women generally wear something else.

this comparison is crap.

women generally wear something else.

this comparison is crap.

that's important.

Seriously. There's no way that cartoon makes sense except to shame Western women for wearing bikinis.

In an effort to fit into that bikini.


Even Jane Fonda, goddess of exercise beyond compare, admitted that much of her lithe figure at the height of her exercise craze was due to bulimia.

are responsible.

That would be akin saying casual drinkers are responsible for the misfortunes of alcoholics.

And thanks for the flattery but it is far from my theory. There has been debate about whether women are trying harder to impress men or other women with their choice of clothing, make-up, hair style, etc. I don't know it may even be both. I do know that orange piece of cloth in the OP doesn't look comfortable crammed up her butt crack and has to be for some other reason than it's practicality or comfort.

But there is little reason to believe that they wear them for their own pleasure.

What are your thoughts? Do women wear uncomfortable clothing, make-up and hard to maintain hair styles for their own pleasure? Or am I wrong and those styles are actually comfortable? I don't know for sure but it wouldn't seem so.

Piercings, tattoos, and I don't even want to think about the anal bleaching, who could that be for?

Remember extremes work both ways.

That is a shockingly low opinion of women.

Tell me, according to this theory you have adopted, why do I -- or any woman -- do things to please my/our partners? Are we --

A) Mindless sex toys

B) Oppressed victims looking to appease

C) Partners in committed, affectionate relationships that seek to give as much as we receive and delight in the happiness of our (potential) mate

Granted, being single at a beach and sporting a bikini are different from a committed relationship but every married woman was once single. My thoughts about how I dress haven't changed. I don't have a model's body but I'm happy with what I've got and I have no qualms about wearing a bikini. I've worn them and, yes, I prefer them.

By the way, guys also do things to make themselves attractive. How come the neo-Victorians aren't constantly hounding them?

Being from Canada where we get sometimes 5 months of 'winter' a year ..... when I do get to go to the beach in warm weather the last thing 'I' want to wear is a bunch of clothes. The less the better, and I really couldn't care who thinks what. If people like me in my bikini or think it looks terrible, that's up to them and not something I think about for one second.

This idea that western women dress for men is just stupid. We're not mindless morons. Our ancestors fought for the right to dress as we please. I love my clothes, I alter and fix them up the way I want and express my own pleasure wearing them. Completely stupid, meaningless cartoon - especially when comparing a burka to a bikini as if a bikini is normal, everyday clothing.

Exactly!

That's what is so {censored} infuriating about this line of argument. Apparently, we're just crawling along in desperate search for male approval and thereby serving as tools in our own oppression because we're either too stupid or weak-willed. And we should be thankful these enlightened souls have appeared in their shining armor to instruct us in our error.

With allies like that who the hell needs the MRA types?

And what if I do want to show off the goodies? What if I do want to walk through the door on Lover Boy's arm with him beaming because he's sure he has won the heart of the best looking woman in the room? I should be ashamed because my husband adores me? I seek to please him because he seeks to please me -- it's a marriage of affectionate commitment to each other, not an adversarial contest.

And how come men never suffer this stigma? "Oh. You're just jogging, working out and wearing appealing clothes because you have to find your identity in how many women find you attractive." The double-standard is no different than the "sexually prolific men are conquerors but sexually prolific women are sluts" argument.

I honestly think sometimes people just blurt out whatever enters their minds without first fully examining the ramifications of what it is they're saying. Sometimes it gets made into a cartoon that is posted with ill-considered glee.

because you're good looking and you're happy about that, that would be terribly sad.

a trophy bride. And he is perfectly able find plenty of dates, if he so chose. We have had our commitment to each other tested and we both chose each other.

When I became a mother-in-law, and then a grandmother, I began to wear a modest swimsuit out of consideration for my son-in-law, and then my grandchildren. Now that I am 76 years old, I figure maybe I owe it to everybody to cover up a little more.

You think a burka it too much and others think a bikini is too little. Each are extremes in clothing options according to both sides. And I still think a piece of cloth in your butt crack can't be comfortable. There is even a name for it; wedgie.

As for doing things to please your partner, that was exactly my point, you are doing things to please someone other than yourself, thanks for agreeing with me. I leave the why up to you.

As for my "adopting" anything? No I just find it interesting and worth asking questions about. Sounds like you are curious about the subject. You are probably too young to remember all of the studies done back in the '60's and early '70's about why women wear mini skirts and bikinis but you could probably find some information by doing a web search.

