The Burka and the Bikini (Moral equivelance alert!)

Boston Globe ^ | November 23, 2001 | Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Jacquelyn Jackson

[jalisco555]

THE FEMALE BODY - covered in a burka or uncovered in a bikini - is a subtle subtext in the war against terrorism. The United States did not engage in this war to avenge women's rights in Afghanistan. However, our war against the Taliban, a regime that does not allow a woman to go to school, walk alone on a city street, or show her face in public, highlights the need to more fully understand the ways in which our own cultural ''uncovering'' of the female body impacts the lives of girls and women everywhere.

[lockeliberty]

, it is important to gain a better understanding of the Taliban's hatred of American culture and how women's behavior in our society is a particular locus of this hatred.

What a pile of crap!

[lazypadawan]

Ah, the good ol' Boston Globe, the only newspaper besides The New York Times or the Washington Post out-there enough to run such a stupid article. Hasn't it occured to these "academics" that the difference is that generally women *choose* to wear bikinis, while most of those wearing burqas have to by law? Helloooo? (knocks on ivory tower feminist's cement-hard head)

[Skooz]

I really really really really did not need to see that.

[LibKill]

FRiend, you hurt my eyes with that pic!

[JoeSchem]

The truth is that American women are almost universally overweight. Cruise some of the matchmaking web sites for foreign women, and it's astonishing how lovely they look. Then it hits you, they're simply at their proper body weight.

For every one American woman who dies from anorexia, there are a thousand who'll die young from complications of being overweight.

As for the ultra-thin types, it's the women who watch Ally McBeal.

[driftless]

Good grief, the stupidity emanating from liberal newspapers never stops. If the two morons who wrote this article would transport themselves to any mall in my part of the Midwest, they would quickly notice that anorexia nervosa is not a problem with the great majority of females...or males for that matter. What is it about most feminist writers that makes them so obtuse?

[MistrX]

Don't forget Maxine Waters.

[Paul Atreides]

What is truly pathetic is that these authors are the type women who can't, 1) get over the fact that there are prettier women than they, 2) still in therapy over Barbie having a better figure, 3) apparently, cannot lower the toilet seat on their own, yet think they would be an asset on the front line during a war! The last thing a soldier needs is to try to depend on, or pull the fat out of the fire of, some idiot Shannon Faulkner cow with penis-envy.

[RogueIsland]

Joan Jacobs Brumberg is a historian at Cornell University and author of ''The Body Project: An Intimate History Of American Girls.''

I guess it's nice that there are some institutions still left where people this stupid can still have gainful employment. When U.S. law requires all women to where bikinis in public, then I'll agree with Joan that there is a compelling parallel. In the meantime, I present the following as research notes for this article (helpful guy that I am). Note for the record that I am simply horrified by our society's treatment of women like this.

[paul51]

Is that the author?

[Deckard]

The co-author of the story, Ms. Brumberg

[layman]

there is still a need to better understand how American culture developed to the point that it now threatens the health of its bikini-clad daughters and their mothers.

In predictable liberal fashion these academians (real word?) accept as a given that American women lack the ability to think for themselves or possess the self confidence to find purpose in their lives if they are ten pounds heavier than an emaciated model.

[Libertarian_4_eva]

highlights the need to more fully understand the ways in which our own cultural ''uncovering'' of the female body impacts the lives of girls and women everywhere.

Lastime I checked the government is not placeing women in jail that do not walk around in Bikini's. End of story.

[Fury]

In order to make a determination if this story is indeed accurate, can you please post several pictures of women in bikinis like what you previously posted? We read need a larger sample from which to draw our conclusions.

In the interest of rendering a fair and balanced opinion,

Fury

[timm22]

The irony is that the images of sleek, bare women in our popular media that offend the Taliban also represent a major offensive against the health of American women and girls.

So showing women who are not overweight and are physically appealing is damaging to girls? Would it be better somehow if, instead of trying to look sleek and fit, girls were trying to look overweight and out of shape? How rediculous.

During the 20th century, American culture has dictated a nearly complete uncovering of the female form. In Victorian America, good works were a measure of female character, while today good looks reign supreme.

This is the first time I've ever seen a feminist have something good to say about Victorian America.

[Kierkegaard]

I didn't even finish reading it because I have heard this shite before. Some chics as they grow up get real pissed at other chics because the feminine wiles, ways and wares of the latter get them things in the real world. The former chics themselves (the sour ones), at one point or another, used to like to look at the "media" images....but doing so ultimately drives them batty. Deep inside of many of these ugly chics is that truly ugly spirit you more frequently see fully developed in a fair and beautiful chic....that vain and self-important attitude by which they expect attention, acknowledgement, even adoration....like a freaking many-colored parrot, their woman's eyes are best suited and positioned on their heads for the perception of others viewing them....I see you seeing me. The difference is that ugly chics learn early which stripes, patterns, colors and burkhas cover up which midsection bulges and shortcomings of the derrier...and quite similarly these "babes" of the mind get creative psychologically and come up with wild, yet mainstream, ass and flab-covering theories involving some cultural notion of feminine beauty/objectification to lash out at everyone in resentment of the societally sanctioned lesser treatment that accompanies their lesser aesthetic attributes.

[ppaul]

FYI

[DoughtyOne]

Let me see, if a Taliban woman uncovers her face she's shot dead. If a US woman doesn't put on a bikini nothing worse happens to her than she doesn't get a date. Yep, that's morally equivelant... < /sarcasm >

[rockfish59]

another one who stole larry kings glasses!

[rockfish59]

at least she's drinking a diet coke!!