’all come out of the woodwork for this. Blathering on about “great replacement” type shit, literally indistinguishable from the type of stuff you’d see on Fox News.
In fact, if you educated your racist ass about actual facts and history, there have been plenty of progressive Islamic societies, they just tended to get overthrown by the CIA. The more fundamentalist tendencies were promoted as more reliably anti-communist.
The notion that Western societies are in any danger whatsoever of turning to Islamic extremism is completely, laughably absurd, a racist, far-right conspiracy theory. The idea that women dressing a certain way would cause that is on par with people who say that gay people cause hurricanes.
Go back to Reddit with that shit, you are not welcome here.
Me, a hijabi, opening that thread for all of 10 seconds

I’m sure there will be well-balanced and nuanced discussion from the men of Lemmy on choice feminism and women’s oppression! I’m sure of it! /s
But it is a nuanced issue that requires consideration of multiple truths and sometimes contradicting world views.
Yes, something that the men of Lemmy are known for when it comes to discussing these types of issues. Notorious even.
Is the /s not a well known indicator of sarcasm?
we could expect more form our communities, but I know what you are saying
Oh believe me, I’m aware. I’m not the one to constantly disappoint on these topics, I’m just observing what happens here.
This topic would be much more interesting to discuss in a community with more diversity.
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Well thanks for announcing to the class that you have an opinion that you refuse to share.
Wooo, that very first mod comment on your mod log is enough for me hahaha
reason: Bothsidesing genocide
Fucking yikes, dude
Last time I tried explaining why Jews had to wear a yellow star during the Holocaust with a well balanced argumentation, my comment was deleted; so I won’t try anymore and we won’t have a discussion. I was expecting more from Lemmy
You proved my point, no discussion
Don’t you know you’re oppressed! Please call me a white knight please!
there is such an amazing video by Lady Izdihar that would be extremely relevant but I can’t find it 😔
Lady Izdihar rules.
“I can’t go outside without wearing a head covering.”
“Head coverings are now illegal.”
“Now I can’t go outside.”
This makes the world more fair and equitable.
Here’s a wild idea, instead of making clothing illegal, why don’t we make coercing people into a manner of dress illegal?
I’m having difficulty parsing this. Are you saying “we should ban religions from coercive headgear” or “we shouldn’t ban clothing”? Cause those are contradictory positions and I’m not certain what you’re trying to say (which is probably entirely on me)
We shouldn’t police women’s clothing.
Ban anyone for coercing someone into or out of clothing.
Granted, I haven’t put a major amount of thought into the nuance, but the idea of making it a sin for some people to legally go outside is absurd.
The approach of these laws makes it so the victims of mistreatment are the ones breaking the law.
It’s like making it illegal to be homeless or illegal to have been mugged. It’s fucking outlandish.
Yeah, but that doesn’t really clarify, though. Does that mean that a woman could wear a hijab or burqa under your rule?
If they want to, yes.
My mother was undergoing some weird medical treatment that made her skin super sensitive to UV radiation. She was in full sleeves and a vest and gloves and a hat and facescarf and everything covered everywhere. I sincerely recommended to her a hijab or burqa because it would make going out easier. A couple main articles of clothing, maybe sunglasses and gloves, and she would be fine. Unfortunately the religious element of it put her off too much, but clothes are clothes.
We shouldn’t ban clothing. We should ban the coercion of anyone to wear particular clothing.
There’s no contradiction here.
Exactly. I knew a woman in college who wore hijab. Apparently in high school she didn’t, and her family always treated it as her choice. She chose it because of the racism and anti muslim mistreatment she faced making her embrace it as a fuck you to the mistreatment. It made sense to me, though it saddened me how much harassment she had faced. How she dressed wasn’t my problem, and I was always more focused on the brain under her hijab than the hair.
I dislike such cultural expressions of modesty, and I worry about cultural pressure towards them. They remind me too much of my baptist cousins. But I firmly oppose the government or society intervening in how people dress. So long as every person old enough to choose for themselves is permitted to, my opinions are my problem.
Yes we sit here in our western comfort zone judging Muslims. We think: the women shouldn’t have to cover up to avoid inflaming the sexual passions of men. The men should just control themselves! Meanwhile western women are hammered by the male gaze all day long and assaulted with sexual violence and killed all too commonly. Yet we somehow can’t imagine why a reasonable woman might actually want to cover up, and consider that safer, more freeing. And then we go and ban her cover. It’s just gob smacking blind stupid.