You really are failing to see the similarities in both situations. Do you think those women don't love their husbands and religion? You are using the excuse that the burka wearers are forced to wear them when the truth is most wear them for the same reason you wear your bikini. You think your reason is acceptable but the same reason for the burka wearers is unacceptable.

You still refuse to say you wear a bikini because you feel comfortable in it, you will only say you are wearing it to please someone else which is exactly my point and why most women wear burkas.

More name calling with the "paternalism" when my point was that you probably don't know the history behind the study of clothing choices and that you could educate yourself on the subject. Your viewpoint seems to be limited to your personal experiences and feelings not realizing you may be an outlier and not reflective of the true reasoning for women's clothing choices.

Some people just can't settle for being wrong, they have to be obnoxious and very wrong. To wit, I wrote --

Especially before I reached my sixties, I was a vigorous and constant swimmer. I preferred bikini swimsuits for that reason. A bikini was much less in the way and dried much faster.

They were much less in the way during the vigorous swimming I enjoyed when I was young. Also, a bikini dries in the sun much faster and more completely than a full bathing suit. Now that I am 76, I figure maybe I should wear a full swimsuit out of consideration for other people's feelings. Also, the pools in which I swim are now much closer to my residence.

it was a stupid comparison that attempts to soften the horror that the forced covering inflicts on hundreds of millions of women.

I think it is meant to point out the hypocrisy in judging people from other cultures.

I think that the hypocrisy is not only between other cultures but happens between people of the same culture as well. It doesnt have to be all because of a differnce of cultures and it can be fueled by animosity.

I think that this can be percieved in a way that it is the shaming between two different cultures but it can also be percieved as the artist intended with it being two people from the same backround (Muslim women). I think it is important to recognize that everyone has their own perception.

Both women are focused on the "male-dominated" culture of the other one. This seems to be what they have in common about their thought process. Aside from this view, that is simply what they are thinking of each other. It seems that they are both confident in their own decisions because they are worried about how the men perceive the other. These are just a few ways to look at this image.

It's rather the opposite. I suppose a heavy woman or older woman is free legally to wear a bikini. But the social pressure not to would be there.

There is some sentiment that the full covering releases middle eastern women from that judgment in public - though I'm sure the individual men who get to see them might put pressure on them about their looks.

The women who wear bikinis are a small subset of women who have that choice as far as a body to show off.

But they sometimes choose to do so, just as some heavy women sometimes choose to wear a bikini.

Choice.

Bikinis are freely chosen to be worn (how many other things can a women where to the beach?). Burkas, on the other hand, are required attire subject to severe punishment if not worn.

wear what ever they like and men too. That is why we call it a free beach. There men don't decide what women wear.

The analogy does not have to be exact, it just needs to be good enough to send a message, which it is. I think the message is that people make judgements about people from other cultures based on their limited knowledge. In this case neither characters know enough about the other culture or have reflected enough on their own to reach a meaningful conclusion.

You may be waiting a while for a response.

Theoretically, it could be that the Burka woman has chosen to wear the attire in an attempt to dress how she sees fit. It doesn't necessarily mean it is required by law or she will be directly punished for it.

unlike their Eastern counterparts -- are choosing to contribute to male dominance.

Got any cartoons about how tight, short skirts leading to sexual assault?

(It's not a burqa, incidentally)

The two are in the same country, and neither are required to wear what they chose to wear. It's interesting how many people who dislike this cartoon miss that part.

The two are a fabrication of the artist's mind.

Most middle eastern governments are pretty shitty; you won't see me argue that.

The two are a fabrication of the artist's mind.

True, but they're a pretty interesting illustration of Muslim women and non-Muslim women not seeing the agency of each other -- something that does in fact happen in the west.

between two of my students: a woman from Brazil and one from Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi woman said that in her culture the more clothes a woman wore the better. The Brazilian woman said that it was the opposite in her culture and that women were expected to wear as few clothes as possible.

They are passing each other in the street. Does the woman in niqaab HAVE to wear it?

It's interesting. This cartoon first came out a couple of years ago and one thing I've noticed consistently is that people who don't like it never seem to make the connection that the Muslim woman in the cartoon is in America too.

She would be ostracized is she did not. She probably would not be allowed to enter the mosque where she worships if she did not.

