To Cover or Not to Cover?

I just read the most interesting factoid in last month’s issue of National Geographic Traveler. I bet you will never guess what all the of the following cities have in common: Amsterdam, Antwerp, Athens, Berlin, Cairo, Dresden, Dublin, Geneva, Lison, London, Marseilles, Milan, Moscow, Rome, Seville, Toronto, and Warsaw? If you live in Ohio you might know the answer, because all of these are cities and towns in that state. Kind of amazing. I didn’t believe it at first, so I actually looked some of them up and sure enough, they were all listed, so I guess it must be true – we all know the internet doesn’t lie.

Not that this fascinating bit of trivia has anything to do with Dubai, except for the fact that not many people really know where it is either. Most people think it’s in India or in that vicinity, and when they discover it’s not there, and that it is actually in the “Middle East”, they immediately ask me whether it’s safe, whether I feel safe and whether I have to cover my head/face. My answers are yes, yes and no. I have learned a lot about covering in the short time I’ve been here, from many of the Arab women I’ve met. We have several working in our office, one who is an Emirate and the other is from Kuwait - and one wears a full black abaya and one only wears a head scarf. She tells me that Kuwait women are very liberal and that many do not wear a scarf or cover at all, and she hadn’t until 2 years ago when she got married, out of respect for her husband but that it was her choice.

The whole covering thing seems very mysterious and a bit oppressive to we westerners, but it’s really not that big of a deal over here, I’m learning. There seem to be a million different acceptable ways to cover, some wear the full abaya, some only a head scarf, some are ornately adorned, some are very plain, some women cover just their hair, while others cover their entire faces, except for their eyes. One of the major misconceptions about the hijab (covering of the body, except the face and hands) is that women are forced to wear it by their parents, husbands or other male family members. In fact, the exact opposite is true. What parents or men want has nothing to do with it. Arab women feel that they exert their own liberation by making a choice about whether to cover or not. When a woman is covered, men cannot judge her by her appearance but are forced to evaluate her by her personality, character and morals so she is deliberately making that choice. I thought that seemed very reasonable and logical – and on a very practical note, I thought it would be awesome on really bad hair days!

Anyway, now that I’m used to seeing them, I’ve been studying Arab women to see how differently they express themselves despite covering. And, like everywhere, women here spend a lot of time and energy on the details and on those things you CAN see – eyes, lips, nails, hands (lots of beautiful hennas), beautifully adorned abayas, feet, you name it. They definitely show their personalities through what they wear and through careful detail to all the other pieces just as much as any western woman does.

Of course, some countries in the Arab world are definitely more stringent in what they condone and tolerate with respect to women, and not all (like Saudi Arabia) are so lenient. I would say in general though, our western perspective on this is definitely more skewed towards very conservative, when in fact, their sense of individualism is much more similar to ours than you would think.