I'm Sorry

@EarthlingWise All together religion wasn't men's best invention 😉

@SW-User it's one of those solutions that actually create a lot of new problems.

It will change, no doubt about that but it will be a hard battle, to them and to us as well.
Let´s hope common sense wins in the end.

I live in a Muslim society, I used to be Muslim and I can tell you how it feels from the inside - Many women will tell you we chose to dress like this, to fade into black, some of these women who wear Niqab etc.. will tell you that and many of them probably aren't lying (they are but don't realise it), the thing is that; in Muslim Societies, women are conditioned from childhood to "choose" a certain way of dressing, by seeing everyone around them from close family members dressing as such, by the society, by schools and of course by religious teachings that convince them that they are being good women this way, so they are tricked into thinking that this is what they chose for themselves because no one actually forced them into it, well simply no one did because they didn't need to, the society did the work for them, but what these women don't really realise is that they are enjoying "freedom to choose the clothes they wear" simply because they are already choosing the clothes that comply with the rules, if they try to break the rules, this right will directly be taken away.

You see, I used to wear Hijab and I truly chose it for myself, meaning that if I were to be completely on my own I'd still wear it, that was during a period in my life when I really believed in the teachings of religion, during that time I was absolutely convinced that I have the right to choose my clothing and that the west is full of lies and bullshit about Muslim women being oppressed, but I realised that I didn't have that right when my thinking started to change a bit (I was still a very devoted Muslim but got a bit more open minded) here I faced issues with people surrounding me and realised; wait a minute, I thought it was me who chose to wear it and so it is me who should choose to take it off without any troubles.(it was a bit of a shock).

I did a little experiment (i was still a very devoted Muslim), Blackberries and BBM were very popular at the time, what I did is that I started a trend on BBM, where I asked a question and had people sending them to each other with their answers so that the thread gets circulated and it eventually reached me several times back from various people whom I didn't originally send it to (it was a successful trend that I am proud of lol), anyhow, the question was about a the religious rule you'd break if you weren't to be punished for (and I took GOOD CARE of wording the question in such a respectful way that would even imply more religious devotion than curiosity), I included several options; Drinking alcohol, eating pork etc AND Taking off Hijab/freedom of clothing) and guess what? 99% of women chose that they take off their Hijab.

It is sad that women don't even realise that they don't have that kind of freedom, but I can tell you that women in the ME are waking up more with every passing day and are starting to realise it.

@BittersweetPotato Thank you for sharing this experience 🙂