Re: My official stance on burqas
You know, Roman, walking the streets of my town here in South Florida, I don't feel like anyone is looking at me with Gandhi nazrein. The people in the town are mostly educated, and are not sexually frustrated, and most importantly, there are major laws here that are actually EXECUTED against guys that harm ladies sexually.
Even if a guy says something offensive to a girl, she can report it as sexual harassment, and he can get punished for it.
So here, I dont walk around with any kind of head covering or chaddar around my body.
When I go to Pakistan, those kinds of laws are not there. If I got raped, the law says (contrary to Islam by the way!) that I need 4 witnesses to prove that this guy raped me. Even a MEDICAL REPORT is often not honored!!!!!!!
Even if no rape occurs (nothing yet, thank God), I am still grabbed on the streets. I dont know if you read one of my stories in Life1, but I was grabbed in the crotch when I was 14 in some Saddar bazaar. By the way, it was a bazaar in which they sell cloth - so most of the customers are actually females anyway. And STILL I faced this treatment from some guy wandering thru there!!!!
I get pinched in my behind all the time.
Apart from the physical harassment/abuse, I get guys making the most PERVERTED faces at me.
Now this is not just ME. Its almost every Pakistani girl.
So in an environment like THAT, guess what I do? I keep my chaddar over my body, cover my head, wear NO make-up.
That's how I go out shopping. I hate doing that because when I walk into an expensive boutique the sales girls don't pay any attention to me, and some even go as far as making a snooty face. Good for them - they just lost money, but how does that make me feel as a girl out shopping??
But I have to do it, because it actually EFFECTIVELY minimizes a lot of problems I have in the streets. I've already experimented on it - I get hit on a lot more if I'm wearing make-up, and wearing a fitted shalwaar kameez.
Now you come here and tell me that I'm doing it for oppression? Excuse me, mister. Go fix the laws of Pakistan first and fix the stupid mentality of ghattiya men, and then come and talk to me about hijaab and burqas.