Much has been said about the woman who walked around in the streets of New York city for ten hours while men of all descriptions made unwanted advances to her. Of course it shows how uncivilized men’s desires can become but it also shows a degree of acclimation and expectation people have when confronted with their notions of beauty and attraction in today’s America. The link to the Hollaback video for your viewing pleasure is here.
However, there is another video in two parts that shows both the predictable reaction of men to women regular wearing regular attire walking for several hours and the same woman wearing a black abaya and hijab walking with vastly different results. In the case of the woman with the “Islamic” clothes there are no recorded interactions between the veiled woman and men she passes on the streets. In fact they seem not to even notice her as she walks mere inches away in some cases. Perhaps the reason is because of the clothes…..Muslim women are told in their sacred scripture, The Quran, one of the reasons for the covering is to be easily identified as women of modesty and faith yet perhaps another reason is because men know that interacting with women like that will result in no reaction at all. Operating on the principle that if one randomly approaches scores of women solicitously they may get one to accept their advances they have come to realize through interaction with Muslims that no matter how many times they make similar advances with Muslim women they will get no response at all. If that’s the case, it is a praiseworthy on the part of the Muslim woman not to advance such societal norms with interaction. Take a look at the video and decide for yourself what is the reason for the difference in how men react to the two examples…..
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