Zainab Bint Younus: Don’t speak for Muslim women. Speak to us

The Muslim Salafist feminist perspective on the niqab:

Muslim women who wear niqab aren’t some kind of scary “other.” We are Canadian women, as intelligent, vivacious, outspoken, and empowered as every other Canadian woman. I, for one, was raised in Canada; my childhood is complete with hiking, Tim Hortons, organic maple syrup, and hanging out at the mall with my friends (and golly, wouldn’t you believe it, my niqab didn’t do anything to stop my raucous laughter?).

The niqab isn’t a symbol of our “regressive understanding of the world,” but rather, it is primarily an act of worship to God, a symbol of identity, and finally, a conscious choice to not engage in the overwhelming, toxic environment of hypersexualization that cheapens men, women and sexuality by turning people into commodities and objects stripped of humanity.

While she has a point that Jon Kay should have spoken to niqabi women (or read the CCMW report Study dispels stereotypes about Ontario women who wear niqabs), Kay’s point in terms of the impact of the niqab on integration, and how it is perceived, is largely correct. And Younus is silent on the degree to which she interacts with others; her website suggests, as is her right, that her main focus is with respect to debates among Muslims, rather than broader Canadian issues. And her comment on the “toxic environment” illustrates an equal intolerant attitude to the one she condemns.

Zainab Bint Younus: Don’t speak for Muslim women. Speak to us | National Post.