"Women's fight to wear the veil will test Turkey's move towards modernisation
James Button
July 30, 2007
YOU SEE all kinds of veils, or headscarves, in Turkey. Last week I saw a woman in a black veil and tight jeans; another in a wildly multi-coloured veil and high heels; another wearing a pink veil and make-up to match.
Amberin Zaman, Turkey correspondent for The Economist, has seen a woman in a veil sporting a tight top and bare tummy. She has seen a transvestite in a veil. She says some of the country's most feisty feminists — including women who campaign against male violence — wear veils. When Etyen Mahcupyan rides a ferry across the Bosphorus to go to work at Istanbul's Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, he sees two or three couples kissing. They could be young people anywhere, except that the woman wears a veil. Yes, Turkey also has women in black, wearing a shapeless overgarment with only a small part of the face showing. But the kaleidoscope I saw challenged all my preconceptions."
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