WE ARE HEROES

permutationofninjas:

theconnotationsofdisaster:

afratesfaye-xo:

mhmm.

Logic win

This is all about choice, though, and the reasoning behind the choice. If a Muslim woman is choosing to wear the hijab/niqab/burqa because that’s what she wants to do, that’s totally reasonable. If a Muslim woman is “choosing” to wear it because she fears punishment or ostracism if she does not, that’s not reasonable at all. If a Muslim woman is “choosing” to wear it because she believes her religion demands it (which it doesn’t, by the way), that is at least questionable in the same way a Christian woman’s decision to follow what the Bible says on similar matters would be considered questionable.
Of course, while hundreds of years ago a Christian woman might have been pressured to take up the habit, this is effectively unheard of today so it can be accepted that most if not all nuns are such purely by their own choice, and people aren’t raised from birth with the expectation that they’ll become a nun.
This also doesn’t take into account socialization. Even a choice made in complete freedom is affected (for example, among other things) by how a person was raised. The case of a woman who converts to Islam as a university student, having been raised outside the culture and religion is very different from the case of a woman who has never known anything else, and who literally from birth has had the correct “choice” to make drilled into her….even if she has the full power and freedom to say “no” we have to question whether she’s truly speaking for herself or just repeating the “yes”es of others. Can we fault the children of Westboro Baptist for their bigotry, when it’s all they’ve ever known?
The key to all of this is in the difference between choice and “choice,” that is to say whether a choice is truly made freely. If made freely, out of a personal view of modesty in the absence of coercion and with compensation for the influence of socialization, it’s a choice people have the full right and privilege to make. I have nothing against modesty, whatever that actually means. For some people, it’s in language, for some, in dress, for some, in how they display or do not display wealth. People should not be shamed for displaying modesty, but in the same way they should not necessarily be shamed for not doing so. This begs a question, though: would those people objecting to the idea of showing what we’ll term “sexual modesty” have a problem with someone displaying ostentatious wealth? If so, that’s hypocrisy, plain and simple.
We should respect people’s choices, but before we accede to them we must first question whether they were made freely, because a choice that is not free is no choice at all.

theconnotationsofdisaster:

afratesfaye-xo:

mhmm.

Logic win

This is all about choice, though, and the reasoning behind the choice. If a Muslim woman is choosing to wear the hijab/niqab/burqa because that’s what she wants to do, that’s totally reasonable. If a Muslim woman is “choosing” to wear it because she fears punishment or ostracism if she does not, that’s not reasonable at all. If a Muslim woman is “choosing” to wear it because she believes her religion demands it (which it doesn’t, by the way), that is at least questionable in the same way a Christian woman’s decision to follow what the Bible says on similar matters would be considered questionable.

Of course, while hundreds of years ago a Christian woman might have been pressured to take up the habit, this is effectively unheard of today so it can be accepted that most if not all nuns are such purely by their own choice, and people aren’t raised from birth with the expectation that they’ll become a nun.

This also doesn’t take into account socialization. Even a choice made in complete freedom is affected (for example, among other things) by how a person was raised. The case of a woman who converts to Islam as a university student, having been raised outside the culture and religion is very different from the case of a woman who has never known anything else, and who literally from birth has had the correct “choice” to make drilled into her….even if she has the full power and freedom to say “no” we have to question whether she’s truly speaking for herself or just repeating the “yes”es of others. Can we fault the children of Westboro Baptist for their bigotry, when it’s all they’ve ever known?

The key to all of this is in the difference between choice and “choice,” that is to say whether a choice is truly made freely. If made freely, out of a personal view of modesty in the absence of coercion and with compensation for the influence of socialization, it’s a choice people have the full right and privilege to make. I have nothing against modesty, whatever that actually means. For some people, it’s in language, for some, in dress, for some, in how they display or do not display wealth. People should not be shamed for displaying modesty, but in the same way they should not necessarily be shamed for not doing so. This begs a question, though: would those people objecting to the idea of showing what we’ll term “sexual modesty” have a problem with someone displaying ostentatious wealth? If so, that’s hypocrisy, plain and simple.

We should respect people’s choices, but before we accede to them we must first question whether they were made freely, because a choice that is not free is no choice at all.