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Just as a coincidence and almost totally unrelated, my oldest daughter and I (she is 25) were watching a documentary about the Taliban and Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago and she said something totally unexpected about the burkah:
'I can understand how she might feel safe and secure inside that thing.'
Granted, my daughter, even though she is emotionally pretty healthy, has been the victim of sexual abuse. But I knew what she meant by that. Even though in places where women are subjugated and forced to wear the burkah it is obviously not about protecting women, ostensibly all of these forms of Islamic attire are meant to minimize the attention that women get from men. And as a woman myself, sometimes that attention does become tiresome and when I am feeling a little downtrodden and vulnerable, sometimes feels like a violation.
So even though I don't agree with the enforcement of it, I can at least understand why a cultural group might think the use of hijabs, niqabs, burkas, etc. are of a benefit to women and their society as a whole. And, just because a woman in Afghanistan is wearing a burkha, it doesn't necessarily mean that the men in her life are inhuman animals just waiting for an excuse to beat her or kill her. Sometimes people really do believe in the ways of their culture and sometimes people just follow along. It doesn't do any service to the women of Afghanistan or any other primarily Islamic country to paint their society with a broad brush stroke and tell them they are all victims.
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce
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