Yes, wearing a bikini is a form of oppression.

• It objectifies and sexualizes the female body for the pleasure of men.
• It emphasizes the body as more important than the intellect.
• It is impressed upon young girls as old as babies without their consent.
• It is pressured for teenage girls to wear it to fit in with their peers and society, to look sexy for boys and expose themselves for older men to look at on public display.
• It can very easily fall off or come untied, exposing even the most private parts of the body to the unwanted knowledge of strangers.
• It puts them at physical risk of prolonged sun exposure and risk of skin cancer, all for the pleasure of men.
• It creates body image shaming issues that affect almost every woman very deeply. It certainly helps to fuel the beginnings of anorexia and bulimia.
• It is a tool for commercialization of exercise and weight loss companies to make money by driving body-shamed women to use their gyms, drink their weight loss smoothies, pay for their weight loss meetings, buy their exercise equipment, watch their programs, buy their promotional gear, and buy body sculpting sessions, etc.
• It is a tool for the beauty products industry to pressure women to conform to the ideal “beach body” look of tanned, flawless skin. Many women are driven to using tanning booths and beds to achieve such unnatural results, exposing themselves to cancer risks. Many women are driven to get laser surgery to remove spider veins and other unwanted skin “imperfections” to impress men, spending lots of time and money. Sunscreen and aloe production companies benefit hugely from having super-exposed women wanting to constantly protect their skin during exposure, or alleviate their skin pain after exposure.

Yes, I know the question was “is wearing the hijab a form of oppression?” I see it as equal to this argument, as well. It just puts things into perspective for those of you unwittingly brainwashed by media to have biases against a piece of cloth that covers the hair.

Some notes postscript:

After reading all the comments coming in, people getting really antsy over this…I’m glad! Open your minds, think differently, and let’s think anthropologically.

What might seem normal in one place might seem like “oppression” to people from another place. If you raise this same argument about bikinis while talking to bikini-wearing women on Miami beach they will look at you like “what is wrong with you?!” The same could be said if you went to Dubai and asked women at a shopping mall if they felt oppressed by hijab — they would stare at you with the same bewildered expression.

This was purely my thought while writing. If you understand, no need to read further.

For those of you inclined to argue, I’ll tell you my reasoning:

It’s no secret that bikini is something that was invented in 1946 by French designer Louis Reard after just 71 years of the fashion industry slowly peeling the clothing off of respectable women on the beach.

It’s not that women wished to be any less respectable, just that their fashions had changed drastically somehow over two generations to emphasize their bodies.

To say that the fashion industry is not the driving force behind the invention of skinny clothing like bikini is absurd. The fashion industry also happens to be majority run - by - men. It is aggressively marketed majority by men, and successful enough that even modest women consider bikinis to be nothing more than average apparel today. The thing that really makes my post similar to a posting about how bad hijab might be, is the fact that girls are “forced” through marketing, social, and familial forces to believe that bikini is a normal thing to wear on a beach or at a pool, no matter who is watching — be it old men or young. It’s not that it’s a law that they must wear a bikini, because (let’s face it) most Muslim majority countries do not have laws for wearing hijab. It’s all social.

Will anyone beat a woman for not wearing a bikini? No. But if a woman at the pool or beach is not undressed an appropriate amount, she will get strange stares. No doubt. Burkinis are an active piece of discussion in European legislative bodies, strange as it sounds.

Will anyone beat a woman for not wearing a hijab? Most likely not. (Before you comment, think if you have actually lived in a Muslim majority country and seen it happen.) She will get strange stares in public, and her family (most likely mother) will put pressure on her to at least wear it out in the street for the sake of modesty and family reputation since Eastern culture is very much based on first impressions.

The arguments are not that different, sparing the religious origins aspect.

Aside from those, to make it clear:

• Women who wear hijab for religion choose to do so for themselves as a really daring gesture of showing that they prefer the opinion of God over the people of the Earth. These women have a lot in common with nuns. Nuns are religiously daring, too. Way to go ladies!
• Women in hijab are the least likely to be involved in terrorism since wearing a hijab day in and day out requires a certain level of devotion to God that would forbid them from harming another human (reference Quran 5:32).
• Hijab is a choice, just like everything else in Islam. “There is no compulsion in religion” (Quran 2:256). Good choices give good rewards, bad choices decrease rewards. This is the system in Islam. If a woman chooses to wear hijab it is best for her because it is commanded in the Quran to be modest. (Note on Sharia: I do not support Sharia because it takes away choices, thus taking away potential rewards. It is essentially anti-Islamic when enforced on a grand scale, sorry Saudi!)
• There are three (3) Muslim majority countries, out of fifty (50) total, that actually enforce hijab. They are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan. It is fully agreed that they are wrong. I fully support anyone willing to try to push for a change in those countries.
• If a woman does not choose to wear a hijab, she is doing so at the risk that she will not receive its reward. Lack of hijab does not make a woman any less religious; in fact, I have known many non-hijabis who were very devoted to prayer and Islam. Muslim women who do not wear hijab outnumber Muslim women wearing hijab. To discriminate against the hijab on the basis of the minority you see is wrong. Look at the bigger picture. It is a choice that many choose to leave alone.

Please, please, please, unless you have an intimate understanding of Islam from an insider’s point of view, do not try to claim you are an expert. If you haven’t lived in a Muslim country, haven’t lived in a Muslim home, haven’t gone to a mosque on a regular basis (or ever), or haven’t become friends (or even met) with a Muslim to gain their complete perspective, please do not claim to be an expert. Fighting over religion from behind barricades of bias is an ages-old motif that does not help anyone achieve anything.

If after reading this you still wish to comment for the sake of argument, please tell us what organizations you would suggest that can assist Muslim women who are “oppressed.” Perhaps the exposure would be a great way to garner support and actually make a move in a positive direction.

Thanks!