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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Muslim woman for a day |
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| zanfaz |
| 10/23/02 at 00:30:17 |
| Muslim woman for a day By Andrew Marra Palm Beach Post Sunday, October 20, 2002 http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/sunday/martin_stlucie_d32b339b60dc12df0003.html The stares and the second-takes were inevitable the minute Mary Peterson stepped onto the South Fork High campus Thursday morning. They were expected. Even desired. Peterson's dress, after all, was not the typical student fare. The 17-year-old senior of Scottish and Irish descent had put aside jeans and T-shirts for the burka, the traditional garb of Muslim women. Covered from head to ankle, the only skin visible was on her hands, between her sandal straps and through an opening around her eyes. As she walked into an 8:55 a.m. geometry class, it was clear the students had seen nothing like her in the aisles before. She waited at the rear of the room until everyone was seated, then silently took a seat in the back row. "Are you a new student?" one girl asked. Peterson nodded. "Where are you from?" "From here," she said softly. "But I'm visiting." "Oh, that's cool." For a day, she was a new student, unrecognizable in her attire as she attended a different schedule of classes Thursday. It was a bold sociological experiment that Peterson, a student in the school's International Baccalaureate program, concocted while her Theory of Knowledge class was studying Islam last month -- quite a change of pace for the teen who teaches Sunday school at a nondenominational Christian church, takes pictures as a hobby and often spends weekends in the movie theater or at the mall with her friends. What would it be like, she had wondered, to be a traditional Islamic woman for a day? So for a day, she was one. She did it with garments borrowed from a family friend and the assistance of her teacher, Kelly George, who helped her to get out of regular classes for the day. Peterson's experiment wasn't directly for a class assignment and she isn't getting any extra credit. "It's just for gaining some insight because we had no Muslim in the class to ask what is it like to be a Muslim," said George, who is the school's IB coordinator. "It's simply anecdotal information. We're not going to run off making broad generalizations about this." Peterson shuffled through the hallways demurely Thursday, bowing her head and avoiding eye contact or conversations with males. She had been on campus for only about five minutes when she was approached by an assistant principal and the school resource officer, who she said tried to make her take off her veil, then demanded to see her student I.D. card. "They kept asking me who my teacher was, what I was doing," she said. Later in the day, on her way to the bathroom, she passed in the hall two boys who yelled a racial slur. "I just had to keep on walking past them and they said, 'Oh, you can't speak English?' " she recalled. South Fork High is the more ethnically diverse of Martin County's two regular high schools. But administrators and teachers say there are no female students who come to school in traditional Islamic garb. Peterson was an anomaly. Throughout the day, she scribbled observations about how people treated her. She plans to report back on her experiences to her Theory of Knowledge class. When asked after the final bell what conclusions she had drawn from the experience, she seemed conflicted. On one hand, she said she had expected more curiosity from people, more remarks and more taunts. Most of the people who saw her in their classes took only a passing interest. On the other hand, she said she was disappointed by some of the ignorance about other cultures that some of the students' behavior seemed to indicate. She counted some 10 people throughout the day who were openly rude to her or gave her a negative vibe. "They're ignorant," she said. "They're uneducated about the differences in lifestyle." andrew_marra@pbpost.com |
| Re: Muslim woman for a day |
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| chris_wazir |
| 11/19/02 at 08:25:44 |
| This took alot of courage for her to do,and the whole day noless.. I can only hope that I too some day will have the same courage........ |
| Re: Muslim woman for a day |
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| UmmWafi |
| 11/19/02 at 10:54:44 |
| [slm] Just one question that's been buggin' me. What the pecan is a traditional Islamic woman ? Do we have one ? Mannnn nobody tells me nuthin' hrummphhh Wassalam |
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