The Veil
Good question - elaborate on why the veil is a symbol of hate.
I'll start with my personal experience. I was researching a student documentary I wanted to do on Muslims in Los Angeles. I hadn't figured out a story, but I found it fascinating that the Muslim Student Association (MSA) had actually started at USC in 1960s and historically had been quite radical in their political views...essentially being funded by the Muslim Brotherhood...the same mothership organization behind Hamas and Egyptian Islamic Jihad (who later merged with Al Queda). Not only that - the USC MSA had sponsored an official Taliban spokesman to visit and speak to students in 2000. The transcript was online into 2003 and it was this awful, snarky transcript mocking questioners who asked about the destruction of Buddhist shrines in Afghanistan and that some of the audience members asked.
Long story short, I found myself at an event with an Imam who had a posse of ex-cons following him around talking about hadiths, etc. I was sitting in the room listening to really simplistic stupid little rules about how to behave. What was weird was that most of the Muslim students I met were quite smart, graduate students in engineering, etc, yet here they were listening to this barely educated douche bag talk about boring ass stuff. Anyhow, it was all men - a mixture of American ex-cons and mostly Muslims from Pakistan attending USC. At one point I turned to the back and noticed three veiled women sitting in the back corner. The first time I had ever seen anything like that and something in my stomach churned. How can a person, here in Los Angeles, voluntarily cover her entire body and face with only a slight slit to see? Why would she voluntarily sit in the back corner and voluntarily pray in an entirely different room?
It is the same answer as to why blacks in the south "allowed" themselves to be slaves...
...seeing the veil in person I realized what it is. Far from being "humble," in front of God or Allah or whatever, the veil is violent. It says - I will not show my face. A person's face. Think about that. It is saying: I am not a human being, but a mysterious, sinful temptation. You cannot see what I think, or that I think at all...worse than any dystopian imaged by Margaret Atwood, it is total subjugation, a cultural lobotamization - it is 1000 years after the end of 1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest...when generations of women are enslaved. It is the symbol of dehumanization and happens to be one the most awful things I've ever seen in person.
3 comments:
No more so than the Pussycat Doll who believes that cavorting around in lingerie and lip-synching for the enjoyment of and validation from men is "empowering" and "pleasing."
Like a woman who chooses to cover, the Xtinas and Parises and Jenna Jamesons of the world believe they are making an active choice, but are they really?
Their actions are always reliant upon the male gaze... and in the case of women who wear the veil, the gaze of Allah is included. But if it is also meant to be a way to minimize sexual distraction like you suggested, who do you think came up with that idea?
And (on the flip side) who do you think came up with the idea that the barely-dressed female body was pretty hot?
My own feelings on organized religion aside, I believe that what we have here is a societal expectation for the appearance and behavior of women as it relates to men and their desires. And that's all it's ever been.
Many women choose to respect social decorum and constraints (religious and otherwise) that were devised by men and continue to believe that they are in fact making a choice.
I'm more than a little disgusted that Steph would make such sweeping comments about WOMEN and why they do what they do and for whom they do it. Speak for yourself, woman.
Shit, this reminds me of part of Jack Nicholson's marketplace speech in Easy Rider:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHd6m_cirrU
Melly, I beg you to re-read my previous comment more closely...
I wrote that *many* not *all* women adhere to these standards... but any woman who believes that she isn't influenced by social norms is deluding herself.
To your point, Melly, there are still a lot of us (myself included) who do NOT care about what men think, and/or realize that our existence is worth much more than what a man can perceive or dictate.
However, I am willing to admit that I conform in some fashion nearly every day. And I bet you do too.
If you disagree, think about why you wear the clothes that you wear. You may say it's for your own self-confidence... but why would certain types of clothes make you feel more confident than others?
I wouldn't be so quick to write off what I said.
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