Foreign Policy Magazine has another article about the veil. This time by Leila Ahmed. I'll quote some, but the gist is the same I have heard before. It amounts to this, paraphrasing... Many women wear the veil as a source of religious pride, not because they are forced to.
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I must answer again, I don't care - the veil is offensive to the rest of us. NOT because of Islam, but because of what it says to the rest of us.
.First, here are some of her words, "My reading of that scene on the Cambridge street turned out to be accurate in that Islamism has now become a powerful influence in America, and yet it was also a misreading -- as I would discover in listening to women who chose to wear the veil. My very first interviews began to unsettle my assumptions. "I wear it for the same reason as my Jewish friend wears a yarmulke," said one woman; the hijab, she said, was required dress that made visible the presence of a religious minority entitled to justice and equality. Another said she hoped her hijab would raise other women's awareness of society's sexist messages about women's bodies and dress. For many others, wearing the hijab was a way of rejecting negative stereotypes and affirming pride in Muslim identity in the face of prejudice.
Clearly, these women have a very different view of the veil here in the West, where they are free to wear whatever they want, than the old notion of the veil with which I grew up, fraught with ancient patriarchal meanings as it was and still is in societies where it is required by law or through ferocious social pressure. Listening to such women, I found it startling and moving to see how the Islamist emphasis on social justice had been transplanted to a democratic, pluralist society committed to gender equality and justice for all. This was certainly not an interpretation of the veil I had heard before, and it reflected a different Islam from the one of my childhood as well"
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Okay - but wearing a veil is vastly different than wearing a yarmulke. The veil gives a big message to everyone that says, "You are unworthy to look at me. You are dirty, lustful and cannot control yourself. I hide my very being from you disgustingness." Maybe that isn't what you think it says, but that is what it says. Let's take a simple analogy. I am gay. What if, to show my pride, my request for social justice I wore a T-Shirt of a giant penis and it said above it "I LIKE DICK." It would be rude, offensive and annoying regardless of why I say I wear it..
If you want to be analogous to a yarmulke, wear a hair-covering scarf or head wrap, just like I actuall occasionally wear a T-Shirt that says "Defend Equality - Love Unites" -with a picture of hand in the solidarity fist. Just like Christians often wear crosses or t-shirts proclaiming god's love - not big shirts that say "All Non-Believers Are Going To Hell."
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And this isn't an Islamic thing. We ostracize Christians that are rude and offensive (witness the reaction to Fred Phelps' signs and followers), we ostracize gays that are rude and offensive - often legislating against them in schools. It is the right of many people to wear the veil in public, but many of us will continue to find it offensive and rude - regardless of why people purport to wear it. Part of our responsibility to others we share society with is to be aware of our actions. You continue to have the right to wear the veil, but it isn't sending the message you think.
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ps - maybe you don't care what others think. That is perfectly valid. Fred Phelp's cast of loonies doesn't care. Those annoying gay guys that wear ass-less chaps and a jock-strap don't care. But you should know that it isn't Islam that people find offensive, it is that the veil you don't CARE what it says to others.
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ps - maybe you don't care what others think. That is perfectly valid. Fred Phelp's cast of loonies doesn't care. Those annoying gay guys that wear ass-less chaps and a jock-strap don't care. But you should know that it isn't Islam that people find offensive, it is that the veil you don't CARE what it says to others.