DA BONEYARD

I'm here to tell ya'll once and for all, the hijab is oppressive.

skirtonfire:

EDIT: I think it’s more accurate to say that the hijab is a symbol of oppression.

The hijab ‘debate’ is messy and annoying and I try to avoid it at all costs. You’ve got your “hijab is oppressive” folk in one corner (this group includes radical feminists and right wingers who only really care about getting at Islam, among other people) and you have everyone else in another corner. This larger group consists of Muslims who claim that the hijab is indeed empowering and white culturally relativist liberal women who say that the hijab is no different than Western women covering up their tits. What gives?

Time and time again we hear about how the hijab liberates women from sexual objectification. I don’t think that’s true. The hijab objectifies women, just in a different way than the Western media does, for instance. The purpose of the hijab is to cover a woman up so she isn’t supposedly seen as a sexual object. Islam goes about this task by completely desexualizing the Muslim woman (covering her up from head to toe). Humans are sexual beings, and by desexualizing a person, you’re also dehumanizing and objectifying her. It can even be argued that the hijab in fact oversexualizes the Muslim woman’s body. Also, by covering women up, you are making every part of her body (besides the face and hands) sexual in some way. The hijab also puts great importance on the woman’s body, thus drawing attention even if the goal is to do otherwise. The Muslim woman is judged and valued on her sexuality (or lack thereof).

And why aren’t men required to wear hijab? Is it because women don’t have sexual desires and aren’t expected to look at men sexually? Why is it the woman’s responsibility to deflect attention away from herself? Can’t men control themselves, or are they wildly sexual, like Islam and patriachy would like us to believe? What’s wrong with sexual attention and sex anyways? Just some questions Muslims might want to ask themselves.

Raunch culture (the hypersexualization of women) and the hijab (the desexualization of women) may seem like polar opposites but they’re really just two sides of the same coin—-men trying to control women’s sexuality and serving it for their own good.

cha-ching

There was a great Joan Scott book about the hijab. The main thrust of the book wasn’t that it wasn’t inherently a tool of oppressing women, which I have no idea about because I am honestly really not that up to speed on eastern feminisms (I mean, I read Uma Narayan that one time I guess?). The main thrust of the book was not ‘the veil is the non-oppressive option,’ the main thrust of the book was ‘French institutions oppress women and Muslims by restricting the hijab under the guise of a false secularism.’

One of the great historical trends that pops up again and again and again is that women never, ever, ever get a good break (c.f. biological determinism and its modern crock-of-shit pseudoscience, evolutionary psychology). The hijab and the bullshit over it in Western countries is just another great example.

Sounds like a lot of bros on the Internet made asses out of themselves today about that clearly sexist Super Bowl ad, huh?

edit: seriously guys, come the fuck on. I didn’t even become my dad and yell at the broadcast when Tim Tebow came on and displayed some Oedipus bullshit on national TV, but I yelled at the TV when the dude was like ‘FUCK YOU BITCH I’M GONNA GET THIS CAR AND YOU CAN’T DO SHIT ABOUT IT BECAUSE I GOT THE CHECKBOOK, ALSO FUCK YOUR MOM’.

Whatever man, true ‘til death.

LOL @ RENDIT

Why can't we all just agree to throw snowballs at Mike Milbury?

rendit:

I fail to see how this relates to either buses or rest-stops.

This is something we can all enjoy.

Every time I watch a game on NBC it reminds me how good we have it in DC with Joe B and Mullet Craig as our play-by-play callers.

SIDNEY CROSBY IS THE BURGER KING

rendit:

OH MY GOD, THE “BOOS” THEY TASTE SO GOOD.

The Catbus Prediction for this game: Pens get another goal, Mike Knuble rips off Brooks Orpik’s head and eats it in retaliation right there on the ice, remainder of game is cancelled