or so one commenter astutely observed. as usual, the measure of women's assimilation is her appearance and dress, not her income or ability to work outside the home. sure, if a man is forcing a woman to wear ANYTHING--high heels, a niqab (or burqa), or a halloween mask with karl rove's face on it, then this practice is abhorrent. but is there any evidence that this is the case? has anyone bothered to ASK these women if they are covering for the sake of their husbands, or because they fear sexual harassment?

if the issue is failure to assimilate, is there any move to ban the dishasha (traditional Middle Eastern men's garb) or the yarmulka?

and if the issue is freedom from oppressive patriarchal religious norms that thrust a sense of shame upon women who dare to dress in such a way as to inspire lust, well, is there any move to ban nuns' habits?

doubt it. culture wars are usually waged on women's bodies. it's disappointing that the left seems to think that women have a right to choose but ONLY if they choose to adhere to Western norms.

ASK these women if they are covering for the sake of their husbands, or because they fear sexual harassment?

After decades of feminism ranting about an epidemy of sexual harassment, we in Broadsheet have found the ultimate solution to the poor women being sexual harassed.

Let every woman who fears sexual harassment wear a burqa. With a burka, you avoid men to get excited by the sight of a woman's hair. And sexual harassment is impossible with a burqa, because:

1. If the men makes offensive sexual remarks, it doesn't matter. You won't hear anything inside the burqa so you don't feel threatened or harassed.

2. If the men makes an offensive gesture, you would barely see it through the grid of the burqa.

3. If the men tries to touch your body, the burqa would make sure that he doesn't know where is the body part he wants to touch.

Everything is an advantage. There are no drawbacks. I suggest NOW to adopt the burqa as the official feminist garment. Thank you very much.

I left this forum after my comment yesterday, so only today saw the comments following.

I will say this: Most of the women I interviewed were not from a Muslim country--they were from London proper. And most of them quite strong women (not the weak, submissives Americans expect Muslim women to be). I find it interesting that you would jump to such conclusions about an entire group of women.

I also said that I didn't quite agree with what they were saying--just that some of my own preconceptions were challenged after speaking directly to (instead of about) these women.

And, anecdotally, one of my best friends in the world converted to Islam and wears the whole shebang. She was most definitely not steeped in a culture that oppressed her in the way you refer. And she find the whole burqa liberating--I'm sure she would not compare wearing it to having a cliterdectomy.

The whole point of my post was that perhaps we are not as know-it-all-y as we think. Perhaps we should attempt to think outside our own Western constructs, eh?

Perhaps we should attempt to think outside our own Western constructs, eh?

Well, I am for trying to think outside Western construct. In fact, in Europe, I have lived for years in a neighborhood with a majority of Muslim people.

I will tell you some thing. There are far more Western people who try to think outside Western constructs than Muslim people trying to think outside Islamic constructs. Far more.

Of course, there is the occasional Muslim feminist, Muslim liberal, etc. which appears at Salon and amounts to less than 1% of the Muslim population, being despised and condemned by the rest of the Islamic community, which does not accept her point of view and sees it as a traitor to her community and sometimes as a whore.

This rare individual appears in liberal forums saying the compatibility between Islam and feminism based about some theory (the wives of the Prophet) and not based on Islamic practice. She tries to convince the infidels that Islam is a progressive religion and maybe it is for her.

If you want to know how Islam is lived by the majority, go to Morocco (I have gone), go to Saudi Arabia, go to the immigrants communities of Europe. 90% of the Islamic world is way more conservative than the most conservative of the Christian wignuts you complain so much about in Salon. Way more.

My question is this one:

Why do you seem so angry with a Miss who says that she does not approve gay marriage and at the same time you seem so tollerant with a religion where homosexuality is not tolerated (gay marriage is unthinkable)? See http://www.islamawareness.net/Homosexuality/homo.html

(In Morocco gay people goes to jail. I think it is time Moroccan people sees beyond their Islamic constructs).

Why do you seem so angry with a Christian right who tollerates freedom of religion and at the same time you seem so tollerant with Islam when leaving the religion is punished with the death?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takfir

"The sentence for apostasy (irtidad), under Sharia law as traditionally interpreted, is execution, alternate amputation, expulsion."

(In Saudi Arabia, Christianity is forbidden even if you celebrate inside your home. In Morocco, building churches is forbidden. It is time for Muslim people to see beyond their Islamic constructs)

It seems a double standard to me. It seems that your feminism is only a hatred to traditional Western society so you tollerate everything except this traditional Western society. When women rights's violations in Islam, which are far more than in Western society, are treated the same way that women right's violations in the West, I would know that your feminism is true and not only a posturing of political correctness.

.

I will say this: Most of the women I interviewed were not from a Muslim country--they were from London proper. And most of them quite strong women (not the weak, submissives Americans expect Muslim women to be).

You are just a dupe. All of those women, and you yourself, are fooled by false consciousness.

The idea of false consciousness was most notably championed by that friend of traditional values and enemy of radical feminism, Andrea Dworkin, who famously argued that any woman who wears high heels is literally a whore, and should expect to be raped.

It's so good to see a voice as sane and balanced as Dworkin's was being respected — indeed, echoed, even trumpeted — by these anxious, concerned Western-culture defenders.

Unfortunately, you victims of false consciousness need to be re-educated, just like during that resurgence of patriotic American freedoms known as the Cultural Revolution.

See, history is much simpler than you thought!