{"id":152,"date":"2008-12-16T17:05:18","date_gmt":"2008-12-16T17:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/of-burkas-bikinis-and-postcard.html"},"modified":"2008-12-16T17:05:18","modified_gmt":"2008-12-16T17:05:18","slug":"of-burkas-bikinis-and-postcard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/of-burkas-bikinis-and-postcard.html","title":{"rendered":"of burkas, bikinis and postcards"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my essay The Burka and the Bikini<\/a>, I argued,<\/p>\n

The bikini and the burka are so far to the extremes that they meet
\nagain. They both serve to reduce women, from a person, to an object. In
\nthe case of the burka, that object is “slave”. In the case of the
\nbikini, that object is “sex”. The burka is forced upon women, for fear
\nof consequences, whereas women are induced to wear the bikini, out of
\ndesire for consequences. But in both cases those consequences are to
\nplease males. <\/p>\n

The bikini and the burka can both be used by women as expressions of
\npower and independence<\/b>. The burka, or ridah, or hijab, can be a
\npowerful weapon of modesty, if chosen freely (and in fact, it is in
\nWestern countries like America that Qur’anic modes of modesty in
\nwomen’s dress do finally take on the meaning they were intended to
\nhave, because of the freedom of choice. America is the greatest Islamic
\ncountry on earth). Likewise, the woman wearing a bikini solely out of
\nher personal pride in her appearance has turned the bikini into a
\nweapon of self-expression. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This sentiment earned me a great deal of critique, I am proud to say. The view that the burka is not necessarilyily oppressive, and that the bikini may be so, is one that threatens the basic cultural-supremacist narrative of Islam as barbaric \/ West as enlightened. <\/p>\n

To argue that Islam offers the potential (admittedly, largely unrealized in most of the present-day Islamic world) for more meaningful women’s rights than Western feminism is a kind of cultural blasphemy. That’s why at least one person felt compelled to express their dissatisfaction via anonymous postcard to PostSecret<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

It is encouraging to see the dogma of bikini as liberation is being questioned. The burka and the bikini are just pieces of cloth, nothing more. What matters is why they are worn – and who makes the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my essay The Burka and the Bikini, I argued, The bikini and the burka are so far to the extremes that they meet again. They both serve to reduce women, from a person, to an object. In the case of the burka, that object is “slave”. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}