What’s It Like To Wear a Burqa?
Posted by: Olivia Allin
Filed in:
news
8:30AM, Friday August 14th 2009
British journalist Liz Jones wore a burqa for a week and chronicled her experiences in “My Week Wearing a Burka: Just a Few Yards of Black Fabric, but It Felt Like a Prison.” Her inspiration? Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese woman who will receive 40 lashes for wearing pants in public.
When she went to pick up her daily coffee, she realized that she had no idea how to eat or drink in a burqa. Upon seeing her reflection in a window, she wrote, “Instead of me staring back, I saw a dark, depressed alien. A smudge. A nothing.” Wearing the head-to-toe garment, she felt physically oppressed. “I felt blinkered, like a racehorse. Walking to the platform, I could hardly breathe: I kept getting my nose out from beneath its shroud for fresh air. I felt weak, and faint and itchy.”
On one occasion, an Arab man shouted at her, but she had no idea what he was saying. She wondered whether being out alone or eating was her sin. A British Muslim woman told her, “I have had so much abuse on the train.” A Western friend commented: “How fantastic, you don’t have to bother to put on make-up, or wash your hair. How liberating and at least you won’t catch swine flu or be leered at.”
Inside the burqa, she says, she felt “clumsy, slow, and fearful.” For her, the experience was like being disabled. By the end of the week, she felt like a Muslim schoolgirl. “I know now exactly how they feel: marginalised, objectified, kept box-fresh for the eyes of male relatives.”
Ultimately, this journalist’s experiment wasn’t all that dissimilar from Tyra Banks running around in a fat suit. It was close to touching on something important about women in the world.
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kw1223
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 09:14 am: [report]
I’m sure she did feel that way but how would she feel if she didn’t know any differently? She might feel too exposed, self conscious, and unsafe if she had worn one her whole adult life and suddenly went without.
doridori
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 12:40 pm: [report]
@kw1223- you took the thoughts right out of my head.
resullins
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 01:06 pm: [report]
I can see that point of view, but what about a kid that’s used to eating 18 meals a day and suddenly gets put on a diet. He’s going to feel like crap, like he’s being denied his rights… but is being denied something that’s belittling and sexist isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think. Besides, I think the point here is that women in a lot of countries don’t have the CHOICE! Even if they do feel trapped or alien in their clothes, there’s not a damn thing they can do about it… or they’ll get 40 lashings.
Coral
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 01:06 pm: [report]
@kw1223: I was thinking the same as well.
Obviously it would never happen, but what if a woman who always wears a burqa wore western style clothes for a week? I don’t think she would feel liberated in the way that many people would want her to feel.
moonblossom
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 01:43 pm: [report]
I try to be open minded about other people’s religious beliefs and I totally support their rights to free exercise, but I just don’t have it in me to support religions that suppress women. To me, being a woman is more fundamental than any religious belief. At my core I cannot reconcile acceptance of religion with discrimination against women…and I think woman who are forced by their religion/culture/family to wear oppressive clothing are discriminated against.
I do agree that a woman who dressed like this her whole life would probably be uncomfortable to suddenly go to western style dress. But, stepping outside one’s comfort zone can be a very good thing.
develange
wrote on August 14 2009 @ 04:41 pm: [report]
it just says ownership. “No other man is allowed to look at you.” It’s not your body, it’s HIS, and if you don’t cover up his property, you’re gonna get a beating.
Maybe the women feel comfortable in the burqas, just as most of us Ameriacans feel wearing our pants and skirts. But…we don’t get beaten for wearing something inappropriate. I might get arrested for running around the city topless, if they can catch me.