Some of you were surprised, some already knew and most just skimmed.

I want to weigh in on this one, as a Muslim, as a woman who does not cover, as a feminist and a lover of freedom.

The movement to ban face veils in France is wrong and misguided.

Am I denying that there are women who are forced to wear the veil?  No.

Am I denying that it can be and has been and is being used as an instrument of patriarchy and oppression?  No.

Still, this movement to ban is idiotic and represents the depths of ignorance to which “the mob” can sink when victimized by selfish political expediency.

Whether or not the veil is required is a contested issue within Islam.  I’m not interested in discussing that in the least, nor where I stand on that. I simply want to address a movement that I beleive is mired in racism, xenophobia, intolerance and ignorance.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and his supporters would like to ban the Islamic veil because they believe it’s an instrument of patriarchy and supports Islamic fundamentalism and, therefore, is at the root of terrorism.

Okay.  I can see the rationale behind categorizing the face veil as fundamentalist and patriarchal.

Except.

Except that I had a friend who converted to Islam and despite being a single white woman who was raised in America, with not one Muslim man in her family, chose to cover her face in mixed company.

Except that my mother chose to cover her face in medical school, even though not one man in her family required it of her.

Except that my sister in law, who holds a post graduate degree, is a working mother, is one of the most outspoken people I know and is a generally strong woman chose to veil her face despite constant discouragement from those elder to her (who are Muslim).

Except that a lot of Muslim women choose to cover their faces because they want to control the level of interaction that they have with the opposite gender.

Why they choose what they choose is not the point.  That they have chosen of their own free will to exercise their religion in this manner is the point.

Their donning of a face veil is not denying a single other person the right not to wear one.  The veil might offend the people of France or make them uncomfortable, but that is not a valid reason to pass legislation banning it.  There is no philosophical point of demarcation between Sarkozy forcing women remove the veil and the Taliban making them wear it.

Fundamentalism denies exception.  It operates from the philosophical standpoint that a specific set of ideals work wholly and appropriately no matter what the circumstances.  This approach is one to which I am firmly opposed, regardless of the application.

It is why I put aside the traditional aspects of my faith and wholly and actively support legislation concerning a woman’s right to choose, LGBT rights and other “non-traditional” values.

I will not live in a fantasy world where everyone and everything fits into the neat little boxes that those before me created.

I will not ignore entire sectors of the world population, their emotions, their needs and their humanity so that I can live with the perception that all is right in the world and the only people that matter are the people that agree with me.

That is a hateful and unproductive way to live, and it is the path to humankind’s complete and total destruction.

Nicholas Sarkozy is a fundamentalist.  He and his supporters will not address the exceptional.  They have found their straw (wo)man and they are lighting the fires.  They do not realize that for some women, having to show their faces to men who are not mahram is an oppression.

Being a favored son of western civilization does not prevent Sarkozy from oppressing women or from being a fundamentalist.  He and his conservative supporters are making it abundantly clear that anyone who does not fit into their neat little box does not belong.

These people do not love liberty, equality and fraternity.  They love their own specific ideas about them.  The difference is significant.  And scary.

“We’ve probably been to a degree a little too successful.”

- Karl Rove

It’s like this.

You’re in a field, sitting down, the sun is shining.

It’s a beautiful day.

Just you and your thoughts.

I venture that the last thing on your mind is… the air you’re breathing.

Breathing in air is one of those amazing miracles of life.

We need to do it to stay alive, yet we don’t ever have to think about it.  It’s all so brilliant and incredibly efficient.

Can you imagine?

Inner dialogue: Already time to get up?  Oh, I neeeed coffee … breathe in air… it’s my turn for car pool… ooops, breathe in air… man, I hate carpool, then I have to pick up dry cleaning on the way home… breathe in air… where is that dry cleaning slip, “Honey-have-you-seen-the-dry-cleaning-slip” …  what am I going to wear todaa…

::thud::

Husband: I don’t understand, she was the picture of health… what happened??!

