Appealing to
“feminism,” the Merriam-Webster’s 2017 word of the year, Rhue quotes Mahmood
that the American fashion industry “wrongfully affirms that a woman’s influence
must only lay within her appeal and physical features.” Mahmood’s Veiled Beaut is a “complete line of
stylish hijabs and a full-blown humanitarian effort.”
But feminism
as defined by Merriam Webster’s dictionary, “the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and
economic equality to men,” is
the antithesis of what burkas and hijabs represent.
If appeal
and physical features were not important in a woman’s influence, then why
bother to make stylish burkas and hijabs, and why bother to use heavy makeup?
For the fashion-conscious
western women, it is hard to imagine the hijab and the burka, a tent-like item
of clothing that conceals any human shape, as stylish.
Western women
cannot understand how a burka is sold as an expression of modesty when in some
Muslim countries women are forced to wear it, beaten or jailed if they are seen
or caught in public without a burka and a hijab. Even foreign female dignitaries
who visit Muslim countries are expected to wear a hijab in public.
We see
clothing in the Western world as a way to cover our bodies for warmth in winter
and for coolness in summer. We have
uniforms but these are hardly designed to conceal the human form. Some clothes
are stylish, some are just practical; some are too revealing and others cover
more. Some are odd, some are inappropriate, some more modest, and some are creative.
People wear what they like and are comfortable in, not what theocrats order
them to.
Often nuns’
habits are compared to wearing burkas and hijabs but the comparison is absurd. Nuns
wear habits because they want to serve God and this is their way of doing it.
Nobody forces them to put on a habit or lashes them in public if they don’t.
Creating “stylish
hijabs” and “kimonos” (I thought kimonos were Japanese), Rhue explains that “through
these products, Mahmood hopes to shift the paradigm on how the world sees female
empowerment and social justice.” So liberals now equate female empowerment and
social justice with colorful burkas and hijabs with tassels and other
decorative embroidery.
Seriously?
Wearing a burka and a hijab is female empowerment and social justice? On what
planet is being whipped, jailed, and beaten for not wearing a hijab or a burka
in public female empowerment? Is it social justice that Muslim women are
considered half a human in a court of law? And how is that expressed in a
tent-like item of clothing which they are forced to wear?
Seeing the
dearth of products for the American Muslim market seeded Mahmood’s idea to
target Muslim-American women and their needs.
Do we have a
Christian-American market and Christian-American women needs? We do because
this country, despite of what liberals tell us, was founded and populated by
Christian Americans. But, unlike liberals, we don’t like to hyphenate people;
we refer to all our citizens as Americans regardless of religion, race, and
sex.
Rhue
describes how Mahmood “went to great lengths to find a manufacturer with high
safety standards and ethical treatment of employees.” Who knew that American
manufacturers did not have safety standards or ethical treatment of their
employees?
Mahmood “selflessly”
donates 10 percent of Veiled Beaut’s annual profits to Helping Hand, “an
organization that feeds, clothes, shelters, and educates orphans in Jordan.”
Sounds like a generous humanitarian cause. “Islamic finance is based on the
profit-sharing principle and requires investment in ethical causes or projects.”
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