Veiling

I find this article very interesting and very empathizing, for I have lived in Shanghai, where since 1970s have been the first city to open up to the Western world, and one of the most modernized and westernized big city in China. This article discussed the topic of Westerners imposing their point of view and opinion onto other cultures, and in this case, the Middle Eastern countries. The action of veiling, to the Middle Eastern people, is seen as a sense of culture, and a method of increasing morality, compared to the “westerners” who are more revealing. What interested me the most is the idea that feminism, a movement started in 19^th century, is viewed as the main cause of the “backwardness” of the Middle Eastern Islamic countries. The argument presented is that the continuous notion of the westerners, believing that veiling is a form of oppression of religion on women in Middle East, is an impediment on Islamic countries’ advancement. This belief is argued as a notion created by the west to dominate over east.