Everyone has a burkini story. Sort of…

As a family we love to travel and experience new and different cultures. By that same token, we have also hosted several high school students from several different countries, and are active volunteers in supporting the local chapter of one of the larger high school student exchange programs. So when I was invited to participate in a retreat for some college students from Pakistan, I took the opportunity happily.

Now the organization that was organizing this retreat was a different one from the one we volunteer at, but I knew that it was a non-profit with State Department affiliation and I felt pretty confident that I knew what to expect.

So my first surprise at the event was when I heard a local staff member remark very disapprovingly about one of our local university student volunteers: “Can you believe how she is dressed? We told them not to wear spaghetti straps.”

Well! Here we are in California, in a hall full of some 200 people sweltering in the heat, and you are complaining about a young woman who is tearing around helping people, because she is dressed for the weather and really not immodestly by local standards?

“Oh well,” I thought to myself. “If they had given the volunteers a dress code in advance, I suppose it’s  okay to complain. But certainly no one had sent me any such guidelines. And, incidentally, I don’t see anyone complaining about all the young male volunteers running around in shorts.”

I soon began to feel really hot in that hall myself and took off the light sweater I had been wearing. About 5 minutes later an officious sounding woman bustled over to me and said: “We are requesting that all women keep their shoulders covered,” and tried to hand me a shawl.

I was dumbfounded! I’m a slightly overweight middle-aged woman with a prominent birthmark on the back on my shoulder. I never wear spaghetti straps!

True. I was wearing a sleeveless blouse, but the armholes were cut magyar style so,they actually covered the tops of my shoulders. Of course, I was not about to make a scene there. I politely refused the shawl and just put my sweater back on.

“But what about the young men wandering around in shorts?” I wanted to ask. “What about the lone young Pakistani woman, who is wearing a tank top and whom you are publicly shaming by making all the invitees and volunteers cover up? (This girl later talked with me passionately about her desire to create a nonprofit back in Pakistan that would support women who want to be different and would encourage them to express themselves as they wish, so they would not have to always conform to repressive standards. Shouldn’t we have been setting a better example for her?)

“What is wrong with us dressing to American standards at a simple non-religious event for students who are here to learn about American culture?” I wanted to ask.  “Oh, and by the way, if you have a dress code, maybe you should have told me about it when you were inviting me to participate.” But of course, I wasn’t about to make a scene. Which is precisely why people get away with being jerks and imposing their false moral standards on others.

But this was just par for the course at that event.

Earlier in the day while having lunch someone began to tell a story about one of the hijab wearing students. This young  woman was placed at a university in the South and one weekend her dorm roommate invited her to go home and stay overnight with her family. On reaching the house, the girls were greeted by the American girl’s mother who was surprised to see a hijab clad person on her doorstep. She immediately balked at letting her enter the house.

How could she know if this was a girl or a boy under the hijab, the mother demanded to know. So while the two girls stood there in absolute shock and humiliation, the mother insisted on inspecting the visitor’s passport. On being satisfied at the gender she then insisted on checking the girl’s suitcase for bombs. Only on satisfying herself that there were no bombs in the bag would she agree to let the visitor stay at their house.

While all of us listening to this story were about to express our horror at this treatment, the lady who was telling the story continued on, describing how traumatized this young lady was and how she had been crying and sharing this story with her group. “But I told her,” she said, “Not to feel bad. Everyone has to put up with treatment like this some time or other. I told her how when I was younger I used to be quite overweight and people were always making remarks about it. Then I lost weight, and now people make remarks about how I am such a  high maintenance person because I always like to be nicely dressed and like to do my nails.”

This lady’s words may not have been exactly these, but that was the gist of the story.

I was so appalled at her response to the experience of the young hijab wearer that my ears and face were buzzing with the blood that rushed to my head. I couldn’t believe that this woman who was, incidentally, absolutely gorgeous to look at, that this woman would equate her weight issues, would trivialize the trauma of having your gender challenged and your luggage checked in a friend’s house, with a “Me too” story of this sort.

I looked around the table and everyone was looking completely aghast or acutely uncomfortable (I’m  guessing the uncomfortable ones avoiding everyone’s eyes had already heard this story before) that this was the level of support and empathy we were offering a visitor to our country.

I finally broke the silence by saying quite mildly, “I don’t think the two things are the same,” and left.

I was a visitor too at that event, and had to behave as, I have no doubt, the poor hijab wearing girl had to also. Did she stay the weekend, I wondered. Would she have had the means of leaving on her own if she did not want to stay? Was her overall experience in the US a good one or did she leave with that experience imprinted forever in her mind? And the poor daughter of that mother! What kind of relationship would she ever have with her mother again? And, though civil discourse must always be the norm, I really must remember never let an opportunity to protest unfair treatment pass me by.