Regularly there is debate in the media and especially social media concerning Muslim female dressing or the hijab. The latest round was sparked when the principal of a high school in north-eastern France sent a pupil home for wearing a long skirt.
The principal and school authorities considered the pupil’s long skirt an “ostentatious” sign of religious belief and expelled her.
The French Ministry of Education defended the decision based on the 2004 law outlawing all “ostentatious” religious symbols, even though this student was not wearing any visible religious sign.
The absurdity of such an action by the French authorities was more telling when one considers that Fashion Style Magazine lists the maxi skirt as a 2015 “hot fashion trend”.
The French and other similar countries would argue that citizens living in those societies should assimilate and adapt to their norms.
As such there is an emphasis on having Muslim women living in these societies adapt their dress code. A sign of a mature and stable democratic society is that the society is more open and tolerant to all that live in it.
Our country displays this wonderful tolerant attitude where we accept people for who they are, their cultures, their background and their spiritual affiliation. We have women who occupy various offices and positions with no focus on whether they are wearing a scarf, a short skirt or a veil. In Cape Town we even find Muslim women wearing the headscarf and shortened skirts similar to Catholic nuns.
Several proponents of women’s rights put forward the generalised argument that Muslim women are oppressed in part due to the way they dress. Some argue that these women would be emancipated if they uncovered their hair and wore shorter skirts.
Others argue that in order for them to be included in society they have to adapt to the society they live in. We are given the notion that the hijab is an extremist and sexist concept.
On the other hand there are those that will provide the examples of Elham Al-Qasimi, the first Emirati woman to reach the North Pole in 2005, or Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian woman in space, or Eqbal Al-Assaad, the Palestinian who was the youngest qualified female doctor in the world, as argument that Muslim women are capable of achieving anything even while wearing a headscarf.
Dictating to women that they should uncover their hair and wear shorter skirts is as extremist as dictating that they should cover their hair and wear longer skirts. Personally I don’t understand this fascination about how women dress. If society is to advance the course of women, then we must be bold enough to evaluate their worth on the same basis as men and not on the basis of their dressing.
The onslaught in the media and marketing sells to us the concept that only when a woman is a size zero, wearing the latest fashion and sporting a look conceived by high-profile plastic surgeons, is she considered successful. It would seem that the ultimate judge of a woman’s appeal is men themselves. To me, that in its own is designed to subjugate women. One does not see the same emphasis on how men dress.
Dress sense and decisions to cover or uncover should be seen as very personal choices. Some would say that they are the extension of the personality and character of the person. We should respect that.
Women, irrespective of their religion of persuasion, have an important role to play in society. By maligning them due to their dress code, we rob not only them but society as a whole.
In the instance of the French pupil, she has now been denied the opportunity of an education, and the ability to become a fully-fledged and contributing member of French society purely because of her dressing. It is as insane, if not more, as preventing women in Saudi Arabia from driving their cars.
In societies where women have been given access to education, it is not only woman who become beneficiaries of that education but the entire nation. Women, as mothers, shape the minds and thoughts of the next generation of leaders.
They bear a great responsibility and we owe them every opportunity to equip themselves for that role. If we do not provide them with education, imagine the type of leaders we shall be choosing for ourselves in the future.
If the world is truly concerned with the emancipation and empowerment of women, then provide them with education and the opportunity to assert themselves. How they dress is immaterial.
Patel has written in his personal capacity and does not represent the view of any organisation.