Different Veils

Pretty recently there was a lot of scandal in France with President Sarkozy trying to have parliament ban the veil. There is also an instance in Nantes where a woman cab driver was stopped because she was wearing a veil and the police said that it obstructed her view. So I became curious about the veil. What does it mean? Why do women wear it? Should they be banned? There is always the idea that the veil is oppressive towards women, and I have found myself thinking that if men have a problem with it perhaps they can just look away. But the idea of the veil obviously goes much deeper than that, and the opinion of someone who has no idea about it really makes no difference. So first I wondered what the different kinds of coverings were. The BBC had a great explanation

The Hijab is the most commonly veil seen in the West, to me it reminds me of someone wearing a cross, a reminder that they are religious to the outside world. The Burka is probably the most shocking to see, the woman is completly covered except for a mesh screen to see from. I seriously do not think that wearing a veil is a terrible thing as long as it is a personal choice made by the woman. If she is pressured to wear a certain thing by any one else then I believe it is a bad thing, but this feeling goes for anything in life people should never be pressured into doing something they are not okay with. http://blogs.omeriqbal.com/news/128 this blog entry was interesting. I like the idea of differentiating between public and private life. Especially today I feel like private life has become extremely public, for example reality shows and people online updating everyone with everything they do every other minute. So this idea of extreme modesty and privacy is very appealing.