Bekijk volle/desktop versie : Sikh-vrouw mag haar baard niet afscheren van haar religie



16-08-2019, 15:47
Bebaarde Sikh-vrouw, Google Images:
http://https://www.google.com/search?q=Balpreet+Kaur&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&v ed=0ahUKEwjxwOmrw4fkAhWSYVAKHf7VDRUQ_AUIESgB&biw=1 097&bih=554

When Balpreet Kaur, a young Sikh American, discovered she was being widely mocked on the Internet for her facial hair, she proudly pushed back.

A picture of Ms. Kaur went viral on the Internet this week, with many commenting on the unusual amount of hair on her face.

For hormonal reasons, Ms. Kaur has far more facial hair than most women. For religious reasons, she says she’s happy to look the way she does.

“I’m not embarrassed or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it’s who I am. Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body – it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will.” In an email, Ms. Kaur said she didn’t want to discuss the issue further, at least not for the time being.

It is well known that, in accordance with their faith, Sikh men and women should avoid cutting their hair. Balwinder Singh Joura, a senior official from Amritsar’s Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the highest Sikh authority, explained this was a rule first introduced by Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th and last Sikh guru, based on the belief that the “human body is best preserved in its natural form.”

The Sikh code of conduct, approved by the committee in the 1930s, forbids followers from “tempering with the hair with which the child is born.”

But does this also apply to women’s excess hair – facial or otherwise?

According to Mr. Joura, this rule means that Sikh believers, women included, should refrain from “chopping, trimming, shaving, waxing or even tweezing their hair.”

While there are no penalties as such, doing otherwise is “considered disrespectful to the religion,” says Mr. Joura.

A U.S.-based Sikh group, the Sikh Coalition, was of the same opinion. On its website, it said that “Sikhs are not supposed to cut hair from any part of their body. All Sikhs are thus supposed to have unshorn hair, and Sikh women are to maintain a separate identity and not shave.” They blamed the fact many women flout this rule on “societal pressure.”

For aesthetic reasons, Sikh women have enforced this rule far less strictly than men – many of them embracing shaving, waxing and the like.

But this doesn’t always come guilt-free. A U.S.-based Sikh woman in 2011 told the Los Angeles Times that she felt “kind of like a sellout” for plucking her eyebrows.

Some Sikh women have openly opposed the guidelines, saying it should be a matter of personal choice. “It doesn’t make me a sinner if I wax,” says 33-year-old Gursharan Sandhu, who spends her weekends doing community service at a local Sikh temple in New Delhi. “These are century-old beliefs….We need to move on with changing times,” she adds.

Neharika Kaur, a 25-year old based in Mumbai, says her “teenage years were particularly tough.” Her parents, she explains, considered hair removal “taboo.”

“I was ridiculed at school for my bushy eyebrows and unwaxed legs,” says Ms. Kaur. “I don’t think following the code was worth the emotional trauma,” she adds.

Bron: Wall Street Journal

17-08-2019, 11:12


Achterlijke regel in deze religie (als je het een religie kan noemen).

17-08-2019, 11:47
Oh, wat heerlijk... een vrouw met een baard.

xxxx

17-08-2019, 11:52
Wat gelovigen toch denken dat hun god zou hebben gewild.