The veil and Muslim women’s identity: Cultural pressures and resistance to stereotyping (original) (raw)
Related papers
“Muslim Veil – A Socio-Cultural Invention: Between Misogyny, Politics and Identity”.
Abstract The veil existed as a form of women’s dress prior to the advent of Islam. At the dawn of Islam, women did not immediately wear the veil or hijab . Gradually the veil acquired the position of a religious mode of dressing for women. The veil (niqab) and hijab in traditional Islam were coverings that differentiated Muslim women from other groups, but was later misjudged by patriarchal scholars to be her seclusion and protection from the opposite sex. While wearing the hijab was quite a common practice among Muslim women today, the idea of wearing the veil since the 1970’s have become more contested. Ironically, the veil on the one hand has explained women’s experience against misogyny, political resistance and on the other hand has curtailed her civic life and sexual identity . Ultimately, the veil is intimately connected with the notions of the self, the body and community as well as different socio-cultural constructions of identity, privacy and self-determination.
To veil or not to veil? Islamic dress and control over women’s public appearance
Journal of Gender Studies
Women's public appearance is subject to ongoing debates. In many parts of the world, women have been forced to cover their body, or to uncover it, due to incompatibility with local, cultural or religious values. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between August 2016 and February 2017 in Aceh, Indonesia; the only province with a special autonomous right to implement Islamic law. This paper aims to look at how Aceh's shari'a regulates people's public appearance. The research found that Aceh's shari'a regulates women more than men and that the law has homogenized the interpretation of religious texts, which is monopolized by the government. The law endorses a unitary standard of women, into one standard model of femininity; particularly regarding their dress. Through the law, the government controls women's bodies in public and imposes cultural uniformity onto them. This paper argues that the practice of Islamic law in Aceh disseminates a narrative of western hegemony through colonial legacies and stereotypes, in an Islamic culture that is male-dominated and in which women are subjugated.
2017
While research on youth cultures in Southeast Asia has traditionally focused on crime, class, and delinquency among adolescent and young-adult males, the 21st century has seen an increase in research on the intersections between youth, religion, popular culture, media, identity, and consumption. As part of this trend, we report on an exploration of the terms hijabista and hijabster, which refer to female Muslim cultural identities centered on the nontraditional use of the hijab or Muslim headscarf. After situating the phenomena within the larger context of conservative regional politics and religion, we consider their cultural meanings in terms of mass and social media, suggesting that hijabista and hijabster cultures and identities are simultaneously hybrid and negotiated as young Muslim women, culture industries, and political and religious agents all employ a variety of strategies to shape emerging definitions. Finally, we reflexively discuss the implications of our own theoretical interests on interpretations of what it means to be a hijabista or hijabster.
Who Wears the Hijab? Predictors of Veiling in Greater Jakarta
Review of Religious Research , 2018
Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim population. In contrast to much of the Middle East, veiling in Indonesia is neither a deeply rooted cultural practice, nor it is universally practised among Muslim women. Just 30 years ago it was rare to see an Indonesian woman wearing a hijab or veil. Today, veiling has become a relatively common practice, particularly among middle-class Muslim women living in urban areas. Although statistics on the prevalence of veiling are scant, the fact of growing use of headscarves is widely accepted in the literature. This paper examines sociodemographic correlates of veiling among young women in the capital region of Indonesia. We analyse a representative sample of 1443 Muslim women aged 20–34 in Greater Jakarta in 2010. About 26% of the women surveyed wore the veil. We found a moderately strong association between veiling and other measures of religiosity, including self-reported subjective religiosity and frequency of reading religious texts. Our multivariate analysis suggests a positive association between educational attainment and the likelihood of veiling among young Muslim women. In discussing these findings, we draw upon the qualitative component of our study and the literature on Islam, gender, and modernity in Indonesia. The paper highlights the difficulty encountered examining the practice of veiling as a binary choice, and as a measure of religiosity.
Hijabistas : An Analysis of the Mediation of Malay-Muslims and Modesty
" Hijab " , or the act of veiling among Muslim women, has been noted as an increasingly common practice in recent years in Muslim-majority countries such as Turkey, Indonesia or Malaysia. Scholars argue that its more modern, hybriditized identity is emergent in progressive, multicultural societies, particularly in these Muslim-majority countries (Saleh, 2010). In Malaysian media, the hijab and its association with a modest lifestyle is usually portrayed by Muslim women who are predominantly Malay. Years of socio-political developments in the nation state made Islamic cosmopolitanism an inevitable experience for Malay-Muslim women who are predisposed to the globalization of Islam and the ongoing negotiations by the Malay elite that seek to escape conservative Malay female stereotypes amidst Malaysia's developing and multi-ethnic landscape. The current representations of the hijab offer a favourable status quo for Malay-Muslim women through marketing strategies that emphasize fashion trends and class mobility, thus disregarding the purpose of modesty in Islam altogether. This study administered a preliminary survey to explore attitudes and behaviours of female Malay-Muslim respondents towards the modern hijab in Malaysian media. In addition, interviews with media practitioners examined the construct of the modern hijab and its role in creating desire among the Malay-Muslim audience. The study found that the present phenomena is integrated with transnational flows of global media that commodified modesty to benefit marketers. The hijab is seen to have proliferated in today's media enhancing the desire for Malay-Muslim media audiences to participate in the modern hijab movement and increase wider acceptance of the hijab.