My point is, if I am supposed to associate baseball caps for boys with criminal gangs in the United States, why am I not allowed to associate headscarves for girls with oppression of women in strict Muslim countries?
Um, because Muslim culture is diverse? Because just because you *think* it's all about women's oppression, that might not be the whole picture? (Again you say, "I know not all women do this but this is what *I* think of when I see the veil." So what if someone said, "I know not all wearers of baseball hats are in gangs, but there is rampant baseball hat-wearing in gangs so whenever I see one, I think of gangs." I'm not touching institutional biases here btw, but the logic in these statements, which is in my view is flawed in BOTH cases).
What you've written sounds like you're drawing a comparison between gang culture and Muslim culture. I'd be careful with that.
You don't see the comparison of a entire cultures values (both positive and negative) embodied in the veil as being different from the (predominantly negative) values of gang culture embodied in baseball hats?
And I'm not even going to touch that practicing religion is not like stamp collecting. Or wearing a hat because it's cool. Or the gap between what an individual does and what a community does and how policing the two is different.
alcyone
