Being a part of a Muslim university .... females in black,grey robes are now a familiar sight. It really didn’t seem right in the start…..felt they were repressed.
Later, in the girls common room when I saw those beautiful luminescent faces, relaxing, offering prayers….. thought it was better they were covered in burquas masked from preying eyes……nazar hi lag jaati un khoobsoorat chehro ko!
Many a trivial things in life have inspired me, but burkha simply was a nice revelation(pun intended).
Burqas, now seem synonymous to me with empowerment of muslim women,clearly as I too once thought buqas represented the women as the weaker/repressed section of the society.
Its a little strange that this university introduced me to the different facets of the burqa,as its a part of a Islamic religion and society.
Burqas gives these females the ease of working,studying with their non-muslim counterparts-shoulder to shoulder.
Great ...isnt it….atleast it acquaints us with the ideals of real women power, instead of assertation of the so called "liberation" through low waist jeans & tops that are too tight to give an audience a idea of the female anatomy!
Though it gives the wearer some security, as on one hand, they cannot be recognized on the street,but in the same process they lose their identity,coz those who wear a burqa have no faces.They cannot be seen.I felt this way they are deprived of not just individuality, but identity.
The woman with no face is deprived of her personhood. Imagine men wearing burqas.It's immediately obvious that what they would have lost are their identities.
However I also agree that, at the end of the day.....the burqa should not be forced,it should only be a personal choice,a symbol of the female authority. As long as women choose traditional robes of some sort, there seems no reason to object, even if we disagree with the ideologies underlying that choice.
Also as a friend remarked once, how this symbol of once female domination, is now a seen as a sign of women arrogance too, because the male bastion is derived of sighting the beautiful face of those illuminated eyes inside it....funny no!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I find your post a bit intriguing. You think burque is a sign of womans empowerment, at the same time you think it leads to loss of identity for a woman.
I think burqua gives a sense of security to woman, but at the cost of her individuality.
It all depends on what the women wearing the purdah think about the whole thing.
Do THEY wear it as a sign of empowerment or are they just following tradition?
Or are they following tradition and pretending to be empowered?
Post a Comment