Ok then Luke, you wear one
A new sculpture believed to be the first of its kind in the world will be unveiled next month to celebrate women who wear hijabs.
The Strength of the Hijab was designed by renowned sculptor Luke Perry and will be installed in the Smethwick area of Birmingham in October. It is believed to be the first sculpture in the world of a woman wearing the head covering, worn by many Muslim women.
The sculpture is five metres tall and weighs around a tonne.
It’s not a “head covering” that is “worn by many Muslim women.” It’s a bandage that wraps the hair and neck leaving only the middle of the face exposed, and it is imposed on many Muslim women, often by violence. Some women wear it “voluntarily” but only if you consider a religious obligation “voluntary.” Many are very much forced to wear it, and many are beaten or killed for refusing. It’s beyond revolting for a man in a semi-secular country to create a statue celebrating the damn thing. Will he next do a statue celebrating female genital mutilation? Just imagine what that will look like.
Mr Perry said: “The Strength of the Hijab is a piece which represents women who wear hijabs of the Islamic faith, and it’s really there because it’s such an underrepresented part of our community, but such an important one…“It’s something which people feel very strongly about, identify with, [and] they feel happy about and comfortable with.”
Some probably do, but it’s ridiculous to assume they all do when it’s well known that the hijab is forced on many women and girls whether they want it or not. It’s ridiculous to assume they all do when it’s a heavy, hot, smothery garment, which may be comfortable outside in winter but isn’t the rest of the time. It’s ridiculous to assume they all do when it’s notoriously re-imposed on women any time hardliners replace reformists in countries where Islam is mandatory.
Odd. The way the article is written you’d think some guy just randomly decided to erect a sculpture in a public place like some kind of bronze-based Banksy. You have to read to the very end to discover a single reference to the commissioning organisation and even then you get absolutely nothing about who approved it (which of course is the real story not the artist’s wafflings). I get the feeling that the Express and Star isn’t a very good newspaper).
This may be uncharitable of me but there’s more than a passing resemblance between the statue and those ‘mummified aliens’ from Mexico that have been in the news recently.
Also, just because someone is eager to wear something that distinguishes them from the slutty heathens who don’t, doesn’t mean that the message of “women who don’t wear this are slutty heathens” isn’t a shitty one.
The commissioning client (Legacy West Midlands charity) is all about celebrating the cultures of migrant communities (https://www.legacy-wm.org/about-legacy-west-midlands). Quite a few of the staff are clearly muslim, with many of the female staff wearing hijab. Not a co-incidence I suspect.
I think the sculpture looks rather sad and weary actually. Not at all strong. Stoic and plodding on maybe.
[…] sweet: just as Birmingham offers a new statue of The Hijabi Woman, Iran beefs up its punishments for women who try to escape the damn […]
I am no expert in this area of costume history, but it strikes me that the hijab’s origins possibly were as rather excellent protection against the sandstorms of Arabia..Then possibly came compulsory requirement of Muslim women to wear it, with or without the face-screening part.
I happen to spend a lot of time in a suburb of an Australian city where a lot of Muslims live. Womens’ dress amongst them varies from nothing out of the ordinary to the full hijabic catastrophe.