Life on the other side of the veil

So, I did it. Item one on my bucket list, ticked off...

The other day I spent several hours covered head to toe in nasty, synthetic, black fabric. And when I say head, I mean my face as well.

Yes, I finally saw what life is like on the other side of the veil.

And my first observation is: why can’t you buy them in breathable cotton??? I mean, honestly. And abayas too. Admittedly, I did purchase mine from the supermarket (my tiny friend Fathima’s abayas just weren’t up to my slightly more substantial body) but even some of the high end ones are made from that horrible plasticky stuff. Ugh.

I’ll run you through the day in excruciating detail below. But first a few explanatory notes.

This was a social experiment conducted purely out of curiosity, and with good humour and kindness. My intention was in no way to mock or make light of women who wear full burqa, or niqabs, or head scarves in general. I just wanted to see what it was like for myself. I am grateful that I can choose to do so. If I lived across the border in Saudi Arabia, that choice would have been made for me.

Also, wearing these clothes does not indicate any inconsistency in my Christian faith. If I were a missionary in a more rigid Muslim country, I’d have to wear them anyway. Dressing in full burqa doesn’t make you a Muslim any more than (as the old saying goes) standing in a church makes you a Christian.

Right, now that’s out of the way, here we go…

7am School drop-off

Okay, so I began the day by compromising quite substantially. Great start. But my children had told me that if I dropped them at school with my head or face covered they would never speak to me again (teenagers are so sensitive, aren’t they?). While this was a potentially pleasant outcome, I decided not to go there, and drove them to school in just the abaya, staying in the car so no one could see me, and whipping around the corner into a back street to do my shela (head scarf).

Headscarves take skill.

Twenty minutes later (who knew hair was so slippery?) I rang Fathima’s doorbell so she could supply the niqab she’d found in the back of her closet. She gave me the once over and declared my headwear “quite good.”

The niqab was surprisingly tight. 

Headache on the way, I drove the short distance to the beach path I usually walk along with my heart in my mouth, expecting my peripheral vision to be fatally compromised. 

Au contrare. There are many, many things I don’t like about niqabs (more on that later), but loss of peripheral vision is not one of them. Maybe it depends on the style, but in this case, once I had tugged it down on my nose far enough that it didn’t make my lower eyelids puff up, vision was A-ok.

The sporty look.

8am Walking

I pulled into a shady little spot and swung my feet out to put my running shoes on (not that I run, but it just doesn’t sound right to call them walking shoes). Immediately some laborers called out to me from the wall above, telling me not to park there as they needed the space. This was my first encounter with the actual real-life public, and I was surprised at my instinctive response: total silence. I just swiveled back into the car and drove away. It was as if I thought the niqab was some kind of a gag. It may be just me, and a matter of getting used to having something over my mouth. Mind you, I’ve never heard anyone in a niqab shouting or even speaking loudly in public.

Out on the path, feeling a little self-conscious, I started walking at my normal pace. There was soft breeze to cut the heat, which was a mere 31 degrees (practically cardigan weather over here), so I wasn’t as hot as I’d feared. Though that’s not saying much, since I was expecting it to be unbearable. 

This is me (or is it?), out enjoying the fresh air.

Breathing in was fine, breathing out made my face very warm, but it was the scarf that really did the mischief. I’m a bit of a sweater, so pretty soon the parts wrapped around my neck were uncomfortably clammy. And between the polyester fabric and the too-snug armholes, I was regretting my cheap-o supermarket choice immediately. I could tell that as soon as I was in air-conditioning I’d be wringing wet and cold. Not the best treatment for the head cold I was dealing with, but all part of the fun.

Now to the social aspect. Women walking along the beach path in head-to-toe black, faces covered and sunglasses on are a dime a dozen in Dubai. I didn’t get any strange looks. What struck me, though, is that I didn’t get any looks of any kind. People just didn’t make the sort of cheerful eye contact, half-smiles and morning greetings that I’m used to on the path. The African nanny who pushes twins in a stroller, with whom I’ve advanced to a ‘Good morning!” relationship, walked past unawares. Actually, a woman I know really quite well walked past unawares too. Of course she did – I was completely anonymous. Other women in face coverings didn’t meet my eyes either. And if they did, it wouldn’t have looked friendly. I know they say you can see a smile in the eyes, but I beg to differ. Eyes divorced from their context mostly look blank.

What’s more, I felt entirely unable to initiate the same kind of casual friendliness. It was partly a function of the niqab itself (muffled speaking voice, hidden expression), and partly a psychological reaction to it. I felt utterly set apart from my environment, like Harry Potter in an invisibility cloak. A black ghost among the living.

On the upside, I didn’t need any sunscreen!

