Sometimes I wonder whether the burqa will be associated with Afghanistan the way the Mafia is with Sicily (as a person of Sicilian descent myself, I often joke about feeling grateful to the Russian Mafia because perhaps in a few generations people will link the Mob with Russia rather than Italy). The burqa of course is the head-to-toe covering mandated for Afghan women under the Taliban. Consisting of a long, shapeless robe and a veil that covers the hair and face with only a small slit for the eyes, in the last year or so the burqa has become a household word.

The burqa is only one extreme, however, of the Muslim dress code for women. This dress code, known as hijab (which literally means "curtain" in Arabic), takes various forms in different Islamic countries, even though the Koran itself does not specify what kind of clothing would or would not be considered proper hijab. Many modern Islamic scholars describe hijab as a code of dress stipulating that everything but the woman's hands and face be covered. To comply with the code, Muslim women often wear a chador, an outfit that includes a long, loose robe known as an abaya and a veil covering the hair (but not necessarily the face). Islamic women living in the West sometimes adapt these items to a Western environment: for example, at a grocery store near my home in Toronto one clerk wears running shoes, jeans, a sweatshirt, and a headscarf.

Whether the burqa, chador or simple headscarf, though, these garments are frequently perceived as a sign of women's oppression under Islam. The concept of hijab and the form of dress it takes, according to Western observers, are meant to subdue women sexually, seclude them from public life and make them subservient to their husbands, fathers, and males in general. Even the physical aspects of hijab horrify many Westerners. One woman writing in a Canadian newspaper expressed dismay at seeing a group of Muslim women clad head to toe, with only their eyes showing, on a steamy summer day in Toronto. A headscarf by itself was fine, the writer commented, but a full-body covering? That, she concluded, was a clear-cut symbol of Muslim women's secondary status.

A different perspective of hijab is given by Muslim women who choose to abide by it themselves. One such woman is Faten Hijazi, a computer engineering student and former president of the Muslim Student Association at San Jose State University. Explaining that hijab cannot be forced on an individual and that Islam prescribes modesty for both men and women, in an opinion piece in the Spartan Daily she describes this code of dress -- which in her case involves exposing only her face and hands -- as liberating. It spares her, she says, from being sexually harassed and objectified and allows her to be seen as a person, not an object. Interestingly, a young American woman who converted to Islam wrote some years ago in Sassy Magazine that wearing a veil made her feel better because now people looked at her as a full human being rather than a sexual plaything.

It is true that women in the West are judged on the basis of their appearance, objectified, and, all too often, sexually harassed. Hijab can to some extent protect a woman from all this. I remember visiting Cartagena, Colombia and wearing what I thought were conservative clothes (a short-sleeved cotton blouse and knee-length skirt). Either the skirt had shrunk in the wash, however, or I was walking so fast that it rode up above my knees, because a man on a motorbike shouted out "nice legs" as he drove by me. It struck me then and there that if I had been in Saudi Arabia in a chador, this would never have happened.

The "nice legs" incident didn't bother me too much; my philosophy is that a lowlife like the man on the bike isn't worth getting upset over. Nonetheless, I understand why a woman from a culture more traditional than mine might be disturbed by such an event. I myself agonized almost weekly as an eleven-year-old undergoing early puberty when the boys in my class teased me about posing for Playboy.

Hijazi speaks of Western women feeling constantly scrutinized about their appearance. At times the scrutiny can be so overwhelming that women begin to doubt their own attractiveness -- to the point of spending huge sums of money on beauty products and in extreme cases falling victim to eating disorders. Covering everything but the face and hands takes away some of the pressure to be "beautiful." The chador may have the same effect as a uniform: just as a school uniform helps avoid fashion wars among students and insecurity among those who fail to live up to the standard of the day, the chador automatically precludes judgement of the wearer's physical beauty.

I have some problems with Hijazi's interpretation of hijab, though. While it may shield some women from obsession about their appearance, body dissatisfaction and eating disorders, there will always be women who no matter how they dress will feel fat, unattractive or insecure in other ways. Nor can the chador by itself protect women from rape and sexual harassment at all times. A man intent on sexually assaulting a woman will try to do so regardless of the potential victim's attire. In addition, for some women comments like those from the idiot in Cartagena are a small price to pay for wearing clothing they find comfortable.

Hijazi emphasizes at the beginning of her piece that hijab is a choice. Obviously it is for her. She doesn't mention, however, that in some Islamic countries wearing a chador or even a burqa is a legal obligation, not an option. Let me say upfront that I'm a fairly conservative dresser myself. Forced to choose between the burqa and Madonna's stage gear, I'd probably choose the former. But I can't condone any society that denies women, or men for that matter, the choice of what to wear. To use an analogy, though I personally would never convert to Judaism, I'd feel uncomfortable in a country that forbade Jews to practise their religion.

I also question the implication that anything more revealing than the chador is immodest. One Arab website, for instance, suggests that one reason for the rape of Filipina domestics in the Gulf States is the way these women dress. On the site is a picture of two Filipinas in short-sleeved blouses and skirts cut just below the knee. Of course the rape of any woman -- whether she's naked or clad in a burqa or whether she's Mother Teresa or Annie Sprinkle -- is unacceptable, but the two Filipinas in the picture didn't strike me as any more immodestly dressed than the out-of-habit nuns at my Catholic high school. It's ironic that in the West, Asian women are viewed as sexually conservative, a stereotype promoted ad nauseam by mail order bride agencies eager to advertise these women's virtues to Western men. To paraphrase an old saying, one man's whore is another man's virgin. It makes me sick, though, to hear of women being blamed for rape because of their attire. In addition, one has to wonder, judging by that particular website, whether the concern for women's welfare Muslim commentators frequently attribute to Islam applies to all women or just those deemed "good" enough.

I admit that like many Westerners, I at first regarded the chador as a symbol of Muslim women's oppression. Reading articles like Hijazi's has helped me come to a more open-minded position on hijab and the treatment of women in Islam in general. Though I myself would probably never embrace this dress code, I respect the decision of any other woman to do so. But that decision must always be a choice rather than a legal requirement.

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