More goodies from the Muslim Women Against Femen Facebook page.
A message from a sister in Birmingham to Femen…
A sign held up: You talk about FREEDOM? Then let me be free to wear my HIJAB!!
Sister from France–> “My freedom is to wear my Hijab…I don’t do anything to please people.” Hear that Femen?
A woman in full hijab holding a sign saying “I chose my hijab by myself. I don’t need women using their breasts in protest to free me. My freedom is to wear my Hijab in front of my haters. #Muslimahpride #Femen
…I don’t do anything to please people. I don’t care.
What I do is to please my Lord, mind you!
This one is really creepy. A solid black cloaked head-and-shoulders shape, with a pink checked heart superimposed, saying
Femen get dressed. My dignity is in my hijab.
Oh yes, very dignity. It’s a solid black blob!
Also very creepy. A woman in solid black from head to toe, with one naked hand held out for balance…on a skateboard. That slogan again –
Ooops, forgot to be oppressed, too busy being awesome.
Right, there’s nothing more “awesome” than a woman shrouded in black from head to toe. It’s as “awesome” as a Jew in striped prison clothes or a slave clanking chains.
That skateboard one seems especially weird to me. Dude, nobody could skateboard for shit wearing one of those things. Can’t they see that the image just undermines the message they’re trying to convey? All it illustrates is self-delusion.
Personally, I’m glad to see the word “awesome” being overused to meaninglessness.
That usually means it will get replaced in common parlance soon, and may eventually have a chance to regain its former significance. Peachy keen!
As creepy as it is seeing a bunch of women defending there own oppression, I can see why they feel defensive.
Someone can’t be oppressed if they’re on a skateboard?
Here’s some people on skateboards at a pride parade. I guess institutionalized heterosexism is gone now.
I don’t know, a picture on there has a protester with “Shoah is a hoax” painted on her chest. Takes all kinds, I guess.
It does? Yikes, I missed that one.
Did I miss the memo that protests for Amina’s freedom are made to force women not to wear a hijab?
I hear a lot of talk about “the people we are trying to help”, so I want to make one thing perfectly clear. If you are a Muslim woman who sincerely wants to live the only way that’s currently tolerated in your society, you can rest assured that you are not among the people I for one am trying to help. I will not infantilize you or deny you agency by assuming you are incapable of deciding for yourself, nor will I hold you any less responsible for the harm you are causing by keeping your oppressive, evil ideology alive.
However, just because you don’t mind living according to the dictates of your diabolical ancestors, does not give you the right to take away other peoples’ right to live differently, nor does it give you the right to prevent me from offering them my support if they want it. It’s them I am trying to help, and you will not stop me, the way you have managed to stop so many western liberals and leftist before me.
Excellent comment, Bjarte.
This is absurd. I don’t care if they want to wear the hijab. I never have. I rarely care what anyone is wearing. I do, however, care that there are women who are either being overtly coerced or covertly pressured into wearing a hijab. Just look at that picture which says, “My dignity is in my hijab.” Oh, I see. Dignity is in the hijab? Losing the hijab involves a loss of dignity? Meaning that those of us who don’t wear them don’t have dignity? That kind of attitude is not one I can accept.
I mean, I completely understand wanting to wear clothing that is less revealing than what many women are comfortable in. I understand because it’s the way I feel. But do you know what? It isn’t because my dignity is in my clothes and this makes me more dignified the more clothing I wear (and others less dignified the less clothing they wear). It’s because it’s what I want to do. It’s what makes me comfortable. It’s what makes me happy. I am not better, more classy, more dignified, more respectable, or more valuable than someone who runs around wearing almost nothing. We are the same, and that is what makes me free to wear what I wear. My freedom to wear what I want is inextricably connected to the freedom of others to wear what they want without having their value as a human being questioned.
As long as these people see a lack of a hijab is seen as a lack of dignity in a woman, for them to talk about “freedom” to wear a hijab is a misnomer. You cannot be free to wear something when your status as a human being is tied to that article of clothing. If a person’s worth is tied to a piece of clothing, there will always be coercion to wear that piece of clothing, coercion that the rest of us will oppose.
They want the “freedom” to wear a hijab? Then they need to ensure that people are free to not wear a hijab.
In Europe gingham is associated with the authentic: country-style, rustic symbolism. This is no different in America where the fabric became synonymous with cowboys, the wild west and the frontier. Gingham pretty much symbolises westernisation. So – I wonder if the veiled person with the “pink checked heart superimposed” is deliberately using this specific material as a “western” backdrop – to further enhance the dastardly Femen message…’go get dressed’… in your ‘undignified’ western ginghams, as, “my dignity lies in my hijab.” Is the ‘really creepy’ veiled person also saying: not only is your nakedness disgusting, but so too is your western style clothing?
The weirdest thing for me, is that for all the hype Femen gets, its a tiny organisation with membership measured in the dozens, that has largely been ignored by mainstream media when protesting agianst prostituion in Ukraine or disrupting porn conventions in Paris, and yet by posting silly pics on facebook/twitter mocking or denouncing femen, they are somehow sticking it western liberals. Talk about a lack of perspective.
Gingham is actualy Malay/Indonesian in origin, and was originaly striped, first sold in Europe as a fancy foreign fabric by the Dutch back in the 1600s. By the time of the Industrial revolution mills in the UK were mass producing it in checked patterns, as they were more popular at the time. Just had to throw in some fabric geekery there :p
It is unfortunate that people fighting for their identity disturbs so many of you when the world has so much more to get annoyed about(famine, poverty etc). Here you all are blogging about a culture who wants to be allowed to express their identity. I pity your triviality, more so its sad when your energy n anger should be directed at societies that have been oppressed (ie the whole of Africa, vietnam, South America) and are still paying the costs of oppression by so called first world countries (cause if we are first world we surely should know how to treat another human being). Nevertheless if an ethnic African lady told me she felt dignified n liberated in her traditional garment trust me I would not take it personally(think about why you taking these things personally) cause kudos to her for finding meaning in her life. I most definitely do NOT think she implies im not dignified cause I am wearing jeans and a top…