Es infundado y vacío que las mujeres musulmanas hablen del hiyab invocando sin cesar el concepto de «elección». ¿En qué sentido alguien «elige» su ropa?

It is baseless and empty for Muslim women to talk about the hijab by endlessly invoking the concept of “choice.” In what sense does anyone “choose” his clothes?

Las mujeres occidentales creen ingenuamente que su vestuario es fruto de una elección libre e independiente; sin embargo, pese a esa creencia, la gran mayoría de las prendas que llevan, "casualmente", se ajusta a los estrechos límites de la moda vigente y a los dictados de Versace, Chanel y una interminable oferta de listas de "lo que está de moda o no" que las mujeres occidentales siguen con un taqlid fervoroso que haría parecer negligentes a los murid sufíes más escrupulosos.

Western women naively believe their wardrobes to be a function of free and independent choice, yet, despite that belief, the vast majority of garb “coincidentally” falls within the narrow bounds of current fashion and the diktats of Versace, Chanel, and an interminable supply of “hot or not” lists Western women follow with a fervent taqlid that would make the most fastidious Sufi murids seem delinquent.

Si la forma en que las mujeres de la sociedad se visten fuera una cuestión puramente de elección independiente, veríamos estilos muy variados, partes del cuerpo muy diferentes expuestas y cubiertas, fuentes muy diversas de donde obtener esas prendas, etc. Pero no vemos eso en la sociedad occidental. Vemos una uniformidad relativa en todos los aspectos. Las mujeres (y los hombres, por supuesto) tienden a vestir de forma parecida, siguiendo nociones compartidas de desnudez, nociones compartidas de lo que es apropiado, de lo que está de moda, etc. Una gran parte de esa uniformidad se debe a que la mayoría de la gente obtiene su ropa de las mismas cadenas de tiendas. Es cierto que los colores, los cortes y los tejidos pueden variar, pero se trata de los mismos temas básicos compartidos por todos, y aun así la gente tiene la impresión de que lo que viste es "por elección". En realidad, no es más que un sentido exagerado del individualismo. Claro, puede que hayas elegido el tipo de blusa que te pones, pero, en un sentido más amplio, no elegiste cubrir tu pecho. No elegiste las tiendas de tu zona. No elegiste los diseños de distribución masiva que se lanzaron a esas tiendas, etc., etc.

If the way women in society dress were purely a function of independent choice, we would see widely varying styles, widely varying parts of the body exposed and covered, widely varying sources for those clothes, etc. But we don’t see that in Western society. We see relative uniformity in every way. Women (and men, too, obviously) in society tend to dress alike, abiding by shared notions of nudity, shared notions of what is appropriate, what is fashionable, etc. A big part of the uniformity is that the majority of people get their clothes from the same retail outlet chains. Sure, colors might vary, cuts, and fabrics might vary, but it’s the same basic themes shared by all, yet people are under the impression that what they wear is “by choice.” Really, it’s nothing but an overexaggerated sense of individualism. Sure, you might have chosen the kind of blouse to wear, but, in the larger sense, you didn’t choose to cover your chest. You didn’t choose the retail stores in your area. You didn’t choose the mass distributed designs that were rolled out into those stores, etc., etc.

No matter how narrow a range of variation you give people, they will come to think of themselves as practicing agency within that narrow range. Given how obsessed Western society is with choice and individuality, this is inevitable. You have an army of women with the same yoga pants, ugly boots, black jackets, wearing the same cheap accessories, wearing the same low-quality perfume from the same mass distributors, coloring their faces with the same chemicals, in the same patterns, and telling Muslim women in hijab that they are oppressed, lack agency, lack freedom of choice, etc. And you have those same Muslim women writing op-eds, speaking out in interviews, pleading that they do indeed have a choice, just like their non-Muslim, non-veiled counterparts. GAH!

No matter how narrow a range of variation you give people, they will come to think of themselves as practicing agency within that narrow range. Given how obsessed Western society is with choice and individuality, this is inevitable. You have an army of women with the same yoga pants, ugly boots, black jackets, wearing the same cheap accessories, wearing the same low-quality perfume from the same mass distributors, coloring their faces with the same chemicals, in the same patterns, and telling Muslim women in hijab that they are oppressed, lack agency, lack freedom of choice, etc. And you have those same Muslim women writing op-eds, speaking out in interviews, pleading that they do indeed have a choice, just like their non-Muslim, non-veiled counterparts. GAH!