Joshua+Block



Note: I got my revised question to look nicer by formatting it in a text box in Pages, then using the application called Grab to take a screen shot of it. Then I opened this TIFF file in Preview and did "save as" as a JPEG file. FInally I clicked on the button on the wiki toolbar to insert an image and I uploaded the JPEG. Then I double clicked on it to insert it into the wiki.

My introductory paragraph:


 * Many religious people believe that women should cover their faces and/or bodies in public. It is unclear whether women do this by choice or whether they are responding to social forces. Women may benefit from covering up or they may lose parts of their identity and be seen as less than full humans or citizens as a result. This brochure will help you understand the basis for some of these beliefs and inform you about different responses to beliefs relating to female modesty.**


 * __Islam__

The sacred book of Islam, the Koran (also spelled Qur'an), states that:**

(My analysis)


 * Notice that this section of the Koran addresses both men and women and that the expectation and the reward for them is the same. Here guidelines about behavior and sex are identical regardless of one's gender. Yet we all know that religious Muslims dress differently according to their gender and that females are expected to dress more modestly than men.**


 * Many refer to the following passage from the Koran as the basis for this belief:**

**In this passage the hijab is described as something that is proper and that it can protect women from molestation. This seems to imply that men would not be able to control themselves if women's heads were not covered and at the same time women would not be able to defend themselves. In many ways this seems to be sexist towards both men and women. At the same time statistics about sexual harassment and violence against women around the world are overwhelming. "According to the website of the National Organization Against Women, "232,960 women in the U.S. were raped or sexually assaulted in 2006. That's more than 600 women every day" (http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html).

So what is the answer? When religious doctrine demands that females dress modestly are they being oppressed or are they being protected? One Muslim woman says that, "It is an error of judgment to think that a Muslim woman covers herself because she is a private possession of her husband. In fact, she preserves her dignity and refuses to be possessed by strangers." http://www.albalagh.net/women/hijab.shtml#veil She is clearly comfortable with covering herself and views it as a way to navigate her world with the respect that she would not receive if she were not covered.

And what about the many female Muslims who choose not to cover themselves? Overall it seems that the only safe thing to say is that the words of the Koran have many different meanings for Muslims. There are certainly those who are empowered and there are those who are subjugated and it does not seem possible to point to one specific cause of either.**


 * Works Cited**

"WHAT THE HOLY QUR'AN AND TRADITIONS SAY ABOUT WOMAN AND SOCIAL LIFE." AL-BALAGH FOUNDATION, Web. 25 Oct 2009. .