Is Hijab Always A Symbol of Women's Oppression?

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Some women look fantastic in hijab, which is a garment worn around the head, concealing a woman's hair and neck, while her facial features are emphasized. They look really lovely.

In the West, hijab is regarded as a symbol of women's oppression in Islamic countries but it might also be thought of as part of a woman's beauty. The Quran doesn't see it that way. It is a symbol of modesty.

So what's your opinion on hijab?

Think it makes more sense in a desert with heat and sand storms. Also we don't like berka or whatever it's called where you can only see Their eyes. I think it's more the mandating they wear it that the west doesn't like . We take pride in personal freedom, well we use to anyways.

Depends on how important you view its origin to be. As far as I understand it, the practice is of Babylonian origin, and was very much a mark of ownership by the husband over however many wives he could afford to have. Now, the practice lived on after the Babylonians and, just like female circumcision, it was picked up by Islam from the various tribal customs in the various regions where Islam ruled (female circumcision was actually picked up from Africa when Islam spread there, but the idea is the same), and adopted because it lined up well with Islamic conceptions of modesty.

Now, you will often hear that the women wear them of their own free will, but after being told that they will be raped if an unrelated man so much as glances at their hair, and in some places being under direct threat by the Virtue Police (who may legally beat, imprison AND rape them), I feel safe in the view that this claim carries a few coercive caveats.

Also, I've heard the full on Burqha being defended by an Imam by describing how women have invisible sex beams that they shoot from their eyes at unsuspecting men, who cannot help themselves but to rape the woman in question. With beliefs like this, would you take the risk?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali described her initial reaction to removing her veil for the first time in a western society as surprise that no one instantly tried to rape her.

You often see girls as young as 7 or 8 wear the veils, again supposedly out of their free will. I've no doubt they want to wear it, for the same reason clothes stores sell those creepy g-string bikinis for little kids; it's what the adult women wear. While one is certainly more modest than the other, I personally don't feel that anyone should worry about protecting the modesty of an 8 year old girl; there isn't really anything to see, and the mystification of female bodies have no doubt contributed to the creepy practice of child brides.

Not too long ago, there was a debacle with feminists opting to wear the veil in some sort of sympathy campaign against a ban on religious symbols in public. I think this was in France. Many muslim women will say they wear the veil independent of their faith, and that the Quran actually doesn't mandate it, yet will still claim religious persecution in the face of such a ban. While I don't really support that ban, I look with some scepsis on women who claim to, out of their own free will, wear a garment with that much coercion tied to it.

Only where it's someone's excuse for oppression, otherwise why act so xenolhobic about them? That could be the Taliban or the TSA any day lately, though I'm leaning towards the former. People can relax traditions and still act themselves...

What somebody does on their own fruition isn't oppression, women in America are not required to wear hijab but in other countries you can be killed for not wearing one. So if somebody wants to wear one here, that's fine so long as it isn't done by coercion.

It is oppression when women are forced to wear it. That said, there are many Muslim American women who wear the hijab by choice, as a symbol of religious and cultural expression.

We had a coworker ,a cute college student from Morocco, who always wore a hajib. It actually made her look rather seductive-at least to me it did ( she had brains as well as exotic looks , but unfortunately also had a husband-but I digress). So I agree with the OP that the hajib can be a good fashion statement.