[kj] Jaz Straw

[culturevirus]

I understand your point, I think Jack Straw was saying the same thing. On the whole I don't disagree with this feeling. To a certain degree she was "empowered" or had power over you. Because of the head covering you were at a disadvantage in reading her and were in effect disempowered. These are reasonable concerns that people in multi-cultural societies need to address and come to terms with. From what I can see in England you have a significantly higher percent of Muslim women wearing this traditional dress. Why don't you guys deal with this in an intelligent and peaceful manner so we in the US have a good example to follow :^)

flight Bringer <flightbringer at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:  "Such clothing can make women feel empowered as they no longer face 
distracted men who are (even subconsciously) checking out their physical 
features and are forced to deal with the woman as a social equal."

This is not the case. Most men feel uncomfortable when speaking to women 
wearing a hijab .I know that I did , I subconsciously did nt *connect* with 
her at all . I didn't feel like I was interacting with a human being, she 
seemed somewhat alien .
We also read people facial expressions a great deal . You can grasp what 
the other person is thinking by their facial expressions and if you cannot 
see their face then you wont be able to fully understand their feelings . A 
frown or a smile is an indication of a positive or negative reaction to any 
given statement . You can also tell how serious a person is being by their 
facial expression.



>From: culturevirus 
>Reply-To: "A list about all things Killing Joke (the 
>band!)"
>To: ade at the-lab.zetnet.co.uk,"A list about all things Killing Joke (the 
>band!)" 
>Subject: RE: [kj] Jaz Straw
>Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:17:07 -0700 (PDT)
>
>coming out of lurkdom again... being a US based person, the politics of 
>Britain are mostly unknown to me, but we have roughly the same set of 
>circumstances in the US. I have yet to hear/read of any of our politicians 
>speaking on the subject in such a level-headed manner as Mr. Straw. Our 
>politicians tend to speak in small words and short sentences so as to 
>discourage deep thought on issues and therefore maintain knee-jerk voting 
>based on political hatred for "the other party".
>
>Ade's comment (echoed by a few others) reflects the way a lot of us 
>Westerners view the hijab: as a way to keep women down or force women to 
>shoulder the burden of policing the male sexual drive. I know part of me 
>feels that way as well. But as Straw pointed out early in his column, many 
>women do choose to wear head coverings of some type. If you ask these women 
>many of them will respond that like school uniforms it keeps them equal 
>with their peers and reduces the distraction of clothing differences and 
>focuses peoples attentions on the wearer and not the clothes. Such clothing 
>can make women feel empowered as they no longer face distracted men who are 
>(even subconciously) checking out their physical features and are forced to 
>deal with the woman as a social equal.
>
>I recently read a book on the history of The Habit (Catholic nun garb) and 
>many nuns feel the same way. Within the communities of these women there is 
>disagreement over whether such attire has an overall positive or negative 
>affect on their place in society. Nearly all agree however, that it sets 
>them apart from other women and puts them in a frame of reference that is 
>unique among their sex.
>
>In a perfect world women will choose to wear such attire for what they feel 
>it does for them as a person and not what their sub-culture expects of 
>them.
>
>

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