[WillowTheWhisp]

Originally Posted by shillelagh

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

That is an article in the daily mail yesterday. A woman wore the burqa for a day. Read it and see what you think.

That's quite an interesting article but I wish I could find the one I read a little while ago which was actually a muslim woman trying out the same experiment. She normally wore western dress but had a friend who wore the niqab so decided to try it just as an experiament. One of her main observations (which this reporter also mentioned) was that friends no longer recognised her if she passed them in the street. She said "Hi" to her next door neighbour and he looked beyond her looking for a familiar face.

I'm so used to coming across people in town when I go out and stopping for a bit of a chat. If you don't recognise your friends as you float past each other swathed in black such simple pleasures will never exist. It must be a lonely life. I certainly don't believe that I could cope with that.

I can see what the reporter is saying that it can be a backlash against the mode of dress seen as western culture which is against muslim standards. (The outfits described by the mother of a friend of mine as a "topless backless evening strap".) Being LDS I have certain dress standards too and it's sometimes hard to find clothes in the shops which are suitable. We adapt by layering or making some adjustments at home with our sewing machines and needles and cotton. It can be done. There's a sort of joke about the "Milly, Molly Mormon" woman dressed like something out of "Little House on the Prairie" but I don't think we're that bad. You'd hardly notice us except that our hemlines may be a little lower, our necklines a little higher and our shoulders covered.

I was also thinking about the Amish in the USA. They have their own mode of dress and shun most modern devices and appliances. They co-exist alongside others yet keep themselves very much to themselves, more so than muslims living in this country, and yet there seems to be no antagonism towards them.