The True Victims

Maytha:

Much reviled in academic essays by right-wing blog-o-sphere superstars as an anti-feminist "veil of oppression" and at times overly-theorized by Western scholars, the abaya is yet another Middle Eastern victim of misrepresentation in the West.

Oh yes, that big, black, cotton garbage bag is the victim. The women who're murdered or beaten upon refusal to wear the cloth are, for some strange reason, forgotten.

In Saudi Arabia, the mutaween (the religious police) has the authority to assault women who dare show their arm or ankle in public. Many Arab girls died because the mutaween refused to let them leave a burning building in 2002.

Last year in Iran, women were brutally attacked and arrested in public for the crime of "immodesty":

Back to Maytha:

During my two weeks in the Emirates, I spent nearly everyday draped in the shoulder-to-toe black cloak-a decision made by choice and not force. Having been raised all my life in the states, this decision might come as one of shock by my rah rah female compatriots. Interesting enough, as I embark on my flight back to the states, one of the things I will miss the most about my experience in the Emirates is the culture of the abaya.

Just how spectacularly dumb do you have to be to choose this in one of the hottest places on Earth?

Comments

[Mike T]

Well, that should help her keep the wait off. It's a like sauna that she wears in public.