We all know that we learn best through personal experiences. So, let’s start this piece with not one, nor two, but three very personal stories so that the readers can fathom my point easily.
The first story is about my mother. Although she prays five times a day and reads the Quran regularly, she doesn’t keep herself wrapped in hijab, niqab or abaya- the kind of dresses that we see young women wearing everywhere. My mother always wears a saree like a true Bengali woman, but this doesn’t mean you may call her a renegade who has lost her religion. She also covers herself, with the extended part of her saree, exactly in the way Islam has told women to cover themselves, which is wrapping one’s head and bosom with a piece of cloth, not necessarily the fashionable clothing that more and more young women are adopting with the passing of time.
Wearing a saree and maintaining religious decrees at the same time has been a conscious choice of my mother for a very long time, and looking at her will never allow you to think that Bengali culture and Islam cannot cohabitate, that there is always a clash going on between them. My mother is a true example of how a woman in this country can be both a Bengali and a Muslim, in the simplest way possible.
The second story is about my younger sister. Although my mother wears a saree and covers herself with it, she has not imposed this practice on her child for once since my sister’s birth. While at home, my sister prefers to be uncovered, wearing just normal dresses. But when she goes out, she covers herself properly with a Burqa so that mischievous boys lurking around every corner on the street may not put their gazes at her or inflict any harm on her.
At home, my sister is totally independent about what she might wear, and when she is out, she covers herself consciously for her own good, not forcibly or bowing to any pressure. In this instance too, my sister has followed the path of my mother by practicing modern Bengali culture at home and choosing to follow religious injunctions for outsiders. Looking at my sister will also give you a clear picture about how to maintain culture and religion side by side and not create conflicts between them.
The last example is very personal and also really interesting, as this story involves me directly. It’s about my wife, who has shown such a rebellious character in recent times that I find it hard to describe her experiences through words.
My wife has gone against both the Bengali culture and Islamic injunctions in an utter display of rebellion, from an angst held deep inside of her heart due to injustices done to her by every kind of men who had surrounded her in the past. The first thing she did was cut her hair short, making her an oddball in a society where people still romance about long hair of women, write poetry about it and can’t imagine any woman not having it.
As my mother was freed from all kinds of patriarchal bondage through my father’s aloofness about her dresses, she herself never imposed any religious injunctions on her daughter, who is also quite independent in choosing her attire.
The next thing my wife did was letting go of her hijab, just because she did not feel like wearing them from the core of her heart. When I had married her, she used to pray five times a day and recite the Quran daily, like my mother. But she gave them up as the time went by, only because some events in her life made her feel like performing religious decrees was not relevant to what she was feeling inside.
This does not mean my wife has launched a crusade against the society and the religion she belongs to. This simply means that she is not feeling like maintaining societal or religious obligations at the moment, and she will return to her usual self when she feels like it.
My father never forced my mother to cover herself, pray or recite the holy book. In my 28 years of life, I have never seen my father buy a hijab or burqa for my mother. Instead, wearing religious attire or doing religious duties was my mother’s conscious choice. As my mother was freed from all kinds of patriarchal bondage through my father’s aloofness about her dresses, she herself never imposed any religious injunctions on her daughter, who is also quite independent in choosing her attire. Both the mother and the daughter have been shielded against patriarchal menace quite well, they do what they do based solely on their heart’s calling, not based on the description given by the men in their lives.
And as of my wife, I have never questioned any of her rebellious decisions. To be frank, I liked her in the first place due to her being a renegade in a society full of women muted by the men in their lives. I liked my wife’s short hair, I loved her when she was wearing a hijab and loved her more when I saw her without it. I never asked her why she has given up the religious attire and questioned her when will she restart wearing them.
As a husband, I have given my wife full freedom to choose what she might wear, not because I am a feminist but because to truly love and respect a woman means giving her the space she requires for breathing, for living her life to the fullest.
I don’t know if this writing will be considered as an op-ed or not, but as I have said at the beginning, this is a very personal piece, and the personification has been committed consciously so that the readers may see how women should be handled, what respecting and loving a woman looks like, and how almost every woman in our country has been fighting against patriarchal norms and men’s obsession over women’s dresses, which begets crimes like rape, molestation and other forms of sexual offences when left unchecked.
It’s high time for our men to grow up. Read this piece and learn from me, kids!
Muhammad A. Bashed is the operational editor at Muktipotro
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