hi okay if you don’t know any hijabis/muslims personally, you might be wondering how it “works” and im here to answer ur questions!!
Q: Do you like.. wear it all the time?? (re: do u shower in it?? do u sleep in it?? when was the last time u sAW UR OWN HAIR??? )
A: Nope! To put it simply, we wear the hijab when we are around strange men. And by strange I mean men who are not directly related to us. That means I can show my hair to women. It also means I don’t have to cover from my brother/father/uncle/grandfather/child. I would have to cover from my male cousins because you can technically marry them (note: this is only one of the reasons we cover! it’s not only to cover from possible suitors lol. Just bc I wouldn’t marry a gay man, doesn’t mean I don’t have to cover from him. The quran says to cover from men and not from women. that’s pretty broad and open for interpretation. I keep it simple for myself- I cover from all men and do not cover from any women, regardless of sexual orientation. This could differ from one hijabi to another). I also would not have to cover from my husband if I were married. Lastly, we don’t have to cover from any young boys who haven’t been “through puberty” yet. I guess it’s up to the individual to decide when that is as well.
Q: It seems kind of sexist to me that men don’t have to wear hijab, but women do…
A: Actually, men have their own hijab. (It’s not the turban you may see some men wearing, they are Sikhs, an entirely different religion.) Men have their own modest dress code to follow and are expected to follow the same rules the women do action-wise. Remember that equal does not have to mean identical. It wouldn’t make sense to ask men to cover their boobs or women to grow beards (we’ll come back to that later).
Q: I always hear about women being forced to wear it… That’s oppression and wrong.
A: I completely agree. “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion” (2/256). That’s taken directly from the Quran. Forcing someone to wear the hijab is a sin. Furthermore, many Muslims believe that hijab is not required/is only preferred/is optional. There’s a lot of interpretation involved in religion. It totally depends on the person and their own beliefs.
They way a Muslim chooses to wear their hijab also differs from person to person. Some women choose to cover their entire body. Some wear abayas (the black dress) and niqabs (the veil that covers the face). Some wear a simple scarf to cover their hair and dress “modestly” (this, again, depends on your interpretation of what modest means). Some just cover their hair. Some show a some of their hair. Some wear turbans. Some dress modestly, but don’t cover their hair. Some only wear it on certain occasions. (more here on the diff types of cover)
For men, some choose to grow beards (many believe this is just “sunnah” which means it is preferred, but not compulsory). Lots of men don’t follow the rules set for them. That can be due to personal beliefs, but I won’t deny the misogyny apparent in the Muslim culture (note: culture, not religion) probably has a lot to do with that.
Q: Do women only wear hijab for religious reasons?
A: No. I mean, that’s probably one of the most prominent reasons women choose to cover their hair, but there are many different factors. In many cultures, hijab is considered a thing of beauty. It’s a fashion statement (for Muslims, we’ll talk about cultural appropriation in a sec). It’s tradition. It’s a part of their identity. It keeps them in-tact with their religion and it identifies them as a Muslim to other Muslims. The reasons are endless, but I think you get the picture.
Q: I heard hijab is just keep men away.
A: As @angrymuslimah put so eloquently: Hijab is not to prevent men from looking at women or “protect them” from men. Hijab is not for men, or to help men control themselves – it’s for women themselves, to empower women. Men in Islam have a responsibility to lower their gaze and respect a woman no matter what she is wearing or what she looks like.
Q: Can women ever take the hijab off for safety reasons? (ie: heat exhaustion/possible attacks by islamophobes)
A: Totally! You’re obviously never supposed to compromise your health for anything, regardless of your religious beliefs. I once got asked if it would be okay for a women to remove her scarf when playing soccer in serious heat and my answer she could if she wanted to (again, she can do wtvr she wants), but playing soccer is optional. there’s a difference between wanting to play soccer and really having your life in danger. If hijabis choose to wear the hijab while playing soccer in 100 degrees, they’re badass and props to them for sticking to it even when it got hard, but that’s kind of the point of hijab. Again though, your health always comes first.
Q: I see hijabis sometimes and I want to compliment them/tell them it’s pretty, but I don’t want to be disrespectful.
A: It’s totally okay to compliment us! Please do! I live for the validation of strangers! For real, though. Just think about it this way, if you can say it to a non-hijabi and not offend her, you can probably say it to a hijabi. You can compliment anyone on their scarf regardless of where it is on their body.
Q: Can I wear the hijab if I’m not Muslim?
A: There is no specific way to wear a hijab. there is no specific fabric. We get our scarves from h&m and forever 21 like everyone else. There is nothing that identifies a hijab as a hijab except the wearer. So if you want to cover your hair for your own religious/personal reasons, you can do it! That doesn’t make it a hijab! The only thing that makes it a hijab is the wearer labeling it as a hijab. As long as you aren’t doing that, you’re not being disrespectful or appropriating our religion. (wearing it out of respect if you’re in a mosque or a predominately muslim country is also okay!)
