Walaykum salam,
Primarily, women wear the hijab because it is a command from Allah (swt) regardless of how men perceive it or react to it.
Too much emphasis in modern society is given to the 'reasons' or the 'logic' behind Islamic rules and this is not a good way to look into such topics. The best way to understand Islam is to contemplate deeply the creation, the alternation of night and day etc as these are all signs from Allah that the universe and all that's in it could not have come about by itself and needed a creator because all of creation is needy and dependent on somethings for survival. The next step is to learn about the miracle of the Quran which is in its language and composition and the fact that no one has been able to take on the challenge of providing one surah like what is in the Quran even if they sought the help of the best literary minds.
Once you learn these things and are convinced that there is a creator, that He (swt) made us all and understands our needs and what's best for us better than any human being- then that should be enough for us to follow His commands. On top of that, once you understand the weak basis of all forms of kufr: religious misguidance in the form of other kufr beliefs, ideological misguidance in the form of communism, capitalism, the so called 'freedoms' and democracy etc- one you understand how baseless and weak those concepts are, it becomes much easier to reject them and not be taken in or fooled by the various cultural and emotional arguments used to propagate them.
Hijab is a command from Allah and lowering the gaze is also a command from Allah. The problem with pervy men is that we do not live in Islamic societies (even the Muslim populated countries are not governed by Islam) so men's unIslamic behaviour is often not regulated or stopped at the root. During the Caliphate of Umar bin al Khattab (ra), he hired a respected widowed woman to patrol the market places. She held a whip and if she saw men loitering around to ogle at girls or do inappropriate things, she would whip them. So Islam does provide solutions to these problems when it is implemented but the problem these days is it is not implemented, so then feminists jump in and say Islam isn't working and is causing oppression of women and they propose that society should be less Islamic and more 'free' and allowing women to uncover and violate Islamic rules for the sake of freedom. Whenever there is a problem in Muslim communities there will be munafiqs and ignorant/naive Muslims who will try to lead people to believe that the best solution is less Islam in the society- though they never say less Islam, they'll label it "combatting extremism", or "less mullah-ism" or that sort of thing.
The way protests in Iran are depicted these days is just a case in point. Yes it does sound like some women have been mistreated and two or three have died under suspicious circumstances so that should be investigated and authorities shouldn't be treated as infallible but this push with the help of the west to uncover the Muslim women is very sinister and has nothing to do with women's rights just like how they pretend to care about the rights of Afghan women whilst bombing them into the stone age and starving their children.
The above post^ was my answer to the following question posed on Ummah forum:
Assalaamualiakum,
I have a question regarding the hijab. Obviously we are told to cover and wear hijab as a commandment from Allah (swt) and to prevent any man seeing our body. My question is regarding Muslim men who still sexualise women no matter what they wear. Women who are fully covered even with niqab, don’t commit tabarruj, and even some who are on Hajj/Umrah will be assaulted, harassed or looked at sexually. Is it because the hijab minimises the attention? I’m just confused on this so if anyone could answer my question I would appreciate it. For context I’m a Muslim female who tries to cover, I don’t wear makeup and wear long baggy clothes so this isn’t hating on the ruling. Hijab and modesty means a lot to me and I love wearing the hijab I’m just interested to further my knowledge on this.
