a real cover-up

Submitted by Rebecca Moulds (United States), Mar 23, 2008 at 22:08

When living in Muslim countries, a foreign woman often has the opportunity to attend weddings or other events where the wearing of a head scarf is not mandatory, but merely optional. I have been to many such gatherings in Indonesia and Egypt, and have visited mosques as well, and it was my choice to cover my head or not. I chose not to, as I was foreign and not Muslim.

By the wearing of a hijab , it would imply that the wearer is Muslim, rather than the showing of respect, as the women in these photographs, thought they were expressing. Therefore, by choosing not to wear a head covering in such circumstances, a woman is not compromising her beliefs, nor is she insulting her hosts or the host country.

As an example of what I would call kow-towing, a British friend in Indonesia married a Javanese woman, and they had the traditional Javanese wedding. The parents of the groom flew out from the UK, and as part of the wedding party, were obliged to wear traditional Javanese costumes. They were very uncomfortable, and feared that they looked rather silly, too.

It's high time that women, especially ones in powerful places, do not feel the need to condescend to imagined Islamic pressure by willingly, and wrongfully, covering their heads.

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