Masks [was: Re: About 5yr. log retention]

[Trei, Peter]

> Tom Vogt[SMTP:tom at ricardo.de]
> 
> the muslim veil, on the other hand, IS a sharp boundary. as I understand
> it, it is NOT permisable to lift it in public under ANY circumstances.
> 
> rounding that up, I'd guess that if we were religious about our privacy,
> things may be different (possibly just more ugly, but who knows).
> 
Be careful about making sweeping generalizations about Islamic cultures;
they vary almost as much as Christian and Jewish ones. While female 
modesty is a widely practiced virtue, it's implementation covers a wide
range, from all-encompassing covering to a simple head scarf.

Jim claims it has to do with 'property rights' the husband has in the wife.
This really applies more to purdah, the practice of isolating women from
society as a whole, or allowing them to contact non-family males only 
under carefully chaperoned situations. While veiling has some application
to this, it is more done to prevent inciting male lust. If you grew up in a
place
where the only women you saw were either relatives, or completely veiled,
a bare face or a 'glimpse of stocking' would be quite exciting.

I've read articles written by Western women who have lived in countries
where women were required to veil completely. Some of them actually
came to rather like it - under the veil they had privacy - no one could
mark them as a foreigner, they could come and go anywhere as easily
as a native. Underneath they could dress for comfort, not style or 
appearance. They felt safer.

Peter Trei