Intentional Double Standards

"Good morning Ms. Fazal!”, I heard a cheerful voice call to me as I was leaving the school office with my class attendance. Smiling, I turned around to greet this kind teacher - a teacher who accepted me and challenged me at the same time. This is a teacher who I thought about on days such a "Hat Day", "School Spirit Day" or "Treat Day" because he faced similar challenges as me. Both he and I are practitioners of our faith and the symbols of our faith are visible to everyone around - he wears a kippa and I, a hijab.

Slowing my pace for him to catch up, we walked to my classroom chatting. Suddenly he stopped.

"Ms. Fazal, I have a question for you. I was hoping for some perspective".

I cringed. I always cringe when a teacher says he or she has a question. I know it will be an inquiry about Islam. In our school, we have many Muslim students, and I am honored to represent these students, stand up for their beliefs and help them take care of their faith. However, questions are always hard for me because a lot of the time, I don't know the answers or the answers are hard to explain because they may be directly linked to a hadith (saying of the Prophet Mohammed) or to an ayat (verse) of the Quran. The questioners have no schema about the intricacies of Islam, which makes it harder for them to understand and appreciate Islam.

In those few moments my whipped through possible questions he may have - Could he want my opinion on the attempted terrorist attacks? As I was thinking, I could hear him speak.

"Are you going to the water park?". I nodded.

"The kids must be so excited to go". I smiled in agreement. I just wanted him to tell me what he wanted to know.

"You know the music exempted kids," he started. (Yes, I knew them quite well. These are students who do not participate in music because of religious inclinations - in other words, the Muslim students)
"I was talking to them about going to the water park..."

I quickly clued in. He asked me why the girls were not going to the water park while the boys were over eagerly applying their sunscreen. I explained to him, the girls were wearing a head scarf to ensure and preserve their modestly. Running through a water park in a bathing suit wouldn't really be an option for them.

He explained to me a conversation he had had with the girls. The girls had explained to him the hijab (head scarf) was not just the covering of hair, it included covering their eyes from men/boys who were immodestly dressed. He then asked the girls why the boys could go to the water park and thereby expose their eyes to women/girls who were in little swim suits. In typical Muslim fashion, the girls replied, "It depends of their intention". Mashalla, I was so impressed with the answers these girls gave.

The maturity of these girls left me speechless. However, this teacher was more concerned with the act of going to such a place than the act of participating in the activities in the place. He wanted to know why it was ok for the men to go to an area where women would be immodestly dressed but women were not allowed to go to these places. I didn't know what to say. It was the double standard we have grown up with. The men are allowed to go clubbing, allowed to go to inappropriate areas of entertainment, however if a girl is seen having coffee at a Starbucks past eleven o'clock, it is scorned upon. I mean, women have been discouraged to watch soccer on moral grounds, but men watch the LPGA tours and tennis with gaping mouths.

The message of condemning an act based on the gender of the person committing the act sends a message that the Islamic laws are different for men and women. From my understanding of Islam, this is not the case. The men and women will face the same consequence for their actions. Allah will not participate in gender discrimination. So why should we? Society is putting men at a disadvantage by accepting their unlawful actions. Why don't we instill the same moral values in our boys as we do in our girls? Why do we laugh when a boy tries to pick up a girl and frown when a girl so much as checks a boy out?

Let us not be unfair to the boys. If an act is unlawful, it is simply unlawful regardless of gender. The eventual consequence is the same. By following double standards, we are hurting both the girls and the boys.