A new report by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research has shed some light on attitudes towards Muslim women covering up.
Participants were presented with six images of women veiled in different ways and asked “Which one of these women is dressed most appropriately for public places?” The participants hailed from seven countries with a Muslim majority viz. Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The authors said that the findings reflected the respective “country’s orientations toward liberal values as well as the level of freedom people enjoy” and that for instance, ”In Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, where people tend to be less conservative than the other four countries, the preferable style for women also tend to be much less conservative than the other four countries.”
The study has elicited a mixed response and strong criticism from several quarters. The Lebanese satirist, Karl Sharro, retaliated with a fictitious poll on appropriate clothing for American women, reposted below.
“It’s an equivalent survey of American women based on Arab or Middle Eastern stereotypes of American women,” he said. ”This was a way for me to visually spoof the image and a way for me to say that stereotypes work both ways.”
