This is plainly not true since in many of the places where it isn't mandated, the majority of women do not wear them, like Jordan, Gambia, Morocco, etc. You have no way of being assured that were it not mandatory, women would still wear them, or that the rates of hijab-wearing wouldn't steadily decrease.
Some wear it, some don't. How many American Muslimah's have you seen wearing hijab?
That's why I linked you to what was going on in Turkey. They actually OUTLAWED the hijab but the women found a way to wear it anyway. Clearly that was by choice. That was the purpose for me introducing that article.
Fair enough, but we can't judge Islamic societies by Muslim doctrine. We can judge Islamic doctrine by it's own sources without necessarily referencing what self-professed Muslims do, but Islamic societies must be judged by what they actually do, rather than by the teachings they claim to follow.
I disagree because it's not my position to judge anyone. If that's what this discussion is about then I must respectfully withdraw because I'm not interested in that. My concern is Qur'an and whether or not it's the word of my creator.
So you can judge the people/societies if that's your concern. I will judge the message and try my best to apply it to me.
However many billion Muslims, 1 Qur'an. I'm interested in the message, not how over a billion people apply it. You can give a man a fool-proof business plan that made you millions of dollars and the next man can make nothing. Does that mean the plan doesn't work or does that mean that particular individual didn't apply it properly?
I'm not sure. There are a lot of Muslim women who constantly speak out against their oppression, and I'm not talking about Ayan Hirsi Ali types. There are feminist and women's issue-related organizations in many Muslim countries. As for being less oppressed than Western women, again, you have yet to prove that.
Our views of oppression differ. If a woman dresses modestly, with her hair up and glasses on, she gets ignored. If the same woman is half naked, dolled up and looking like a video vixen suddenly she is elevated to a higher status. I look at that as a form of oppression and I know many Muslim sisters who have expressed the same sentiment. Having sex with women, impregnating women and not marrying them? I view that as oppression.
We'll just have to agree that it is a subjective term.
+rep for staying on track though. I appreciate it.