Body Issues

“I Look So Fat.”
By Nicole Zinerco
When was the last time you heard a friend say that? Maybe you were shopping. Or maybe you were going out. Or maybe you were just walking to class. It has become perfectly acceptable for women to criticize their own bodies every day. Why is that?
So here are the facts. Statistics show that 81% of ten year olds are afraid of becoming “fat”. In high school, 90% of girls think they are overweight. More women battle eating disorders than Breast Cancer. And 51% of women would rather be hit by a truck, yes, hit by a truck, than be “fat”.
Scary, huh? Why are so many women uncomfortable with their body image? Where does this need to be thin come from? We are certainly not born with it. Women are constantly bombarded with images of super-skinny celebrities and un-realistic beauty in advertisements. What happened to sexy women? Real women, with real curves like Bettie Paige and Marilyn Monroe?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

“We Give Women Respect...”
By Moiz Khan
For the majority of my life I was a Muslim, a child of Muslim parents, a nephew of Muslim aunts and uncles, and so on. Most of the people I spent my childhood with were Muslims, and every single one of them repeated a phrase almost verbatim. “Islam is the only religion that gives respect and honor to women.” I personally never really gave the statement much thought; rather, I just accepted it on surface value. So whenever someone from the outside brought up the treatment of women in Islamic cultures, I repeated this mantra like a statement of unquestionable fact. It was not until I looked upon Islam from the outside that I truly grasped just how false that statement was. Islam does not give respect to women, it does the exact opposite. It suppresses and subjugates them. It keeps them down purposely, as Islam truly is a man-made religion. It deprives women of their beauty with veils, their minds with dogma, and their freedom with the law.
One of the most common replies to the oppressive treatment of women is, “it’s the culture, not religion.” The people who say this, either know nothing of the religion they are speaking of, or are purposely lying. It must be one or the other, there is no middle ground in this matter. The Qur’an clearly outlines what rights women have, and which rights they don’t have. In fact, the 4th chapter of the Qur’an deals directly with women, as it is titled “Al-Nisa” which translates to “The Woman.” If there were ever a place to prove my point, it would be within this chapter of the Qur’an. So, let us explore the claim of whether or not Islam gives respect to women by reading this chapter.