Week 1

This week’s reading by Mary Elizabeth Perry, With Stones and Roasting Spits: Moriscas and a Multidisciplinary Methodology for Studying Women in Golden Age Spain, was very thought provoking a really opened my mind to people of different beliefs and why they have those beliefs. It also got me thinking as to how much I judge other cultures and presume I know why they do certain things, when in actuality, there is no way to understand pure motives and beliefs unless you are an actual member of that culture or group. More specifically, the issue Perry brings up about women in certain cultures that wear veils. She writes that in the 16th century, Christian authorities banned Moriscan women from wearing their veils. These authorities believed they were doing the women a favor by freeing them from the men’s authority and control. The Christians and so many people in today’s world view veils as some kind of restraint and use of power by men. While much of that may be true, there is so much more to it than that. Those women who wore veils, no doubt, felt most comfortable with one on her head for personal modesty preferences. It also held symbolic cultural significance for the women who were being forced to put away their own identity and customs and conform to a different, unwanted Christian culture. The veils signified tradition that their hearts continued to cling to and was a way for the women to silently show their opposition to the persecution by the Christians.

Today, when we look at pictures of veiled Muslim women in the Middle East, we feel sorry for them just because they do not fit our contemporary views of how women should dress; sexy. We subconsciously think that those women wish that they could dress more “fashionable” or “beautiful” but are restrained by their domineering husbands. While it is true that Muslim women dress almost completely covered because of their religion, which is male dominated, it is their culture, they do not know anything different, and it is what they are most comfortable in.

This article has really got me thinking about how I compare other cultures to my own and judge the “rightness”, so to speak, of the things they do by my own traditions and the way I was taught. It caused me to broaden my views of other cultures and not to judge them “right or wrong” according to my beliefs, but instead to consider different worldviews and try to understand where they are coming from.