I’ve always been called something of a feminist. My parents raised me with the knowledge that I could do anything I put my mind to, and I believe that is true for everyone. So when I’ve learned about gender inequality, I’ve been shocked and angered. Pictures of women shrouded in burquas seemed to me one of the worst means of oppression. The last thing I’ve ever wanted was to be invisible, so why would someone ever choose it?
So when the first thing I saw when I landed in Turkey was a woman in head-to-toe black chador, I looked at her with an expression of pity. I didn’t see a woman; all I saw was a man’s shadow. I walked onto the streets of Istanbul savoring the feeling of the sun on my skin, thankful for my freedom.
Within a few days the city began to grate on me. The men were assertive to the point of rudeness, pushy over the brink of disrespectful. The cat-calls and the lazy stares at my body left me feeling violated. The way I dressed, though modest by American standards, invited the men to treat me as a piece of meat to be sized up and consumed at will. For someone who claims to be a suave, modern woman, I felt unexpectedly helpless underneath their scrutiny.
As I was walking towards the Blue Mosque, hunched with downcast eyes to avoid the shouts from the sides of the streets, a woman caught my eye. She was erect, striding through the streets with perfect posture, holding her child by the arm. Her eyes were focused straight ahead, and no man dared to bother her. She was in control, she was powerful, and she was wearing a billowing chador. And I realized – she, in all of her coverings, was freer than I was in my t-shirt.
It’s easy to look at the veil as an instrument of oppression, but for the Turkish women, donning another layer of fabric gave those women welcome invisibility from the preying eyes and explicit jabs of men. However, it also empowered them, giving them authority that donning a nun’s habit would give to a woman in America – a measure of respect that comes from religious devotion. Wearing a chador gave the Turkish women the greater freedom, so while I scurried down the sidewalk in my t-shirt, they could walk proudly through the streets in their veils.
My time in Turkey changed my mind about Islamic women’s clothing. Rather than seeing them as a means of oppression or a radical expression of religious belief, I see them as an opportunity for women to gain some freedoms in a culture of domineering males. Though the reasons to wear them are various, most of them are good – religious devotion, freedom, and a means of gaining respect. Rather than looking down on states where women wear the veil, Americans need to place themselves in those women’s shoes, because there’s definitely more to the veil than meets the eye.
