Throughout my whole life I had always thought that traveling to do different countries would make one more accepting of the different practices and perspectives that come from cultures of the countries being visited.  With this assumption in my mind, I thought that my being in Jordan would make me more accepting of the different cultural practices of the Arab, and the Arab Muslim, world.  While this is certainly the case for most of the beliefs and practices of the region, there is one practice that I have actually become less accepting of since I have arrived in Jordan: the act of women wearing either a hijab or an abayah.

Before coming to Jordan, I knew of the view point that wearing an abayah or a hijab was actually more liberating for women as it prevented them from being viewed more as equals and humans as they were prevented from being viewed as sexual objects, and while I vehemently disagreed with this viewpoint I still accepted it as legitimate. Now though that is longer the case.

After having watched an interview on Al-Jazeera today though, I can not believe that these two articles of clothing can in any way be liberating.  What was so poignant and thought provoking about the interview was the person being interviewed, a woman fully covered by an abayah who was discussing why woman should wear; however, it was not the words of the women that made me think about this issue so critically, but rather it was the fact that this was the first time I had ever seen [someone] who had her face covered speak and voice her opinion.  The combination of these two things, a covered face and an opinionated woman, showed how inherently incompatible they are.  The sight was a paradox.  Instead of looking like a woman with an opinion, the interviewee did not even appear as though she was a person.  The recognition of this fact caused me to realize how asinine [the] reasoning for the defense of the hijab and abayah were.  For how can a woman be empowered by a line of thinking that says the only way to for her to be viewed as person and not a sexual being is to hide herself from the world?

Gender inequality is an inherent, unspoken assumption in this line of thinking, no matter how well intentioned some males may be, as it says that males do not need hide their identities to prevent themselves from being viewed as objects, but women do.  It does not matter if women are voicing their opinions on Al-Jazeera or in the government; it does not matter what the reasons are that women wear these types of clothing; as long as they wear either hijabs or abayahs, women can never be viewed as equals in the Muslim world.