I recently read an article in the National Post and was extremely disturbed by the writers (Barbara Kay) narrow minded ideas about the burka and the different cultures around the world that dress in this fashion. Today, people are able to move between places and cultures as immigrants or tourists. With technologies like television and the internet one can virtually travel to any part of the world within minutes. As a result, we as a society have to try to endeavor and maintain cultural diversity, deal with oppression or the unequal distribution of resources and power, and encourage collective action to create a more equal society. In teaching about different cultures, we need to include the experiences and perspectives of women as well as men from different socioeconomic classes. We need not look only at a particular group of people within a culture and use only those experiences to portray a whole society of people. After all, wasn’t this the model that colonialism and slavery were built on?
Ms. Kay’s describes burkas as symbolizing oppression. Perhaps like most Western scholarship, the writer is quick to jump to certain signifiers or stereotypes that have been constructed by the West. Did Ms. Kay bother to look at the millions of educated women around the world who choose to wear Burkas or Hijabs or the women who just take pride in wearing these garments? Probably not. Maybe it’s because Western media and other forms of visual culture only tell us or show us those people who are ‘suffering’ or those that need to be ‘saved’. The question I pose for Ms. Kay is, how empowered are women in West? After all, it is men that dictate women’s fashion too. There is no denying that burkas were introduced in the recent past to many Islamic countries but so too were bikinis and mini skirts to the West. It is true women in the West don’t get stoned in the streets for not being dressed appropriately - instead, we are shunned for not conforming to the norm, resulting in a culture full of young girls with eating disorders and high suicide rates. Oh yes we do have it better here!
But perhaps the most astonishing thing about this article is how Ms. Kay refers to the Barbie doll as having ‘cultural innocence’. Barbie is an icon around the world with her blond hair, big breasts, impossibly long legs constantly fashioning the latest styles. What part of the population relates to her? After all, in the U. S. America natural blondes only account for 15 percent of the population. Having played with the iconic dolls when I was growing up, I wish that I could find a doll that looked like me or represented something that was around me. Perhaps then we would not have so many cultures obssessed with blond hair, perfect bodies or big blue eyes. Dont get me wrong I think that the makers of Barbie dolls choice to represent the 'other' is and will continue to be extremely problematic however, I urge Ms. Kay to read some more scholarly criticism on this iconic doll not to mention try to you use a wider range of resources as her research on different cultures.
You can read the article on the National Post Website, published on December 2, 2009.
