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Hijab

There is an op-ed written in a NY Urdu language paper (English translation) that deals with the issue of hijab. I’m looking for the Urdu version, but the English translation reminds me very much of what some of the early debate was like in NY in English. You would throw out a whole bunch of arguments and see what would stick. The arguments have become much more sophisticated and targeted, helped both by time and the easy accessibility of more academic material. I think this article is important, not because of what it says, but because of the language and…

More on Women and the Veil

This one is an interesting take on a non-Muslim woman who has to wear the veil in Saudi Arabia. I’m curious about somethings. Towards the end, she is on the sidewalk unattended by a male. Is that not a problem? She can’t be in the bank with her male escort, so she’s left unescorted outside? Also, isn’t the abaya supposed to be the thing that hides women? Are they be veiled and separated in a different room? I know all these things intellectually, but to read her story helps to highlight the contradictions. Technorati Tags: veil, Saudi Arabia, women in…

The New Orientalists

An upcoming article talks about lenses used to describe the lives of Muslim women (via Law and Humanities Blog): "Popular narratives produced from the west, particularly since 9/11, perpetuate negative stereotypes about Middle Eastern Muslim women. Native writers settled in the west also dish out heart-rending tales of women's oppression in fundamentalist Islamic societies, targeting a western audience long fed on tales of Islam's intolerance towards women. These 'New Orientalist' narratives, portraying Muslim women as hapless victims of Islamic fundamentalism, only serve to reinforce the stereotypes entrenched in popular western imagination. With Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran as a…