This book by Katherine Bullock is basically telling us about the experience of Muslim women who wears hijab does not being reflected in Western belief which things that they are being oppressed. According to the writer, there is a problem in the method of studying Muslim women as they are studied by using the Orientalism and neo-Orientalism approach. The West believe that hijab is traditional and backward. However, modernity does not mean that women should not wear their hijab.
Colonialism Theory
During the era of European Colonization of the Middle East in the nineteenth century, The European perceived Muslim women as they were oppressed by their culture. The hijab became the center of attention. Not only the European, the native elites also believed that they themselves were uncivilized and their women were oppressed by the reason they felt for their betterment, they should follow the Western ideology. Uncovering was seen to be the starting point to improve their society. The idea that the hijab is oppressive came from the Western’s main objective which is to dominate the Muslim world. Any argument that emphasized hijab as a sign of oppression is actually originated from Orientalist and colonial discourse about the hijab.
According to Colonialism theory, the Western need to show their power and superiority to the native population in order for them to control and maintain the colonialism. This is because, without power, they are hopeless and the colonialism will disappear. One way to show their superiority and power over the native population is by spreading their religious teaching and belief to all parts of the world, especially Muslim world. They believe that by spreading their teaching, they can establish their power more on others. Thus, they spread the idea that revealing some parts of their body help in developing their country as well as their country. They also made the idea that hijab was a symbol of oppression as Muslim women cannot express themselves freely and properly.
Feminism Theory
People in the West does not consider women wearing hijab as women and even at the worst situation, they do not even perceive women wearing a hijab as a human being. This is due to the reason that people believe Islam is a terrorist religion in which Muslim practice terrorism in their daily life by killing and torturing people from other religion without valid reason. The truth, we know that Islam is not a terrorist religion as it practices peace and equity in its teaching. The effect of the Western belief can be seen on women in which women is being oppressed by other people from other religion as they believed that Muslims are bad. They rarely oppress Muslim men as Muslim men always wear the same thing as non-Muslim men should wear but for Muslim women, they can be easily identified due to their hijab. Even after being oppressed by other people, no one will help them including all the West feminist movement. This is because, as mentioned earlier, they do not perceive Muslim women as women.
Muslim women are viewed as being oppressed by other religion due to the reason mentioned above. They believe that Islam forces its believers to wear hijab at anywhere and anytime. The truth, Islam never forces its believers to wear hijab and Muslim women have their own rights to make their own decision. Women wear hijab only when there are unrelated men in front of them. So, they are not wearing hijab all them time. Other than that, the purpose of women wearing hijab is because they want to protect their dignity as well as to preserve their identity as devoted Muslim women. Wearing hijab does not mean that women cannot beautify and dress up. They can wear something beautiful as long as it is base on the teaching of Islam. Thus, I cannot be said that women wear hijab as they are forced to do so as hijab is a symbol of devoted Muslim as well as it does not deny feminity.
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