Although this particular text was not an assigned homework reading for the course, the most memorable piece that I read this semester was “The Burka and The Bikini” by Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Jacquelyn Jackson. In short, this piece summarizes many of the major concepts that we highlighted particularly that of the outlook the western world has on the stereotypes of the Islamic faith. I had never really thought of making the comparison between an American women wearing a bikini to a Muslim woman wearing a burka. Brumberg and Jackson write, “whether it’s the dark, sad eyes of a woman in purdah or the anxious darkly circled eyes of a girl with anorexia nervosa, the woman trapped inside needs to be liberated from cultural confirmed in whatever form they take”. After reading this article, it made me look at my own culture in a very different light. Before reading this article, I have to say that I didn’t properly understand why women wore Burka’s and I definitely never made the assumption that women wear bikinis as a form of oppression. However, this article gave me insight into how both my own culture is very alike to a culture that I thought was far more distant to my own that I thought it actually was.
For my creative response, I chose a photo of a victoria secret model in a bikini, and a woman in a burka. I chose to write next to it, “if I had the choice, I don’t know which I would choose” signifying how both the woman in the bikini and the woman in the burka are being oppressed in completely separate ways that in turn make up the mold of the societies that we know.
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