You say that as if covering up made a women safer and not just as much under the ‘male gaze’. Muslim women are also sexually assaulted, sometimes with the pertetrator knowing that she would face more reprecussions than he would if she complained.
I say that as if she knows better than either of us and it’s up to her.
“Who thinks we should go to war with muslim countries to protect their women?”
Hands raised
“Who thinks we should safeguard muslim women in our own country?”
Crickets
“Who thinks we should go to war with muslim countries to protect their women?”
Hands raised
“Who thinks we should go to war with Israel to protect muslim women?”
Crickets
“Who thinks we should go to war with muslim countries to protect their women?”
Hands raised
“Who thinks we should end sanctions so muslim women and their children don’t starve to death?”
Crickets
But don’t you know that being against starving the muslims of Palestine is antisemitic!?
Israel has a right to
genocide, torture & rapeself-defence!truth nuke
I highly doubt many hands would be raised.
That thread was so ew
I’ll freely own the fact that I’m a western, white, woman and can never fully understand the cultural and greater context surrounding the choice as to why a Muslim woman, or a woman of any religion, creed, race, upbringing, etc would desire to wear a piece of clothing that would to me, with my cultural and greater context, be a symbol of my oppression.
The cool part is that I don’t have to understand why she would make such a choice, to support her right to make such a choice.
If you want to support womens rights, you can’t go around trying to restrict us. If you are concerned that women who are making these choices are doing so under indoctrination, coercion, etc, then instead channel your energy into making sure they, and all women, have safe places and resources to address those things.
Absolutely this, agree 100%
It’s also ew that they pretend advertising and propaganda to change minds of muslims wouldn’t work. It totally would. You just need a good campaign specifically targeted to the patriarchs and matriarchs to make more liberal attitudes to clothing fashionable. It would totally work.
And at the same time work against the influence spreading of Saudi Arabia pushing their extremist wahabism schools. That’s where they should use the hammer.
The cool part is that I don’t have to understand why
On most social issues, this is exactly what should be going on in everyone’s head. So many people are about punishing what they don’t understand, but it almost always backfires.
If we wanted to address communitarianism and extremism in secular society we would do better than criminalizing people’s harmless religious expression.
Everyone believes they’re choosing freely, especially when they’re choosing what their culture taught them to want.
am i freely choosing to wear pants or just indoctrinated by the society i was raised in? if i moved somewhere they donald duck it would i assimilate or continue to wear pants?
i know suit guys who will dress up even if they’re not leaving the house and that’s real weird to me but it’s not muddied by being imposed on an axis of oppression or whatever.
Clothing (pants) is very much not natural and indeed only enforced by society. If one knows about various indigenous people around the world, one knows pants are not universal.
I actually, in this heat, would love not to have to wear pants or anything really. I’m naked at home all the time. However, if I went outside it’d be indecent.
That applies to literally everyone and doesn’t justify anything, men are no less or more immune, and the choice should be the one who is or would be wearing or not wearing a given piece of clothing on whether they do or don’t wear it. Neither men nor the state should be taking the agency for women to decide for themselves what to or to not wear.
At best this makes your comment unrelated, random, and pointless, as it says nothing. But we both know you are actually providing cover for the misogynist view that women shouldn’t be able to decide for themselves. It’s not exactly subtle, not even slightly, in fact it is infuriating. So please, look deep inside yourself, reflect, and STOP!
Yes you’re absolutely right, anyone of any gender should be able to wear or not wear what they want.
My point was more philosophical. It is indeed random and pointless, but I find it interesting to think of things like this. You may not find this interesting or read something misogynist into this, which was definitely far from what I meant so I’m sorry for offending you.
Please consider the context and read the room in the future, (or in this case the OP picture for which the thread is about) the time and place of such commentary also changes it’s apparent character. Water under the bridge. 🙃
The room was empty when I got here, so everyone behind me should have read the room
They are not deciding for themselves. That’s the point. Although banning is also not the solution either, I agree.
I generally wear what’s most comfortable for me. Sometimes I’ll “dress up” for stuff where it’s socially still “required” like job interviews or weddings, but even that is rare for me.
Yet you don’t wear 16th century Shakespearean clothes to work because you don’t live in 16th century England
If they were available and comfortable, I might. Where the hell am i supposed to get them?
oh my friend! Evangeline’s (the costume store in Sacramento) just reopened! I can’t speak to comfortable but I can speak to where.
