Amal Ghandour tells Newsweek Bkinis and Burqas More Common Than You Think

Well Said: Bikinis and Burqas More Common Than You Think

May 21, 2010

"One decides to veil, the other decides to flaunt. But both have internalized the idea of being sex objects as central to their identity."

—Stanford educated Shiite Amal Ghandour tells Newsweek that Muslim women like the new Miss USA don't differ that much from those who decide to wear the veil. She reasons that many women who wear the full-covering veil see themselves as prizes for the men they hope to attract. I never really thought of it that way.

Source: Getty, WireImage

19 Comments

2 years 47 weeks

As a Muslim, i disagree with the title of this post, as i believe most Muslims would. The purpose of Hijab or Niquab in Islam, is not to objectify the woman as a symbol of purity, it's not a "Purity Ring" of any sort, just as one of the posters clarified earlier that single, married, widowed & even older women wear the Islamic costume, they don't take it off just because they caught a husband :)) On the other hand, its purpose is to protect the women from possible harmful looks or acts from others. As a proud Muslim girl who has been wearing the veil since i was in college, i can honestly say that it hasn't held me back from having a great education & reaching great positions at multi-national firms & neither has it caused me any trouble in communicating & working with my colleagues from the opposite sex. Actually, to be honest, it has given me great confidence in proving myself by my personality, work & accomplishments, not by my looks. Wearing the proper Islamic costume, which includes covering the hair with a veil "Hijab" & not wearing tight or transparent clothes, is actually obligatory in Islam. As for covering the face "Niquab", some Islamic scientists state that its an extra virtue, but not obligatory, people may take it or leave it.

FrostAyr 2 years 51 weeks

My class had to read "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi in school and I feel that women should be given a choice to liberty (from the burqa/hijab) and the right to their religion if they choose to.

nguidjol 3 years 13 h

That's not exactly true about France. All the political parties agree on banning the burqa in official places (states schools, states offices etc..). There is a separation of church and state in France and the government wants to apply it. The difference between left and right is that the right (French Republicans) wants the burqa to be banned everywhere including the streets, whereas the left (French Democrats) wants the ban to be limited to officials places.

jocupcake 3 years 1 day

Oh sorry - not very good at message board etiquette. I thought the ^^ meant you were responding to me.

spacekatgal 3 years 1 day

I'm not really responding to anyone in particular, just expressing my feelings.

jocupcake 3 years 1 day

Wait... spacekatgal, was your comment for me? Because I agree with you. My "if a woman wants to cover up" comment was basically directed to France - I don't think it's a government's right to tell a woman that she can't wear a burqa if she really wants to. I'm not sure if this is what you were responding to?

spacekatgal 3 years 1 day

^^ But women are forced to wear veils in these countries, as I understand it. It Saudi Arabia, as I understand it, women's right to drive was revoked and they were forced to wear chadors. It was because of the reinstitution of Sharia Law. The Burka/Chador will always give me an uneasy feeling. I don't like this part of Muslim tradition at all.

jocupcake 3 years 2 days

Cirrus, I am Iranian, Turkish, Russian, and German. Part of my family lives in Tehran still but some left after the revolution and now live in the US (like me) and Europe. To the 2 anonymous posters above: you are right. Nowhere in the Koran does it say that a woman needs to be veiled. So why are women in middle eastern countries forced to wear scarves and burqas? If a woman wants to cover up then more power to her. The bottom line is that no one should be forced to be veiled or vice versa.

3 years 2 days

i don't know why we the "West" thinks these women are oppressed because they wear veils. If we stopped looking at everything from a euro-centric view for once, and tried to see things from a their cultural/national view, then we would understand it better. We cause more problem when we force other cultures and peoples to drop their tradtions/customs/history to adopt ours for what we think is their benefit.

3 years 2 days

Well the Koran never says anything about women being forced to be covered. Being veiled is a choice these women make. They preferred to valued for their mind and thoughts than their butt. They also want to protect themselves. The veil actually goes back to before islam, where women covered themselves so that they were not kidnapped by outsiders, to be wived to strangers. If a person could not see what a woman looked like, then they couldnt tell if she was old or young. Also when you think about it. We in the west are slaves to being "sexy" and what we think is presentable. The makeup, body image issues, plastic surgery, weight ect. govern us. In some ways we are forced by our society to be a certain way, taking away from our free will a bit.

cirrus1701 3 years 2 days

Perhaps piety would be a better word for wearing things like the Amish/Mennonite/Other Christian prayer coverings, yarmulkes, hijabs, etc. In regards to the burqa and niqab, I totally agree with you jo!! Are you an Iranian national?

jocupcake 3 years 2 days

I still think it's insane that women are forced to cover up just because men are weak and will be "tempted" by female hair, faces, arms, etc. Uggh! How about you just suck it up and grow a pair men? Just so you earlier posters feel a little better... not all women have to dress like that. I've actually never seen a full-on burqa in Iran at least. Most women dress like this there: http://www.badeagle.com/beimages/IranianWomen.jpg

zeze 3 years 2 days

I disagree. Society sexualizes women more than men. That is not an opinion, that is a fact from television shows to business tactics to traditions and cultures. I see the women flaunting themselves in bikinis as women who accept that label of sexual object and look to succeed or get ahead by accepting that role. Women who veil on the other hand are rejecting that label and saying DONT look at rack and butt and judge my worth, look at other attributes, my smarts, my personality etc... I think the woman who made this comment is assuming that the only reason women who veil are veiling is to attract men to their purity - but that assumption is silly, many women who veil are married, have children (so its not to say their are pure virgins). If women wore the veil until they got married, I would get that, it would mean once the deed was done, the goal was accomplished and everyone knew their prize (virginity) was won the girl became useless and no one needs to even look to her anymore, but with Muslim women, this is not the case.

3 years 2 days

That pic you posted #2, is it real or PSed? It really made me hyperventilate and shiver. :scared: :faint:

postmodernsleaze 3 years 2 days

That's a very interesting point.

starbucks 3 years 2 days

Wow, never thought of it this way....The burqua is there to attract men, because it basically is the same as a purity ring....Here, I'm pure, I'm saving myself for one man. So while the message is contradicting, the goal is the same...

cirrus1701 3 years 2 days

Dear G-d, that literally left me in tears!

Bettye Wayne 3 years 2 days

I never thought of it that way either, but that's quite insightful. Religion and pop culture can brainwash people in remarkable ways. Shayna I think the burqa is the one that covers the entire face, including the veil. That picture above is technically a Niqab because the eyes are showing. This is a burqa:

ShaynaLeah 3 years 2 days

Except that the woman wearing the bikini is hoping to attract men via flaunting her body, whereas the burqa (if I'm understanding the point correctly), and definitely the clothes worn by Ultra Orthodox Jewish women, is to conceal those features so that the focus is on the woman's face and personality... Not exactly the same!

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