Posted by
Lady Logician on Saturday, November 04, 2006 8:18:08 AM
I have heard all of the arguments regarding the wearing of the niqab, but this article is probably the most cogent one against it that I have ever read.
"I look at myself in my full-length mirror. I'm horrified. I have disappeared and somebody I don't recognise is looking back at me. I cannot tell how old she is, how much she weighs, whether she has a kind or a sad face, whether she has long or short hair, whether she has any distinctive facial features at all.... At the supermarket a baby no more than two years old takes one look at me and bursts into tears. I move towards him. "It's OK," I murmur. "I'm not a monster. I'm a real person." I show him the only part of me that is visible - my hands - but it's too late. His mother has whisked him away....I'm stuck looking aloof and inhospitable, and am not surprised that my day lacks the civilities I normally receive, the hellos, thank-yous and goodbyes...The women I have met who have taken to wearing the niqab tell me that it gives them confidence. I find that it saps mine. Nobody has forced me to wear it but I feel like I have oppressed and isolated myself."
There is much, much more. As a woman, I highly recommed this. Should the radical Islamists get their way, every woman in the world will be subject to wearing the niqab.