Sunday, 22 June 2008

• Processing and venting

  My friend's husband was saying to me "Tammy, would you please try to convince my wife to wear a head scarf?  I want for my daughter and her sister to wear them when they are older to keep them from going wild".  This bugs me on so many levels.  First, a head scarf is no guarantee of modest, properly behaved little girls.  Second, what would he do if he had a son?  Would he make his son wear some special attire to guarantee that he will remain chaste?  Why the double standards?  Third, for people who wear a head scarf, there is a religious significance attached to it.  It's not just something to keep a daughter/woman in line.  My husband is Muslim, I am not.  I have watched the nieces in his family as they started donning a head scarf.  Some of them started wearing it upon having their first periods.  Others waited until they were in college.  Even the girls who waited until college to start wearing one were very modest and not acting wild and crazy.  They still looked like they were 12 years old with their freshly scrubbed faces, blue jeans, long sleeved shirts, and sneakers.  I know and understand the reason why some Christian women choose to cover their hair, as I have been covering my head for a few years  now.  I'm not going to tackle why Muslim or Jewish women choose to wear a head scarf because it is beyond my field of knowledge.  This couple *I think* is Hindu--he is from Ecuador and she is from one of the countries that is part of the former USSR, but they have pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses on the walls of their apartment.  At any rate, I think my friend's husband has good intentions--he wants to protect his children as much as possible, but I don't think that the head scarf is the be all and end all to protect a daughter.  For the record, his daughter is only 17 months old and the second daughter has not even been born yet.

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