Letters to the Editor
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Mixed feelings and painful memories
It's obvious that the point is that she makes up her own mind what she will wear, even if Americans assume that she has been brainwashed into that choice. (In either case, a bikini or a burqa, why should a woman dress to please a man?)
As an American who once chose to wear saris and cover my own hair in order to be "chaste" by the standards of the Hare Krishna movement (an American offshoot of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, a Hindu sect), I find that I have mixed feelings about this issue. Once I left the movement, I thoroughly rejected the notion that I needed to cover up my body so that men could be protected from any temptation that the sight might cause in them. We were told that the man is like butter and the woman is like fire. Well, give me a frying pan!
I remember how angry I felt when I heard how the Taliban were treating women and the many new restrictions placed on Afghani women as a result. It's difficult for me to be objective about women being required to follow such rules and actually penalized or even face violence if they do not. But here in America, Muslim women can choose, if they are willing to go against their community, family, and friends who might be more traditional. At least, I hope they feel free to choose. If covering up is their choice, I support them in doing so.
I see a young Muslim girl in our apartment complex who goes in the pool with her body and head modestly covered. We sometimes swim together and she is just as carefree and happy as any girl her age would be. I can't say that this mode of dress is harming her in any way, yet still I feel uneasy when I see it.
Is it just a blast from my past? Once I thought I was wholeheartedly embracing this modesty, and now I wonder if there was a rage simmering under the surface even then. With the mode of dress came a way of looking at women, at our position in relation to the men in our community, of always being lesser than, needing to be sheltered and protected and therefore limited and prevented from being all we could be or doing all we were capable of doing. We were frankly told that we were less intelligent and needed to be guided and protected at every stage of our lives. (My protector turned out to be my batterer as well, some protection.)
Now I wonder why, if men are the ones who have such difficulty controlling their senses, women are the ones who must cover up? Why don't the men in these restrictive religions wear blindfolds?
Maybe then the women could "protect" them by leading them around so they could conduct their business.
I'm glad Salon chose to run this comic strip--whether or not people think it is funny, it is at least thought-provoking.