On the other hand, there is no cultural or religious imperative that women in America wear bikinis. Women who go to the beach in a one piece suit aren't ostracized. And a woman attempting entering a church or synagogue in a bikini would be prevented from doing so.

So the comparison is just a big old fail.

I "learn" so many interesting "facts" about Islam on DU...

Got it.

that Western women are not forced into bikinis against their will by religulous assholes who see themselves "promoting virtue."

A really, rilly awful analogy. Unrec.

They're both in the same country, presumably the US.

with the penalty for failing to do so being a beating or even death. Not by color of law in the US, of course, but it can happen as multiple posts in this thread, including two about the Saudi school disaster, prove.

Why did you bring up Saudi Arabia?

Nobody forces a woman to wear a bikini. There is no country where bikinis are mandatory, and not revealing enough of your body would get a woman thrown in jail or murdered.

Nobody runs up to women in t-shirts and shorts on a beach and screams at them "take those clothes off, now, you evil woman!"

There is no Western analogy for how horribly women are treated in Islamic countries. None. It's a lame psychological attempt to rationalize a one-sided horror.

I can tell you categorically (because I know some) that there are in fact Muslim women who cover who feel that way about Western fashion dictates for women. And certainly there are non-Muslim women who feel that way about Islamic clothing rules. I think the cartoon is interesting because it shows a mutual alienation that does in fact happen right now between those two groups of women.

The bikini woman can put on a shirt and pants with no consequences. The full-burqa woman can't do shit but run to another country.

Brothers, though, under the skin.

BIG difference between that and what happens in the Middle East.

We aren't stamped from some mold to be brothers under the skin.
You'd be happy if I made a broad brush statement about you and your fellow women?

case, sociologists and anthropologists make general statements about cultures as a matter of course.

Your earlier post about the beach you visit is not the point, when one speaks of cultural influences.

You may have been saying it for years, but I know a guy who's said for years that women are money-grubbing golddiggers. Neither of you is correct, as far as I am able to determine, and neither position is greatly helpful.

I think there may be a "commercial standard" but that is more reflected in what the market wants as opposed to sneakily convincing people that's what they want. When women choose to show their bodies off in western culture they are not doing so because of a male dominated culture, it's just a part of a natural expression. If anything, male dominated cultures would want them to cover it up.

50 years ago a two piece would've been very very risque. 60-70 years ago it would've been illegal in the US.

No one on the beach in America is going to walk up to a woman and assault her, arrest her, or kill her because she's not wearing a bikini. But that might happen in places in the mid-east.

If women in America don't want to wear bikinis...then don't!

Or is it purely their choice whether to wear one, with no consequences if they choose not to?

Last edited Tue Feb 27, 2024, 05:35 PM - Edit history (1)

I often tell my friends, or myself, when I'm applying make up before I leave the house, that I'm putting on my burka. What I mean by that is I wear make up to protect myself from scrutiny. And I can see how women could welcome the protection of full covering. I am an old woman who grew up in America. Twiggy was our role model. Don't kid yourself, all women are controlled by men, all over the world. We wear what the corporations sell us, literally and figuratively. And corporations are controlled by men.
That doesn't mean that we can't love our bodies and if we feel like it, we can show them off. All women are asking for, all over the world, is control over our own bodies.✊🏼

In general, the woman on the left is legally authorized to choose her own wardrobe.

You know, I get hyperbole... but this is not it. It is ridiculous. I suspect that there are very few people who wouldn't trade places with the woman in the bikini in a heartbeat.

What a difficult choice...


NOT!



This is slut shaming women for choosing to claim their sexuality by implying the bikini is somehow dictated for women to wear by a male patriarchal culture. News flash! Some of us LIKE wearing a bikini on a beach and refuse to be shamed for doing so.

(Preferably topless as well!)

Indeed, in many places people of both genders wear nothing at all.

Today three families came in. All three women were completely covered in long coats to the ground as well as very LONG hijabs folded so far over their faces they had no peripheral vision. They sat in the bleachers while the husbands and kids frolicked in the water. All three husbands were wearing "Speedo" type bathing suits.

The double standards just amaze me.

Big difference.

It's really, really intriguing to me how many people consistently (this cartoon is a few years old) see the woman in niqaab as "not American".

"Happiness index" that public officals try to increase, women were not known to suffer from anorexia or bulimia.

Then recently one thing changed. The nation got TV's in many of its homes.

And suddenly women there suffered from those ailments just like their Western nation counterparts.

females wearing a bikini is a choice. doubt that wearing a burka is usually a choice

Awful comparison.

with human nature.

