Cover-up: Of Muslim women and Western fashion

Date published: 9/7/2008

NEW YORK

Ideological battles are often waged with women's bodies as their emblems, and Western Islamophobia is no exception. When France banned headscarves in schools, it used the hijab as a proxy for Western values in general, including the appropriate status of women. When Americans were being prepared for the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban was demonized for denying cosmetics and hair color to women; when the Taliban was overthrown, Western writers noted that women had taken off their scarves.

BLIND TO OPPRESSION?

But are we in the West radically misinterpreting Muslim sexual mores, particularly the meaning to many Muslim women of being veiled or wearing the chador? Are we blind to our own markers of the oppression and control of women?

The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I traveled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women's appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one's husband.

It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channeling--toward marriage and the bonds that sustain family life.

Outside the walls of the typical Muslim households that I visited in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt, all was demureness and propriety. But inside, women were as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.

Naomi Wolf is the author of the forthcoming "Give Me Liberty: How to Become an American Revolutionary," and is co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign. © Project Syndicate, 2008.

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Date published: 9/7/2008