Wednesday, June 25, 2008

UnIslamic Muslim?

Well, the thing is, I can no longer stand male chauvinist stupid remarks, hiding under their own interpretation of Islam, which to me is nothing Islamic, but just polemic,
Muslim men always got away, putting the blame on women, scroll down, you'll see what I mean. duh...

KB council bans lipstick, high heels

KOTA BARU: Muslim women employees working here are forbidden to wear lipstick and high-heeled shoes to work.

This directive is contained in a municipal council circular dated May 25 and signed by its president Shafie Ismail, which has been distributed to business premises here.

A check, however, found that only a few tenants had received the circular this week.

The circular stated that the directive, targeted at Muslim women employees working in food outlets and other business premises, was issued to prevent incidents like rape and illicit sex as well as to safeguard the morals and dignity of Muslim women in Kelantan.

It stated that Muslim women were forbidden to wear thick make-up, bright coloured lipstick and high-heeled shoes which made a tapping sound.

Those who insisted on wearing high-heeled shoes should choose those with rubber soles.

Attempts to contact Shafie for clarification were futile.

The directive on the wearing of lipstick and high-heeled shoes are in addition to the wearing of scarves, which should cover the chest and not be of transparent material, blouses with long sleeves, which were long and loose, as well as socks.

Those who do not adhere to the regulation can be fined up to RM500. – Bernama

whats next? forbidding them to shower, because from male chauvinist point of view, smelling good is sexually appealing as well I guess
uhh

p.s. probably he didn't meant to be sexist, but the problem is most of us Muslim thinks like that, its a problem of mindset which I am not sure where it came from.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

i was pissed off as well when i first heard the of the statement - i am a girl and i definitely love the 'dressing up' bits of being a woman, but hell, mainstream media is as usual trying to give bad images of the opposition. i gave that news a benefit of doubt, and start checking on the web for the story from the other sides.

It is not banning dear, it is just encouragement. no one will be punished for wearing make up or high heels - the staffs are just encouraged to not wear thick make ups and noisy, killer heels. light make up is all right. I think this is part of the 'education' method - telling people on what is favoured, but it is up to them to choose.

dear, if you read all those women mags - e.g. my fave CLEO you will see that these mags are telling you how to do make up and dress up to seduce men to make sure that these men remembers you. all those words i've been reading for years..most of them are directed towards that objective. you can see it from the commercial as well - shampoo, moisturizer, lipstick, even deodorants seem to be produced in order to attract men. i'm tired of that kind of slavery - it produces women who keep looking for compliments from the opposite sex for them to have high-esteem on themselves.

it is good that someone is trying to break the rules. Yeah, those feminists might not dress tom impress, but most of these naive girls are.

check this reports btw

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/84984

H said...

well, thanks, the news certainly had been manipulated a bit, but the thing is, the blame has always been placed on the women. They ignorantly simplify complex stuff, preaching, women is some kind of raw meat that need to be covered so that it wont stimulate any hungry male--> surprisingly they refer the male to human! doesn't that give some kind of green light for men to act silly on women.

i know somehow human has been degraded in these kind of magazine, but thats a diff issue, its not only women, men are also exploited nowadays, sexual exploitation is an easy way of marketing, thus i regard ths a diff issue,

my problem is imposition of the so called 'islamic morale on muslims'.
even the law to impose hijab on women to me is not right

Taufik said...

Well, I don't see any problem with discouraging people from wearing lipstick and high-heels. Unless of course if you can enlighten me as to what benefits those things bring to a woman? (Since I am not a woman, I wouldn't really know).

The questions of freedom is another different matter: I am not here to debate whether we should or shouldn't ban this and that. I am asking, what's the problem with feeling irk about lipsticks and high-heels? I think it's no rocket science that a modest woman shouldn't seduce others, and unless high-heels are comfortable and gives good support to the ankle, I am totally at lost here...

I don't think it's about culture either. For example during victorian age at England, a woman who shows her heels are considered a 'loose woman' during that time. Maybe you can call it male chauvanism, but it's the typical outlook of most traditional society - societies that understand the meaning of haya' (modesty).

I beg to differ too that this is an issue about 'interpretation of Islam.' I can't imagine Aisyah r.a. wearing those things, erm lipstick in public??? Can you? (I've pointed out that it's not about culture either if you wanna say owh that is for such and such society).

I think what's more important is to understand the maqasid (higher objectives) of certain rulings. Or not we get people wearing hijab juat as a fashion statement, and in fact they hold hands with their boyfriends in public while wearing them... I'm not blaming the women here (yes it's the guy who holds the girl's hand is at fault), but what I am saying is, if following Islamic rulings regarding the attire are reduced to just following them like robots and avoiding social stigma, then the real objectives behind those rulings are lost.

