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Another point which was mentioned in the forum and is often overlooked is the diversity among Muslim woman’s dress. For the majority of Muslim women the distinction isn’t as simple as being veiled/unveiled. Hussein discusses her experiences in Pakistan, and their quite similar to mine with the Kashmiris I know. I mentioned above that I don’t have much experience with the hijab and I don’t – in my family and wider community there’s only 3 women who wear the hijab. However, while women don’t wear the hijab, they do veil when the situation requires them to. Most of the women, including my mother, wear shalwar kameez and cover their hair with their dupattas when they need too. Veiling and unveiling is more a continuum of experience rather than a strict dichotomy. There are women who wear hijab and women who don’t, there are some women who fall in between those two positions, some women used to wear the hijab but decided to stop, some don’t wear the hijab but want to, some who don’t at all but wear modest clothes otherwise and not all women who wear hijab do so in the same way. These sound like simple enough points to be making but its a diversity which is often overlooked in debates on women’s dress in Islam. In the end, there are no easy cookie cutter categories to slot in Muslim women. The hijab represents just one aspect of that diversity.
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I am quoting this from the piece I linked above, but I'm actually kind of curious about your thoughts about this as well. I'm also curious about the "larger picture" that is hinted at in the piece, that is highlighted by the following
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Early in the forum Hussein mentions an important point on discussions of Islam. Women are included in the discussion but are routinely sidelined to discuss only the hijab, whereas men are given the space and power to discuss everything else which affects Muslims. Krista at MMW made a similar point when reviewing a forum organised by ISNA. Another point which Hussein highlights is the obsession with the hijab. The hijab continues to be the focal point of the discussion on Islam and women’s rights especially among non-Muslims (Chesler v Wolf, anyone?) While discussion on Islamic feminism should go further than the hijab, Muslim women respond to those writers because our voices should be included within the debate. But the same issues get repeated again and again and it’s difficult to try and move beyond that discussion because so much of the focus is on the hijab. It’s something I’ve encountered here at Nuseiba – I’ve written a lot of non-hijab posts but there’s an equal amount of posts focussing on the hijab. I think I’ve discussed the hijab more on this blog than anywhere else which is a little odd for me sometimes because I don’t have that much experience with it. In the end, the constant focus on the hijab obscures the real issue: challenging the structures which perpetuate the disempowerment of women.
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I can't really comment intelligently about any of this because I barely know anything about the subject, but I'm just wanting to learn perspective about what is being touched on here, and perhaps get your thoughts about the validity about what is being said here.