When one of those gets tired of luxuriating in the sun, and swimming, and surfing, and boating, and being water active instead of passive, without drowning in 50 pounds of wet entangling robes, she can put on a burka, and no one will have her killed.

Don't men and women wear about the same skin exposed swimwear at the beach or pool?

The other culture not so much, but good try with the cartoon.

They're passing each other on the street. Neither is legally required to wear what they are wearing. Both face social pressures. Both think the other are oppressed because of how they "have to" dress.

Yes, women in the US are not required to wear bikinis or burqas. But there are cultural and religious imperatives that do effectively force some women to wear burqas or be ostracized or worse. No women in the US is ostracized for wearing a one pieces bathing suit (or for going to the beach in shorts and a tee shirt or any other damn thing she might choose to wear).

I'm betting the number is low.

The fact that you continued the OP's troubling mistake of calling that outfit a "burqa" is a sign...

Ever hear of Dar Al-Hijrah? It's one of the larger mosques in the northeast. Attendance at worship service numbers in the thousands. I live a mile from it (and have for 50 years). There are many women in the are who wear niqab in the immediate vicinity. They work at some of the stores where I shop. (By the way, like a lot of people, I tend not to use burka to refer both to niqab and the more complete covering that is a burka; and while I'm not sure how it impacts this discussion, if it will make you happy, I will never do so again). By the way, if the cartoon depicted a woman wearing a hajib instead of a niqab, would it have been any different?

In any event, based on discussions I have had with some of these women (including discussions at interfaith gatherings sponsored by local synagogues) is that the women who wear the niqab feel a cultural imperative to do so-- just as some Jewish men (e.g., Hasids) feel a cultural imperative to to dress in black, wear hats and tzitzis. WIthin their peer group, they would feel uncomfortable not wearing the niqab.

In contrast, I don't think there is a comparable cultural imperative for women to wear bikinis. I've never been to a beach in which all, or even most, of the women in attendance wore bikinis (although I have been to beaches in which all or most of the women -- and men --wore nothing at all.

And the social pressures on western women as regards clothing. That disconnect (neither fundamentally believes that the other is making a free choice of her own) is what the cartoon is about.

Sure, they're both members of the discriminated groups in question, but they have bought into philosophies that make their opinion on what equality is completely biased and worthless.

Not sure how to respond to this. Awaiting word from Moscow.

Women do not have to wear skimpy bikini bathing suits if they choose not to.

Women in fundamentalist muslim cultures HAVE TO cover their slutty looking hair and their seductive faces, or face the consequences.

wear ?

not sure which western women have been stoned to death for not wearing a bikini.

This is another example of false equivalency.

Some of you are being ridiculous. Many, many, many women choose to wear a burka as a way of respecting themselves and their deity. Not all burka wearers are forced to do so or live in countries where they'll be killed if they don't. I think it should be obvious that this is not what is being compared here. Talk about creating false analogies, ugh.

Even if we accept your premise that the discussion should be only regarding those situation where the women wearing Burka's have a choice, there is no male equivalent to the Burka in the culture where it is worn by women so it is inherently sexist.

In the case of bikinis, there are speedos for men. Even though we don't see them a lot in the US, there is other swimwear for men that is fairly revealing.

not societal ideals.

The mere existence of bikini type options for men has barely any relevance at all and i think you know that.

Was Eve wearing a Burka? Does their religion tell them that God hates the human form?

If a woman "chooses" to wear a Burka it's because they've been indoctrinated to believe that some magical deity is ashamed of their body. It's neanderthal.

Religion is everything that is wrong with this planet. Every fucking religion shames people who enjoy sex. It's stupid. Consensual Sex with someone you love is just about the most fun you can have as a human being. Yet ALL religions try to shame you for feeling that joy.

When God himself tells me women should wear Burkas then I'll fucking believe it, until then, all these religious "laws" are man made, and used to control people, and they can shove that up their ass.

However, some women are persons of faith. Nuns, for example. And some of those women are instructed by their faith to perform certain rituals, wear certain garments, etc.

Also Nuns are no longer required to wear Habits.

Many of these women in the Middle East are not given a choice. And the ones who try to tell us that are usually silenced.

Many Muslim women choose to, many are forced to, got it, got it, got it, got it.
My comment NEVER implied that the forcing and violence do not occur. Point, again, is that is OBVIOUSLY, not what the poster is taking about.