I live on the east coast, so I’ll just stick to the stuff I can get locally. It’s comfortable.
Edit: Thank you, though. If I ever find myself in Sacramento, I’ll have to look the place up
I actually had a few gowns in such a design. They were very fun to wear!
You must be at a boring workplace, we have several goths and one lady who daily wears renaissance era clothing and is big on renaissance fairs and medieval combat.
If it’s not a health and safety risk, who cares. I mean flip flops and a budgie smuggler are not appropriate to wear on a factory floor.
my favorite job, favorite boss, our dress code was “if you can get here without getting arrested it’s fine”. the day i showed up dressed like i was going to the beach (because guess what i was doing at noon) the boss came back and said “okay, new rule, if i have a client coming in you need to at least have pants and shoes on”
please don’t talk like you know me
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Lol that thread is a cesspool but I’m glad in classic lemmy fashion, its not shadow banned or locked.
I don’t want to add more fuel to the flames but it’s a case example of why I don’t take the EU seriously when it comes to free speech laws or claims of “secularity”.
France and UK were out here blocking Bosnia from arming itself during the genocide carried out by Serbia because they didn’t want a muslim country to exist in Europe.
feddit banned luigi and pro gaza content because it’s apparently illegal to discuss those topics in Germany, as if an internet forum talking about foreign news needs to be regulated by the government.
It’s not as bad as reddit, but there are some seriously god awful comments on that post trying to justify poorly disguised ethnic filtering laws.
It’s like making it illegal for women to wear makeup and thinking you “freeing them of cultural values originating from patriarchy.”
I personally would like governments to NOT force a specific gender to look a specific way.
I think all adult women should be able to wear whatever they want.
What a rabbithole to go down.
I agree no one should have the right tell someone else what to wear, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a tool of oppression in other cultures
Brown people culture bad amiright?
I absolutely did not say that, nor do I believe that in the slightest
You have no idea about other cultural norms and attires. Is the western man being oppressed when he has to wear a tie and suit to the office in order to keep his job? Do we free him from this oppression by ostracizing him or making it illegal for wearing a tie?
Is the western man being oppressed when he has to wear a tie and suit to the office in order to keep his job?
Suits are expensive and unnecessary. Some people (i.e. autistic) might have sensory difficulties when they wear them. If someone is vegan, most suits aren’t so it further restricts what they can wear and they have to worry more about differences in look due to the stricter dress code. Fortunately, being restricted only while working certain jobs isn’t as bad as being restricted in all public spaces.
Do we free him from this oppression by ostracizing him or making it illegal for wearing a tie?
No
But is he being oppressed?
Yes
Alright! So we agree that ostracizing people or making it illegal for them to wear what they wear is not going to lead to a more free society?
I already said that
Then I don’t know what you were trying to say with your original comment other than agreeing with me?
You know, this is a fair point, but there’s a few differences.
Not all jobs require a suit, there’s a lot of choice (you could get through life never wearing one). Its also only required during working hours. Not around the clock. Women have been killed over these expectations. Its not the same.
Women have been killed over these expectations
Is that really what you think muslims support?? Can you not conceive of people wanting to wear a hijab?? And even if not, why is it so hard to accept that it’s just a fact when they say it??
I can conceive of an individual woman wanting to wear one. However every woman I have known who wears one does because she must if she is to follow her religion and her society’s norms and her family’s dictates which would indicate that she doesn’t actually have the choice not to. I tend to believe that Muslim woman have a choice when they choose not to wear one because they often face abuse from other Muslims.
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“they” are just a gray mass to you aren’t they? “They” clearly aren’t individuals in your eyes but a cudgel to wield against west asians under the pretense of human rights. Hundreds of millions of women all the same to you because they arent european…
Oh, sorry. Let me try that again. Hijab wearing women are forced to wear hijabs because their religion calls for them to be killed if they’re not wearing a hijab, some hijab wearing women would like to wear a hijab but other hijab wearing women would prefer not too, although they’re still forced to if they would like to stay alive.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/iranian-singer-sentenced-74-lashes-191112823.html
Hijab wearing women are forced to wear hijabs because their religion calls for them to be killed if they’re not wearing a hijab
this is just wrong.
Americans scrapped Roe vs Wade but think bikini = equality




















