Cliches, cliches

One thing that drives me crazy in Western media is the constant surprise when we see an example of a woman in the Middle East that is not clad in black robes from head to foot.

I was excited to see this article on Salon.com from Der Spiegal, but I was quickly disappointed.

While Zahra Rahnavard is certainly an interesting woman, she is not the first pious Muslim woman to stand up a corrupt and self-righteous regime by any means.

We are so fixated on the veil.

This excerpt shows unfamiliarity with the myriad styles of veiling in Iran, where many women show a few inches of hair and sometimes much more, and wear make-up, as well as colorful scarves, which are sometimes simply draped over the head and tied with a loose not. It is also well known that Iranian women dress as they please under those long robes, which they can take off at home or safe inside their friends homes.

'When Rahnavard arrived before Sunday's press conference, she was wearing a colorful headscarf and heavy make-up, a violation of rules in Iran. A denim shirt could be seen at the sleeves of her chador.'

Of course, news organizations love to show file photos of women in oppressive chadors, and veils, but often if you watch their television footage there are many women in the back ground, out of focus, who do not look this way.

Ulrike even quotes an Iranian beautician who makes this point:

'"Iranian women are self confident, sexy and intelligent," says Mahin as she massages a client's face. The rest of the world doesn't perceive this, she says. Instead it thinks of the image of the oppressed woman in a chador.'

There are many reasons for covering in one form or another, and many, many, many, different ways of dressing in the Muslim world. Muslim women are just as intelligent and diverse as we, and they make conscious choices. Yes, some are most certainly coerced or forced upon them, but like any human being they adapt and assert their power in very different ways that get very little attention in our media.

Don't reduce what this woman is doing to her make-up or her flowered head scarf.

On a related note, here is an excellent deconstruction of a picture taken in the aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006. Do these women look like the pictures they usually show from Hizbullah territory, or Arab countries in general?