Word: veils
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...girl, what mattered after delivering the baby was cloaking her latest humiliation in a thin veil of dignity. On the way to school, she reportedly told a friend, "There's been a rumor that I'm pregnant, but I'm not," and invited the girl to feel her tender stomach. "She refused to admit that she had given birth once she lost the baby," a friend of the family said. "It was as if she could not comprehend it." Her teachers didn't help: though she had faithfully attended classes, they say they never realized she was pregnant...
Saddam Hussein's armies last week seemed to be enacting a travesty of the Arab motif of veiling and concealment. In the Arab world, women often veil themselves not because they are punished or shamed but because women, who produce life, must be protected, as a plant in the desert might be. Houses turn inward, the living quarters hidden. The true treasures are concealed. Saddam similarly appeared -- or wished to appear -- to be masking his strength, hiding it in bunkers in the sand...
...usually wear in public. That wasn't good enough for the mutawa, the vigilantes who enforce Muslim religious laws against impiety and immodesty. A member of the group accosted her as she was entering a shop, prodded her painfully with a long stick and berated her for neglecting to veil her face. A merchant rushed to her defense and explained that she was an American, part of the international effort to save the country. Barely missing a beat, the morals cop switched into English and continued his harangue more angrily than ever...
Despite such stifling interpretations of Islam, many women have found their liberation in their faith. The veil may be a symbol of oppression to the Western eye, but, to many who wear it, it is freedom -- not just from the tyranny of Western culture but also from unwanted sexual advances. In Cairo veils have become so popular that fashion shows are occasionally staged to show off new styles. Says Leila Takla, a Christian member of the Egyptian parliament: "As long as women are covering their heads and not their minds, it is an individual expression." Unfortunately, however, as laws...
...struggling democracies of Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, men no longer monopolize the seats of power. But whether from behind the veil or a presidential desk, women still face inequity...