Exercises in Maybe: The Veil

I think it's a natural reaction when confronted with something foreign to be skeptical.  It's easier to dismiss something as wrong or misguided, stupid or antiquated when at first sight it seems so different from what you're used to.  It's especially easy to do when whatever it is goes against morals you've been raised to believe in, morals that seem both essential and logical.  And stepping outside of your own skin can be nearly impossible in these situations.  When dealing with cultural differences this applies as much as with anything, and the supposed "gulf of understanding" or in more extreme terms,  "Clash of Civilizations" between the Muslim world and the West only makes these feelings more pronounced and in a lot of ways more socially acceptable. So as a means of an exercise in "perspective transplantation", I've decided to take the opposite approach, to assume that things most foreign and seemingly wrong about what I happen to see might just happen to be the opposite, and that I and my socialized morality structure are what might be misguided.  And so here begins the multi-part series:  Exercises in Maybe.

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The Veil

Maybe all women everywhere including in magazines and on film should wear the veil.   Maybe they should all wear burkas.  They should cover their hair, arms, necks, legs and faces.  Their figures should be in no way discernible.   I'm not saying they should be forced to do it-- that is a leap in perspective that I'm not so willing or able to make-- but instead that maybe they should volunteer to do it out of humility, and in the interest of curbing so many of society's ills.  Think of some resulting effects.  

If no one knew who was beautiful and who was not, how could there be jealousy? Or vanity?  Would we have problems with women killing themselves to be thin or going under a plastic surgeon's knife to live up to the impossible standard that magazines, movies and television have led us to believe define what is beautiful?  Would we have women walking around so high and mighty based solely on the merit of their looks?  It's hard to think you're hot stuff with a black sheet over your entire body.  Would divorce rates be so high?  Since the introduction of satellite television and western movies here, for example, divorce rates have risen astronomically.  Is this because men expect that they too can have a woman as beautiful as the ones they see on the silver screen and are disappointed when they don't?  Wouldn't we start to assign more value to qualities other than physical beauty?  Wouldn't we be able to appreciate women more for who they are?  Maybe we'd be happier?  

Maybe men really can't be expected to control themselves.  Maybe women have to be covered in order to escape covetous stares.  Maybe I wouldn't mind if no one knew my sister or my girlfriend were beautiful.  I wouldn't have to hear my college buddies give me grief about the former that's for sure.  Maybe a woman's beauty should be saved only for the man she loves.  Maybe publicly displayed individuality is just another form of vanity.  It's possible it would be a better world if everyone wasn't always walking around trying to impress everybody else.  Maybe men should be covered too.  That way physical appearance is taken completely out of the picture. (pun?)

It's easy for westerners to see all that's wrong with the veil.  But for a lot of women who support it, it makes sense.  It shows humility before both god and man.  It shows piety and attempts to remove the ego.   And maybe we could all use a little more of that.   Maybe.