Work what ya momma gave you, boyfriend!

PONY MIND BLEACH!!

That takes the onus off of the person who pretends their personal failing was someone else's fault.

believe through their faith that modesty is a virtue and cover themselves, by their own choice, to respect themselves and their deity.

Many women of all faiths try to find ways to be received primarily for their personality, intellect, goodwill, etc. instead of how appeasing they look to the dominant gender in their society. Many women are happy to try to garner favor with their bodies.

Point is, the poster was not setting up a: wearing a bikini to the beach for a swim vs. being stoned to death for wearing a burka comparison. The many implications that they were are dishonest.

It was more like a: living in a society where you feel worthless/invisible unless you look like the woman in the picture vs. living in a society where you must go unseen, but therefore must be judged on something other than aesthetics comparison.

Or showing how each society seeks to marginalize women by placing the amount of focus that each do on women's looks, albeit in different ways.

The strawmen avalanche just really irritated me.

What's dishonest is pretending women aren't being killed for failing to cover up.

the very same one. Great minds think alike, I guess.

In both cases the women are worried about how the men perceive the other one. There are no comments on how the women think of themselves, so it is hard to judge whether or not they feel they want to cover up or wear a bikini. In either case, their choice to cover up or not should be theirs, and not based on anyone else's opinions.

"On March 11, 2002, a fire at a girls' school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia killed fifteen people, all young girls. The event was especially notable due to complaints that Saudi Arabia's "religious police" (aka the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) stopped schoolgirls from leaving the burning building and hindered rescue workers because the girls were not wearing correct Islamic dress. As Hanny Megally, Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch put it, "Women and girls may have died unnecessarily because of extreme interpretations of the Islamic dress code. State authorities with direct and indirect responsibility for this tragedy must be held accountable."

More at[: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Mecca_girls%27_school_fire

Apparently he doesn't have a problem with what happened.

Objectifying women is too common. In some cultures women wear burkas because seeing them is too stimulating for men, or because they for to not show themselves. In some cultures women wear bikinis, high heels, revealing or sexualizing clothing, because make dominated advertising tells them to do so to attract sexual attention or because the are string enough in their sexuality to show themselves openly.

Women in the USA do not get stoned for not wearing revealing clothing, but they do get passed over for higher salaried promotions as well as bullied for not looking feminine enough. And it is thrown in our faces daily in most media that we need to "look pretty", too many women suffer from anorexia and bulemia which is very harmful to their bodies.

Being able to dress as you want is something too many women, and men, are not able to do.

So rather than dismissing your cartoon with an insult, I find it an interesting comparison, with it having accuracies and inaccuracies. Thank you for the post.

enforced in one than in the other.

I did not mean to imply equivalency in the two cultures' treatment of women but that objectification of women is something common to both. If you don't think the bikini is a manifestation of our (male dominated) culture objectifying women, then we differ on that.

Last edited Wed Dec 31, 2014, 11:46 PM - Edit history (1)

I've already said why in an earlier post

Edited to add I'm curious about how you react to so many DUers NOT seeing or agreeing with your interpretation of this cartoon. ..

They're both in the US (or "the West", broadly). Neither the woman in the bikini nor the woman in niqaab (that's not a burqa, incidentally) are legally required to wear what they are wearing. Both probably face social pressures about how they dress, though.

I read the cartoon as two disparate cultures casting judgement on each other, not necessarily in the same country.

Furthermore, there's no indication this is based in the west, it could just as easily be a day on say, an Egyptian beach

Not a bit and frankly, I would dispute that you'd see THAT particular juxtaposition of a niqabi and a bikini on the average western beach - far more likely in a culture like Egypt imho where niqab is more common yet the beach resorts are full of westerners and Israelis.

Or is it a cartoon?

If the former, then your point is interesting, and we should certainly discuss the juxtaposition of these two women (which might also occur in a number of European countries, I should think.)

If it's a cartoon, then I have a cartoon that shows Superman fighting Spider-Man. What are we to draw from this, other than the fact that the cartoonist in each case hoped to convey a statement through a fictionalized meeting of two disparate dramatic elements?

No major society on Earth is blameless in its treatment of women.

And now, here's a picture of a lovely woman enjoying the beach in a burkini.

It is interesting to see both perspectives and I can see where each outlook is coming from. There is truth to both of them being male-centered, but it is harmful to believe that all women dress for men.