If you can get over the thought of Christopher Hitchens receiving a “back, sack, and crack” wax then this is a good example of the West’s flawed concept of girl power.
(Hitchens put himself through American cosmetic dentistry and general bodily beautification to celebrate his recently acquired American citizenship, detailed partially here in Vanity Fair. Pictures 8-10 are especially endearing.)
The article’s rather interesting (initial) thesis: Both Westerners and Muslims “agree that body hair, in its lush, natural form, is gross and repellent, a problem that must be eradicated at all costs.” I didn’t exactly expect to see that as a point of intercultural connection. But there it is.
The author splits this follicle-based aversion in two ways. Westerners shave their nether-regions because they want to look like porn starlets. Muslims do it because, in so many words, they hate secular society.
The veil is a cultural weapon. It is a statement of separation from — and declared opposition to — the secular society in which she was raised, which she expects wholly to accommodate her impossible wishes, while she herself will not budge an inch.
The very fact that this author can make the jump between the reasons some people shave their armpits and a particular loathing for secularism (and the use of the veil, or hijab) says a lot about the twisted lens with which Westerners see the hijab.
When a Western woman undergoes the “excruciating sexifying of the sex” it’s a choice. So what if she’s responding to societal currents derived in large part from the porn industry? She is exercising freedom!
But when a Western Muslim puts on a hijab she is giving a big Joe Glenn to secular society? In fact, whether Muslims themselves see the veil as an obligation or a choice, the fact of the matter is that it is no more a sign of oppression than Coptic hand tattoos or bikini waxes because each responds to certain cultural conditions and, surprise, surprise, not a small amount of influence from the preferences of the male sex.
The concept of the trampled, hijab-bearing Muslim woman is not entirely without historical precedent. But as I walk the streets of Cairo or Amman or Damascus (not to mention Dearborn or Los Angeles) the majority of women I see are steered to their hijab preference by a number of factors -- what they believe to be their best public persona en route to finding a spouse not the least among them.
We should just admit what is and has been painfully clear for quite some time. Women who take the hijab are acting less like culture warriors and more like Western women faced with similarly powerful cultural imperatives. And if the West would start treating intelligent, reasonable people less like an invasive species and more like intelligent, reasonable people, we may just stop events like this from ever getting off the ground.
Comparative shaving studies not withstanding.
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