For centuries, patriarchal societies presumed the authority to regulate women’s bodies in the name of morality. Today, states regulate Muslim women’s bodies in the name of freedom. The vocabulary has changed; the entitlement has survived.
The deeper problem is that the entire discussion rests upon an imaginary figure: the Muslim woman. She does not exist.
There are Muslim women - hundreds of millions of them, living across radically different societies, classes, political systems and historical experiences. A woman in Kabul is not a woman in Jakarta. A woman in Tehran is not a woman in Istanbul. A farmer in rural Morocco is not a lawyer in London.
Yet these radically different lives are repeatedly compressed into a single explanatory formula: Muslim woman, hijab, oppression. Reality is considerably less convenient.
Ok, I’ll bite. When Islamic countries condemn women to death for choosing body autonomy over religious law, that’s a problem, right?
Islamaphobia may very well be on the rise (and no offense but I was born and raised before 9/11 so it’s been here a fairly long time even before that), but by the same token, that doesn’t mean that we stop calling out condemning people to death for daring to go to school, learn to drive, or chosing not to wear Hijab. If they choose to? I’m all for it. Would fight for their right to do so. I believe in religious freedom (the freedom to choose to practice a religion). I don’t believe that this should extend to killing people or jailing them for things like being too modest or not modest enough.