Not so long ago, we ran a piece on an Indonesian social media phenomenon called ‘jilboobs’ – the delicate art of women wearing modest Muslim dress, or ‘jilbab’, while still showing off their Islamically immodest curves. And there have been no shortage of internet commentators basically “slut-shaming” these women.
Well, that’s apparently still a thing, and now there’s a Malaysian Facebook page dedicated to hounding women it thinks are showing off more than God would like them to – it’s called Bertudung Tapi Terserlah, or “Covered But Outstanding”.
From the looks of it, the moderator(s) behind the FB page are just roaming the interwebz just straight stealing photos of Malay-Muslim women from their personal accounts to be reappropriated (and branded!) by BTT.
The posts depicting women in their Muslim headdress – sometimes fully covered, sometimes exposing their aurah (“physical modesty”) elsewhere – are usually accompanied by very off-colour commentary from the moderator.
Captions such as “what kind of fashion statement is this?”, “Who says Malay women aren’t up to global standards?”, and “Here, let me whet your appetite today” pepper the photos posted onto the Facebook page.
There’s even a photo of a secondary school student who (we assume) is very much underage.
BTT’s cover image ties in with its defiant stance – it’s a scan of a newspaper article implicating the page in stealing and misappropriating images from personal Facebook accounts for its shaming and voyeuristic purposes.
While the debate among Malaysian Muslims over what is appropriate attire for women who want to stay in line with Islamic regulations is a valid one, there’s not much of an academic bent to this page – it’s just slut-shaming, and pretty pervy to boot.
That said, it’s definitely done a great job catering to the lowest common denominator – Bertudung Tapi Terserlah currently has over 28,000 Likes on Facebook.
Way to go, guys. Way to go.
