To Veil of Not to Veil
To Veil of Not To Veil Those of people that are brought up in typical western culture believe that Muslim women who wear the job symbolize the continued oppression of women in the Middle East. In “To Veil or Not To Veil” Jen’nan Ghazal and John P. Bartkowski perform a case study of different forms of identity among Muslim women in Austin Texas. This experiment delves into Muslim culture and tries to analyze both sides of the argument a primarily factual essay. The article carefully analyses both sides of the issue in an attempt to better understand what the head coverings mean for these women, and how their gender roles compare as muslim women. It appears that some people of the west fail to do before making assumptions about Middle Eastern oppression of women, many stop to ask a Muslim woman what she thinks about wearing a veil. In their case study Ghazel and Bartkowski talked to twelve veiled women and twelve unveiled women in Austin, Texas and asked them questions surrounding the controversy of the hijab. Islamic women’s motivations for veiling seem to vary dramatically. The range can be broad as expressing their strongly held conviction, to critique western culture, for strictly religious purposes, and to be viewed not just as women, but as intellectual equals. Some of verses in the Qur’an and Hadiths (Islam’s holy texts) say that women must wear to hijab to not tempt men and that to be a good Muslim woman she must conceal her body. This belief makes women overall much more modest and submissive. The Islamic religion according to the article is very much a patriarchal religious institution and some of the bureaucratic men in the society are said to see the veil as a way to keep women subservient in their society. This appears to be the central reason why unveiled women do not wear a hijab. They believe that because the head covering wasn’t originally created by Islam they shouldn’t have to wear it to achieve spiritual welfare or be considered of higher