Beyond the Mud Wall
I spend so much time with women behind the mud walls of their compounds. Shielded from the male gaze. Protected from strict norms of coverage, silence, and invisibility. Here, behind the bricks, women giggle and tell me about the intimate details of their bodies, of their marriages. They wear skimpy tank-tops and thin, hastily tucked wraps. Their heads are bare. Their knees peek through their skirts as they bend over festooning their feet with henna swirls. I forget there is another way to be. As time passes, my hair tumbles from my loose head scarf. Women yank at my shirt to compare our undergarments. My notions of “culturally appropriate dress” morph. My comfort level with these women is inversely related to the length of my sleeves.
I forget how conservative their world outside of these walls continues to be.
But then I’m reminded.
I run in to a group of women I’ve become close with out near the market. If they didn’t grab me, I wouldn’t have noticed them. No part of their skin is visible. They are covered from head to toe in synthetic black fabric. Long hijabs. Dark socks with their flip-flops. Veils with three layers tied around their foreheads, some allowing for eyes to peek through, others meeting onlookers with a solid black panel shielding the woman’s face entirely.
I find myself uncomfortable.
Then, uncomfortable that I’m uncomfortable.
Guilty that I don’t feel as at ease, as close, as understood or understanding.
I’m disoriented by the public/private divide.
Unsure of the appropriate code of behavior out here, outside the walls.
In these moments, the years of cultural warfare between the West and the “Muslim World” are felt. The Muslim woman has become a symbol in the West, a representation of repression and suffering, ghostly in her long robes and hidden face. And while this war of cultural low-punches isn’t one that appeals to me, as I stand with these women, women with whom I’ve shared secrets, jokes, and tears, I wonder why only now they felt strange to me. Exotic. Perhaps I always interpreted women who covered their bodies – and most significantly, their faces, as supremely pious, a level of religiosity I didn’t understand, couldn’t relate to. Perhaps in some way, despite intellectually understanding otherwise, I’ve internalized the idea that behind the face veil, she and I were fundamentally different.
Disoriented and a bit disappointed with my own cogitations, I hurried away. Looking forward to their return home from the market. Where stripped down and without black cloth in the way, I would feel once again at home.
