Saturday, July 23, 2011

Women Who Choose to Cover Themselves Are NOT Backwards

My name is Nancy and I am a liberal woman from a conservative place.



I recently saw an old friend post this picture up onto their Facebook, and this is what sparked the idea to write this post – about Muslim women, and then any other women for that matter, who would rather not show off their bodies.

(Obviously I am not talking about people who are actually are forced to hide their bodies beyond their will. I am talking about the women that choose to do so.)

The Western conception that anybody who does not like to wear (sometimes overly-) revealing clothes  (e.g. short skirts, “booty” shorts, halter tops, tank tops, low necklines, crop tops, leggings, etc.) means that they do not like their body, are ashamed of how they look, are ashamed even, to have the female form, is ridiculous. 

We live in the West assuming we are more forward-thinking than every other culture and country yet we still do not really understand the conception of liberty in so many ways. 

Telling women, or even merely judging them when they cover themselves up is backwards.  Why are we trying to enforce “liberty” on others? Does the phrase itself not sound oxymoronic?

While I agree that women’s faces should be shown for photo identification cards (e.g. faces should be showing, hair is not necessary) I do not see why women have to face both outward scrutiny and informal stigma of those surrounding them in society. I thought living in Western countries meant we were FREE to do as we chose as long as we did not harm others (thank you Mill); judging these women and unfairly calling attention to them in settings such as schools, the workplace, and then in broader ways through the media and in society in general is what causes harm to others.

A woman who chooses to dress modestly has as much right to do so as a woman who chooses to show herself; in fact, the former is not ashamed of herself, rather, this is the look she prefers and there is nothing wrong with that. So to simply assume that such women are “backwards”, “confused”, “too traditional”, “ashamed” and importantly, “forced” to do so, is ignorance. Some women prefer to be this way and some women do not. We cannot tell women how to dress and if that involves allowing them to show their bodies without assuming they are “sluts” then it also means allowing them to cover themselves without assuming they are “old fashioned”.

Yours sincerely,
Nancy.

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