Coroner: Sir, I see it all the time… she forgot to breathe.  Tragic.

So, yes.  The air.

You breath it in.

You breathe it out.

You do not think about it.

So, anyway, you and I, we’re back in the field, now.

You’re thinking your happy thoughts… what a beautiful day, I love the sunshine, did I leave the iron on… but what you’re not thinking about is the air you’re breathing.

You don’t think about the fact that this field you’re sitting in might be next to a chemical processing plant.

You do not think about the toxins in the air that are going into your lungs.

Because breathing in air?  Requires no thinking.

When I first embarked on the study of history, it was difficult to come to terms with the paradoxical nature of our nation’s origins.  For example, this gem: all men are created equal… except every seventh man who happens to be owned by one of the previous six.  And women are too stupid to care.

It was hard not to be judgmental and even more difficult not to scream, “HYPOCRITES!” every ten pages.

But, I realized something, thankfully, very early on.

A nation breathes the air.

It breathes in.

It breathes out.

And, for the most part, it does not think about the air.  Because there’s not enough time, and it’s not exactly efficient.  We keep the body moving by actually moving it, not by sitting around thinking about how it moves, where it’s going or whether it should move at all.

We breathe the air in.

We breathe the air out.

We do not have to think about it in order to keep moving.

And, yet.

Every now and then someone does notice something funny in the air, in the way it smells or the way it tastes.

A William Lloyd Garrison, a Rosa Parks or maybe a Gloria Steinem will say, “Hmmm, something in this air is just not right.”

They feel the disturbing molecules in the air that though invisible and exerting little effect on this very moment for most people, may grow into a devastating illness that eventually does affect everyone.

Throughout our history, some people have stopped and thought about the air and thus forced the rest of us to stop and think about it, too.

And, of course, there are people who say, maybe even scream, “The air is fine, we don’t have time for this, we can’t sit around thinking about the stupid air, we have enough air, anyway, and who cares if it’s pure and clean… at least we have air and at least we can breathe it.”

Or, worse, “Ah like the way the air is juss fiiine ’cause there’s no waay Ah’m pickin’ mah own cotton.”

I would like each of you to think about the air you breathe today.

Think about discussions regarding universal health care, foreign policy, civil unions, policies restricting certain citizens from serving in the military, consumer protection, corporate responsibility, food production, offshore drilling, and alternative energy.

I’m not telling you what to think or even what I think.

I’m just asking you if you think the air is alright.

Is it good enough?  Is it pure and clean and will it keep us healthy?

Or is it the kind of air that is good right now, but will be bad for us later?

We have to keep the body moving.

We don’t have time to sit around and think about the air all the time.

So, yes, breathe the air in, and breathe it out.

But, just for a few moments each day, will you please think about the kind of air you think is best for us to breathe?*

*P.S.  Watching the “news” is not thinking about the air. It’s still just breathing it without thinking about it.

And then I saw this and completely lost my train of thought.

Saturday morning cartoons. When I was a kid, it was the nectar of geniuses. Or ambrosia. Or something like that.

Anyway, I want to know why they left out the part where Massachusetts gets a Republican senator and the Democrats don’t think the bill is good enough to pass before he gets seated.

I guess school bus stop signs engendered more of a feeling of consensus back in the 80s.

The most difficult thing about all of this is having to sit back and watch the politicians do their thing. Which is annoy the hell out of us.

P.S. I don’t think the bill is good enough to pass before he gets seated, either. Just FYI.

**************

I was sitting in the ninth circle of hell yesterday, or what some people call a “training session.”

Just as I was going to try to muster up my long forgotten high school talent of sleeping with my eyes open, our moderator, an unnaturally chipper young woman in her 20s, said, “So, we have such and such speaker coming next month who will be discussing the evolution of the feminist movement over the past few decades in this and that room.”  Then she rolled her eyes and said, “I mean, I’m not a feminist or anything, but, if that’s your thing, you should come.”

