HotShot said:
what benefits do get one from wearing a hijab, apart from a fashion statement.
A lot of people say that it's a sign of respect for your body, hence wearing long, unflattering skirts.
Although a lot of muslims now wear decorated, stylish scarfs as hijabs, which just shows how silly religion has become- they used to wear plain scarfs as part of modesty, but now they're decorated.
It's exactly the same as the jews keeping kosher laws- cups to wash your hands with two handles, unclean food; all stems from pragmatic hygene laws, but now it's blown out of proportion with a rabbi coming to sanction kitchen areas etc etc.
Both hijabs and kosher(ness?) stem from a pragmatic need for laws to be created to genuinely protect the religious.
Just like the need for the concept of god and helfire was created- oppression of the masses. Both kosherness/hijabs and the belief in god are now redundent in a society where we can try to think for our educated selves, as well as look after our bodies (the initial reasons for hijabs and kosherness).