Faysal Bank Mandates Hijab, Loose Dresses for Women
In an announcement that is receiving massive backlash over social media posts, Pakistani Islamic and commercial banking company Faysal Bank Limited has mandated wearing a hijab and loose-fitting attire for all of its female employees under their latest dress code issuing.
Faysal Bank issued a new dress code for its employees earlier last week and women across the country are coming after the company with the full force of their anger and vengeance against the organization’s sexist ruling. According to one article by Pro Pakistani, this code is only applicable to their Head Office and the branches that follow the Islamic Banking conventions.
The company says that it is a part of the bank’s “cultural requirement”, however, there is no such ruling for the male employees of the company. Alongside the dress code regarding the head covering and loose clothes, the women are also required to only wear flat closed or formal shoes with heels being banned for the female staff entirely. Even more so, the loose-fitting clothes are required to be shalwar kameez, a kurta suit, or any modest dressing, restricting women and their choice of attire, and women are also required to become discreet in their makeup selection.
As for the male staff, they have open options amongst shalwar kameez and suits as they please, with nothing talking about the fitness of the men’s attire. According to Daily Times’ reporting on the updates in the code of conduct and dress codes, Faysal Bank meant to design these in a manner to guide personal business ethics of all employees.
It must be taken under consideration that usually this kind of dress code compulsion and change appears and is enforced after some or the other sort of violatory incident where the officials of a company believe that changing the way a person dresses would help the situation. Unfortunately, this is an age-old and rather false notion which has failed time and time again to “protect” anybody from any sort of bodily violation, and is thus likely not to actually help the situation at all.
How do you feel about this new dress code by Faysal Bank? Let your friends and family know about this before they apply to become an employee at the company!
Credit: D’Hamidi
