some interesting points
"I have two daughters, which makes me a practical species of feminist with a meticulous interest in the daily lives of women. I want to hustle over to women in niqabs and whisper, "You don't have to wear that here." Politeness always triumphs and I have never done this. But I see myself from the black-cloaked woman's eyes — my tight clothing and exposed legs, long hair, lipstick, a real boldness with the men who are my equals — and I assume, perhaps unfairly, that she regards me as sluttish.
So women are at odds with each other over the niqab. It gets worse. A niqab inevitably insults all the men and women who encounter it, just by implication. I can take a niqab-wearer's incorrect assumptions about me personally, but I dislike her stigmatizing men, whose co-operation this feminist needs to build a society that will be fair to our daughters.
Ahmed is comfortable only in the company of females. She assumes that men are only at ease in the company of men (a reference to a brilliant Neil LaBute movie you may not wish to see).
But I believe all single-sex institutions are bad news. Book groups, single-sex schools, male top-heavy workplaces, police forces, armed forces, girl gangs, anywhere where one gender predominates or rules is headed for trouble. Am I alone in noticing that sexual segregation ends in tears and sometimes blood? Just read Margaret Atwood's novel Cat's Eye and study the mechanism.
Ahmed hopes that no man will ever see her face, and that men will never truly interact or compete with her. We had that era in Canada, before the Persons Case (and long after), when women were fired from their jobs when they married, when women, Jews and other undesirables couldn't get into good universities, when men ruled on sexual and reproductive matters, when society was compartmentalized to the extreme.
Ahmed wants Canada to give way and revert to an era of cruelty, nay perversion. Canada asks that she concede. Inevitably, both sides will adjust. But someone has to decide where it stops, and I believe niqabs are it.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/03/05/f-vp-mallick.html#ixzz0hgcJcHme
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1 comments:
gives me chills... This is a subject very dear to my heart... Feminism is something that is in my blood and how I was raised. I want everyone to feel at home when in Canada but our ancesters have fought long and hard to give us equal rights and still, in 2010, woman get paid less, not always equally... We need to think hard at the implication of the niqab and hijab become part of our multicultural fabric...
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