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January 18, 2005
Covering as Liberation
My Anthropology professor (Culture & Language, major requirement) is an extremely bright lady. She's spent a lot of time in Morocco on research and today she reflected a bit on the Muslim body wraps she had to wear while staying with the people she had studied. She mentioned that her students often ask her about Muslim oppression of women and her response is to recall how it felt to return to the US and "have to wear those sundresses again." She said she felt very naked-- as though she was opening herself up to all kinds of spoken and unspoken criticism about her muscle tone and skin and body-- and said that after years wearing them the wraps had actually become, in a way, liberating.
Obviously the situation is different where the modesty issue takes on directly political baggage but it was a very interesting thing to hear her say.
Posted by Ben at January 18, 2005 06:47 PM