Hard On Bright Lipstick

Authorities in a northern Malaysian city are calling on its Muslim women not to wear bright lipstick and noisy high-heeled shoes if they want to be proper Muslims. The municipal council in Kota Baru, run by conservative Islamic party PAS, is distributing pamphlets to recommend that women refrain from wearing heavy makeup, including bright lipstick, and loud high-heel shoes to work.

As usual, the western media was right on cue; eager to portray this event as proof that Islam is demeaning towards its women.

But then again, who could blame them? A few years ago, the very same Malaysian state made it compulsory for its women to don headscarves as to “not arouse the sexual desires of men.” To a casual observer, it might seem that Malaysian Muslim men could get a hard on simply by looking at women’s hair.

Worse still is the comment by one of the officials in this very same party who remarked that women who get molested are usually asking for it by the way they dress. His comments seem to suggest that Islam absolves men of blame when a woman’s modesty is violated because it’s the woman who is “inviting it”.

What they fail to realise is that Islam has allocated more importance to men lowering their gazes than to women dressing decently. During the days of our Prophet Muhammad, he reminded his followers time and time again that men should always preserve their eyes by not looking at things that they are not supposed to. In fact he even warned his followers from sitting in the vicinity of the streets should there be no urgent need for it, lest their eyes go astray.

Unfortunately Islamic guidelines have often been interpreted with oozing male machismo. Commandments put upon men are sometimes conveniently ignored while women are often made to shoulder a bigger part of the responsibility in avoiding social problems.

Lipstick and high heels are just the tip of the blame iceberg that has been passed onto women. There are lots more example of ridiculous injunctions so much so that Islam is often seen as a religion where the fairer sex is second class to the whims and fancies of its men folk.

A while back I wrote an entry on JustJihad.com titled “Myth: Islam Relegates Women to Bedroom and Kitchen”. It aims to briefly show how Islam protects the rights of its women, rights which sometimes are not fully met by their men for very deliberate reasons. Do check it out.