Women who wear the hijab are being oppressed by the patriarchy. Ima rock this corset now.

It started out innocently enough: the Facebook page for a mainstream feminist group featured an image of Team USA fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first American woman to compete in an international competition while wearing a hijab.

You know where I'm going with this, don't you?

Oh yes, it happened.  Before I even clicked "view all comments," I knew what I'd find.  And sure enough, I found it:

•  "That's awesome.  Too bad she feels the pressure to cover though.  Damn patriarchy."
• "Good for her! But I can't get past the covering. Poor woman."
• "I hope she wins gold!!  And can be empowered enough to stop having to cover!!!!"

It's really the defining trait of liberal/reformist feminism: privileged Western white ladies having clear-cut ideas about what does and does not constitute oppression, never taking issues of race/class/ethnicity/gender identity into the equation, all the while failing to see where or how they specifically fall into the role of oppressor themselves.  And they just can't shut up about the hijab.  I mean, the second comment says it all, "I can't get past the covering."

I actually engaged that specific commenter in a private conversation, because I do that sometimes.  I've become more particular about who I will engage in deeper-level conversations about privilege and oppression, because let's face it, when you go into an argument with a rabid antichoicer about the morality of abortion, it's just never going to be productive.  But seeing how this particular woman was at least a feminist, I figured what could be the harm.

And it was good.  We had some decent exchanges of ideas and both came out having earned a slightly different perspective on some things.

Then I clicked on her profile.  She had a few photos public, and the ones I could see featured a person, I'm assuming her, dressed up in a corset, fishnets, and heels.  Don't get me wrong, she looked amazing.  If I'd been out and seen her walk by, my reaction would have been one of "hot damn she looks good."  And I'm not one of those feminists who thinks that donning a corset sets women's liberation back three or four decades... while I don't own a corset myself, I have been known to occasionally rock some sexy stuff that would make Andrea Dworkin cringe.

But you must understand that this person made some very scathing comments about how a woman's decision to wear a hijab can never be free of patriarchal influence.  She was very clear about that, even echoing one of my personal favorite talking points: we don't live in a vacuum. It's beyond me, really.  Here's this intelligent woman expressing her discontent with another culture's patriarchal standards while at the same time proudly playing into a centuries-old standard of her own.

I mean obviously it goes back to intersectionality.  There are tons of feminists who believe that they never "buy in" to patriarchal standards with their appearance, but a woman who simply covers her head and hair because of religious tradition has zero autonomy in the matter.  It goes back to our deep-seeded racism and Islamaphobia that, admit it, exists in the majority of us on some level, which is deeply problematic.  For one, it's ignorant: few people who criticize the hijab actually know why it's worn. We're told, mostly by American-based media, that such coverings are required by law in all those mean evil Middle Eastern countries and that's bad.  We pretty much leave it at that.  Secondly, it assumes that we in the United States live in a post-patriarchal society where we've "moved past" all that sexist stuff.  Putting on a vintage-inspired apron and baking cookies for your boyfriend doesn't mean the same thing that it meant 50 years ago... goodness no, the systematic oppression of women - at least in our forward-thinking society - is a thing of the past.  (That's post-feminism, baby!)

Lastly, it's paternalistic.  Liberal/reformist feminists continue to buy into the idea that privileged Western white ladies need to be the ones to "save" other women (Muslim women specifically) from themselves.  This is nothing new... white feminists have been doing this since feminism was feminism. (If you haven't read White Women's Rights by Louise Newman, that should be added to your reading list.  Like now.)  Co-opting the neocolonialist language of our government, these women assume that liberation is something that needs to be given to the women of the world, not something they can achieve for themselves in a way that will jive with their cultures.  Worst of all, no one even attempts to ask Muslim women whether or not they feel oppressed by wearing a hijab, and if they do, they question one or two women of color to gain the appearance of inclusitivity by means of tokenism.  

So my feminist friend "feels bad" that Muslim women are "pressured" to don "unnecessary and uncomfortable articles of clothing" because of patriarchal rule.  I'm picturing the modestly-dressed Muslim women of the world peering at her Facebook pictures, thinking much the same thing.