9am Out for coffee

Fathima (who wears an abaya and shela, but no niqab) had offered to come out to a café with me to give me some tips and just generally enjoy the spectacle. My goal was to drink a coffee and eat something without removing the niqab (naturally). Also to make normal conversation with Fathima.

One of the reasons I’d decided to do this little experiment was because I didn’t think I’d have to explain myself to anyone – because no one would recognise me. Of course, the first thing that happened in the café was that Fathima saw another mother from school, a woman I knew slightly by sight, who she greeted, then turned to introduce me, her voice trailing off. 

“This is… Michelle… oh, this is tricky,” she said. We had both started laughing, to the confusion of the other poor woman.

Harder than it looks.

But the biggest problem was when the coffee came. I tried to hold the niqab out in front of my face with one hand, while delivering the cup to the vicinity of my mouth with the other and simultaneously keeping my lower face hidden.

Result: coffee all over the niqab, down the front of my abaya and even, somehow, on my headscarf.

I compromised by yanking it to the side (not how it’s meant to be done), revealing my face but providing proper access for coffee and a blueberry pastry.

Fathima, who has a degree in psychology, found the whole event both amusing and fascinating. We decided we needed to do another day together, both in niqabs, to see if our different coloured skin got us different reactions. And also that I should perform this experiment alone when I was in Australia.

I imagine that will be a vastly different experience.

Conversation wasn’t too hampered by the face covering, though I was aware of vocalising what I might otherwise have expressed with smiles or grimaces. Fathima noticed that my body language was different, but that could just have been the discomfort of unfamiliar (and badly fitted) clothing.

10am Shopping

I grabbed a few things in the small shopping mall where we had coffee, and felt pretty normal actually (apart from my clothing reeking of latte). I had taken the precaution of wearing contact lenses so I didn’t have to try to wear glasses inside, and I’m very glad I did as they would have added another layer of challenge (While my big sunglasses looked almost jaunty wi

th the niqab, my spectacles are smaller so should they go inside or outside the niqab? If inside, will they fit? If outside, will they slide off?).

Then I headed to the Mall of the Emirates (which suddenly felt way over-heated). I wanted to buy something in an ordinary store where I’d have to interact with sales staff, so I found a cheap shirt for my daughter at Forever 21. Everyone was perfectly polite but once again I felt unable to hold up my side of the social compact. Was it because I felt I had to speak more loudly than my normal rather quiet voice? Was it because I couldn’t show anything with my expression, and that crippled my ability to communicate? I’m really not sure. But I felt cut off from the world.

It made me feel uncomfortable, too, that none of the cues I was used to giving off could be picked up by anyone. Veil advocates suggest one of the benefits of covering up is that no one can judge you. There is a leveling effect to sameness (like a uniform) that is not all bad. But in a society where not everyone is dressed the same, people still make judgments about women who are covered. In my case, all of them were wrong (admittedly, because I was a total imposter). This was kind of fun for a one-off but I would hate it in the long run.

Also, my head cold had (as expected) freshened up. This necessitated a lot of nose-blowing under the niqab, which wasn’t nice for anyone.

This was really the end of my adventure. I needed to get home to grab a few things before school pick-up and when I walked in the door and pulled off my disguise, my hair was plastered to my scalp with sweat. I felt the clammy wetness of the shela and I just couldn’t bring myself to pile it all back on again for the next stage of my day. My experiment, I felt, was over.

I’m not really sure if I can make any conclusions from my little jaunt – it’s not like I was conducting a clinical trial. I’m just a naturally inquisitive person and I wanted to see what it felt like to be the one in black. Job done. 

I can say that I rather liked the fact that I didn’t feel compelled to wash my hair that morning. Also that choosing clothes that day was a doddle (sports top and running pants as it happens – definitely not in the spirit of the game but I was VERY worried about overheating). 

I was very aware that anyone would looking at me would make certain judgments about me, almost all of which would be wrong. There are many reasons why people present themselves as they do, or behave in certain ways, and we mostly cannot know what they are. It’s better to withhold judgment, and maybe strike up a conversation instead.

The experience did confirm for me, though, that there is a de-personalising effect that comes from covering your face; both for the wearer and the people around her. I don’t know if that would be different for someone surrounded exclusively by this custom from a young age, but it was absolutely the case for me. I felt hindered in expressing myself verbally, but I had no other choice. I was a person without a face. We know babies are wired to recognise faces from day one. You can study face psychology at university. And things that sort of look like faces, but not quite, have an uncanny power to unsettle us (such as dolls or clowns). 

Covering your face takes away our most powerful tool in communicating our personhood.

So the lesson I took from the experience wasn’t only, “I’m so glad I don’t have to cover my face every day.” It was, “Must remember to treat covered women like human beings.” Being a person without a face was a powerful reminder to me to make sure I go out of my way to affirm the humanity of all the women who wear the veil.