Hijabbing Back At My Critics...

For the sake of clarification: I was not by any means trying to endorse the oppression of women with my comments yesterday. I was kind of out of it, so I may not have been clear enough. More than anything I was trying to say that it was refreshing to step off of a plane and into a culture that is not so sex-driven. Not only do both men and women generally wear traditional attire here, but there are not billboards and ads featuring scantily clad men and women around every corner. I had hoped to illustrate that being in that environment is refreshing- not that all societies should adopt the ideas necessarily associated with dress here. Also (for the record): as many men as women wear the traditional attire here in Kuwait, and 99% of the women that I have seen have not covered their faces.

Again, I fear that I came off as endorsing this entire culture, and that was not my aim. I also did not mean for it to sound gender-specific, as both men and women adopt the same “dress code” of sorts. I apologize if I offended anyone by giving them the impression that I was flatly approving of the entire cultural system here, including the traditional gender roles. I was only trying to comment on how nice it is to enter a culture that attempts to downplay sex as a driving force of the culture.