After much deliberation I have decided that this young woman simply does not know what feminism really is and that is the only logical explanation why such a bright person would be so negative about feminism.

So, I asked around to find out how other people define feminists. Apparently, people think that feminists are almost always lesbians with an aversion to depilatory procedures who hate men and think the world would be a better place without them.

This is not only untrue, it is just stupid.  I know that’s harsh, but facing up to our stupidity is perhaps the ugliest of all human burdens.

Believing that a feminist is always the above described person (who by the way is a perfectly acceptable sample of a human being) is as stupid as believing that one particular race of people are inferior due to the color of their skin or believing that Lindsay Lohan is never going to rehab again.

So, let’s discuss the American feminist movement as painlessly and quickly as possible.  (Dear College Freshman, do not base your paper on modern feminism on this post, you will get a “C.”)

Feminist movements of the 19th and 20th century centered upon suffrage, or the right to vote.

The feminist movements of the 60s centered upon social issues, such as women’s right to equal access to education, equality in the workplace and reproductive choices (this includes but is not limited to the issue of abortion).  A few feminists in this era burned some bras, but the majority of them, contrary to popular belief, did not.

These days, feminism builds upon these past concepts, but also recognizes that Western women should not be dictating feminist agendas to the world’s diverse populations (or even the diverse populations within their own countries.)

The Oxford American Dictionary defines feminism as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men.”  If you live in the United States of America, you really should not have a problem with that.

In fact, you should be for that.

If you live outside of the United States, well, according to most new generation feminists, also called “post feminists,” we might not agree with how women are treated in your country, but we believe that they should be the ones who set the agenda for those changes, not us.  (This is a particularly complicated issue, so I’m not going to delve too deeply here.)

I find it ironic that many Americans will roll their eyes at the mention of feminism, but quickly jump on the “Saudi’s need to let their women drive” bandwagon.  Interestingly, we decry feminism at home, but champion its cause as we attempt to denigrate cultures and value systems outside our own with the intent of, at least culturally, subjugating them.

Let me wrap this up by telling you what I believe American feminism is not.

American feminism is not an excuse to point out the flaws of men.  As a matter of fact, many men are feminists, too.  Not because they are afraid their “butch” wives are going to beat them up, but because they believe women are their social, political and economic equals.

Feminism is not a platform aimed at disintegrating motherhood, staying at home or family values.

Feminism is not the reason kids in our society seem to be from another planet (I personally believe this one can be attributed to Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton who are, in fact, from another planet).

When someone brings up the movement for racial equality in the United States, do you go out of your way to distance yourself from it?

Do you roll your eyes or get a stupid grin on your face like someone has just said something very funny?

No, you don’t.

Unless of course your white hood and robe are drying on a gentle setting and you’re running a few minutes late for your weekly cross burning.

So, why do Americans do this when the feminist movement is brought up?

I’ll end with the following correspondence, which I have no intention of sending:

Dear Ms. 20-something,

American feminism has a long history, over 130 years in its making.

You don’t have to be feminist if you don’t want to, I don’t mind if it’s not your thing.
However, since you are a woman living in America, I respectfully ask that you appreciate what these women did for you and treat them with more respect by refraining from acting like they are crazy PETA members who throw red paint on celebrities wearing fur.

They gave you choices and opportunities that women in other parts of the world are literally dying to have.

They fought for your right to vote, your right to be educated in any field of your choosing, your right to work in any field of your choice, your right to make decisions regarding your reproductive system, your right to have legal recourse if someone says or does sexually inappropriate things to you in your workplace and many other rights that you now take for granted.

No, feminism may not be your thing, but, Ms. 20-something, feminism is your blessing.

P.S. Please stop calling other women your age “girls.”  Girls play with Barbies and Little Ponies.  You are a woman, as are other women your age.

P.P.S. And stop saying “like” every two minutes.

P.P.P.S.  And don’t bounce when you talk.  It’s distracting.