We want a society that has a good sense of haya' (modesty): that is the main objective of most Islam's rulings regarding women attire. So the question is, do lipsticks and high-heels fit into the picture? You be the judge. Well, we live in a society where most people wear hijab, but they embrace the hedonistic culture: They flirt and they go dating, I'd say, "Hello lipstick and high heels."

So please do not counter my argument with male chauvinism, because that is not the point here... It's just like if I say Jew is this and that and suddenly someone say I am anti-semitic out of the blue... My point is, what is the real purpose of modest dressing as issued by Islam and do lipsticks and high heels fit into the picture? We are not on a business of condemning people to fire here...

Regarding imposing 'Islamic moral', I would argue on the lowest common denominator theory: http://caliph.wordpress.com/2006/04/26/q-a-comment-on-public-morality/

Sorry if I said anything that transgress erm, anything at all. Peace =D

Taufik said...

Let me copy and past here:-

Question:

How do you really define public indecency in a pluralistic society such as malaysia?

Answer:

The opinion at our website is that the rules for public indecency should be consistent with sharia. Hugging and kissing in public is not more or less indecent now than it has always been, only the feelings of the public as to how wrong it is perceived to be has changed due to the influences of secular materialism and Western cultural decadence. Human opinion does not determine right and wrong, only the Word of Allah can do that.

Basically there are two options, the lowest common denominator and the highest common denominator. The lowest common denominator would be according to the acceptable limits of the decadent Western culture derived from secular materialism; the highest common denominator would be according to the limits of the civilized Muslim culture derived from the sharia of Islam. This should not be presented as an issue of religion, it is a matter of high cultural morality versus low cultural morality. The non-Muslims in Malaysian society have as much to gain from the highest level of cultural morality as do the Muslims. We should always aspire to the highest and reject the lowest.

(http://caliph.wordpress.com/2006/04/26/q-a-comment-on-public-morality/)

H said...

Thanks Taufik,
quoting from you
"I am asking, what's the problem with feeling irk about lipsticks and high-heels? I think it's no rocket science that a modest woman shouldn't seduce others"
thats the thing that makes me irk, sorry to say, but its not rocket science to interpret that you had suggested that women wearing lipstick and high heels meant to seduce others

when you compare during victorian age, that was the time when women are regarded as no better than men, did u meant that is bad? so why when MPKB suggesting the same thing u feels it is alright?

...i am totally lost here...

Taufik said...

Good point. That's why I asked: "Unless of course if you can enlighten me as to what benefits those things [lipsticks and high heels] bring to a woman?" So if you can say high heels are actually comfortable or lipstick protects the lips or something along that line, then I will drop the 'seducing charge.'

Well, let's just put it this way: I just think if a society doesn't rely on flirting, dating, etcetera for courtship, there is no need to really dress to impress or put on heavy make ups etcetera. Unfortunately I think flirting, dating, etcetera are not right - spiritual-wise and rational-wise. You can read my article 'Why Not Dating Dulu Baru Kahwin' to understand my view: http://kakiblog.com/2007/06/09/why-not-dating-dulu-baru-kahwin/

To simplify, the West, which embrace romantic passion for courtship has a 60% divorce rate, so that's not the way. Of course people don't wear lipstick just to attract the opposite gender. Like, I don't wear my Tommy Hillfinger jeans, Armani glasses, and Nevada shirt or whatever just to woe girls 24/7 too. But I have to admit that since I am a modern person who live in a modern society (I can't escape from that), part of the reason I strut those things around are to put up with social expectations.

If women can do away with their lipsticks, I can do away with my punk hair too. Of course you can't give a ruling that punk hair is haram or whatever. To me, this is just a manifestation of spiritual crisis that the ummah is facing. We regard religion as robotic rituals, but we fail to understand the ruh (core) of the message.

So it's about 'zuhudness', and I feel we shouldn't feel irk about attaining zuhudness; in fact, we should aspire for it, if the beauty of Islam is to be truly embodied by the ummah again.

I must admit that I'm pretty traditional (thinking-wise) and I am not a big fan of modernity. So yeah, I support MPKB encouragement of those things. And I feel a bit uncomfortable when muslims think these things are ok, because I think they miss the whole point of 'lowering the gaze' command for both guys and girls in Islam.

Well, after all, most muslim women close to me do wear those things, but I wish they understand my stance.

H said...

Sorry Taufik,
I really dont get you. Lots of contradiction in your arguments and I dont have time to elaborate.
Just a question to ask ourselves, Why the blame is always on women, I think Anything can be sexual if you want to look at it sexually (fullstop)