I would however, advise against wearing it as a fashion statement. It’s not a style or accessory.
/So this got really long and I’m stopping here but I haven’t even really made a dent in the hijabi discourse. If yall have any more questions, you should ask your friendly neighborhood Muslimah! I promise, we won’t be offended, we just want yall to know the truth.
England, and from what I hear, Europe, is undergoing a heatwave.
Temperatures in the UK are around 30°C. Where I am it’s gonna hit 32°C in the next couple of hours.
To you Americans, you Australians, that’s nothing. It’s a mild day, we’re weak, whatever, I’ve heard it all, the thing is, WE AREN’T EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH THIS.
The average temperature in the UK in July is 17°C. It is in the 30’s today. We simply are not used to it. We are used to rain and sleet and hail and wind, not heat. And our heat is a damp heat. A humid heat.
Because of all the sea around us we have an extremely humid climate if it gets warm. The air literally feels heavy right now. I am struggling to cool down because the humidity is fucking with my sweat, and as a trans man, the high amounts of water in the air, combined with my binder make it difficult to breathe, and I assume a lot of asthmatic people have a similar problem.
When temperatures in the UK are like this, people die. Don’t laugh about it. It is serious. It may not seem like much to you, it may not seem warm to you, but in a similar heatwave in 2013, 760 people died.
Our infrastructure is not built to cope with this. The house I live in, for instance, was built when the Thames still used to freeze over. It was built to be warm. The walls are thick, the windows are small, some rooms don’t even have windows that open, it was built with no though to air circulation, and this is one of the most common types of home in the UK. The UK government subsidises insulation. People fill every gap in their home with stuff that will keep the heat in. And nobody – literally nobody – has aircon. A lot of businesses don’t even have it. We have no use for it 99.9% of the time. Hell, I don’t even own a desk fan or even a hand held fan.
It is very different here to where you are. And we are used to and equipped for very different things. Instead of laughing, teach us how to stay cool. Instead of making jokes or quips, make info posts, and things that will help us.
Remember, this may be an average day to you, but to us it’s a heatwave. We cannot cope. And for some, particularly children and the elderly, it’s literally a matter of life and death.
Repeating this cause there’s another heatwave going on in Europe at the moment. This is reality for us.
This is really true as a Texan who studied abroad in London. I was expecting cool weather but when I got off the plane it was actually a horrible heatwave, and had the hottest day in years. It’s awful because in Texas we have AC and it’s 100 degrees outside but it can easily be 60 inside. In London it would be like 80 degrees but with no AC and no way to ever cook down you’re guzzling water inside and taking a cold shower every so often and it’s horrible. You go outside and walk around in the heat or take public transport that is even hotter than outside bc it has no AC either and there’s ppl crammed together (the tube was the WORST). My Texan roomie and I wimped out and bought an over priced fan just bc it was so hard to sleep at night and we were showering literally like 5 times a day.
GUYS, I just learned about the heat index which calcualtes heat with relation to humidity and all that (because the more humid it is the hotter it feels), so I’mma break down how hot it is here:
In the part of England I’m in now, the temp is 33C or 91F and the humidity is 49%
That’s 41C according to the heat index, or 105.8F
It’s 105.8. We don’t have any fans or air con. I’m melting.
EAT AND REPLENISH YOUR ELECTROLYTES!!!
I work at an outdoor festival in the Virginian summer, which is also hot and humid and lacking shade. You obviously need to drink a lot, but you are sweating out salts that you ABSOLUTELY need to replace. Pickles, olives, Gatorade, pretzels, cheese, whatever you want that will replace those electrolytes and help your body hang on to the fluids you’re putting in it!
ADDITIONALLY! Ice packs are your friend. Apply them near major arteries (inner thighs, under your left armpit, etc.) for maximum efficiency. Warning signs that someone is in a bad way include: stopping sweating, going pale and clammy. When in doubt, sit someone down, get them ice, get them eating and drinking.
“Patty Jenkins worked really hard with her team to design a style of fighting that was incredibly badass, and believable. Where Batman will punch somebody in the face, and that’s effective,
that’s not how the Amazons and Diana fight. They have a disciplined
specialized, collaborative fighting style. They work together as a team,
and leverage each other’s strengths. They are mighty, they are beautiful. And as the Germans learn, this new breed of badass warrior women are deadly.”
alec: straight people r disgusting
magnus: imagine having to deal with them for centuries
alec, with tears in his eyes: im so sorry
i love how in FL cannibalism is for the most part only hinted at like ‘ohhh they have such ‘’’’’terrible table manners’’’’’’’’ if you know what i mean’ and the player character has to put in a good bit of effort to even interact with cannibals, much less eat human flesh.
and then in sunless sea its like ‘whoops im out of supplies better eat my crew haha’
listen i don’t know anything about Fallen London but you abbreviating it to FL made me think this was something happening in Florida and as someone who lives in Florida, i was prepared to believe it
