Answer
Salam (Peace) Amy,
Thank you for your questions and for contacting Ask About Islam.
Your questions don’t offend us. Rather, they show that you are making a real effort to understand Islam.
Modesty
As for your question on women being restricted in dress, in the West, on the one hand women seem to be saying: “I am equal to a man, I have brains!” Then, on the other, they still want to be seen as pleasing to the male gaze.
And why is there no major outcry about the use of sex in advertising or the use of the female human being in strip clubs as sex objects for entertainment?
In contrast, by covering herself, a Muslim woman declares that she is equal to man and has brains. She closes the door to being seen as “a piece of meat”. She shuts out the male gaze, objectification, and declares complete ownership over her body and sexuality.
Prayer
As for women praying behind men, it is not because women are seen as inferior. They are not inferior. Muslim prayers involve bowing and prostrating. If women were next to or in front of men, their movements would be distracting. It is again, to keep their chastity and avoid focusing on their bodily existence.
Marriage
On this topic Shakiel Humayun writes:
Both Quranic and Old Testament verses that prohibited marriage to other faiths stated a rationalization- to not be turned away from God. However, the Quranic verse, stating the permissibility for a man to marry a Jewish or Christian woman, did not mention a rationalization.
Of course, this is not to say that a rationalization cannot exist simply because one was not mentioned. But, it does indicate that using the rationalization from the verse with the universal prohibition for the verse with the unilateral permissibility would be incorrect.
Likewise, misconstrued rationalizations for verses in both the Old Testament and the Quran, such as claiming the verses call for discrimination or unequal treatment of women also need to be rejected as they do not coincide with the spirit nor the letter of either law respectively.
However, the rationalization put forth that a Muslim woman is protected while married to a Muslim man by her Islamic rights, like the right to property ownership, the right to her identity (not changing her name), the right to vote, the right not to take on any financial burdens of the family if she so wishes, the right to inheritance, etc., seems to be a strong one, and even stronger in the past when women hardly had rights. (Continue reading here)
I hope this helps answer your questions. Please keep in touch.
Salam.
Please continue feeding your curiosity, and find more info in the following links:
https://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/living-islam/muslim-women-speak-out-on-hijab/