The Abaya Monologues, conclusion

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A North American “healthy lifestyle” and fundamentalist Islam do not go together very well, at least if you’re a woman. Or maybe its followers do not believe any North American lifestyle can be described as healthy. Either way, I was darned if I was going to miss my workout.

Now I am becoming exasperated with her assumptions. This anti-American attitude that she assumes conservative Muslim women have is incorrect and arrogant on her part. Aside from that, many covering women go to the gym, have exercise regimens, and pay close attention to their health and the health of their families. They just don’t usually exercise in mixed company. Crittenden is quite correct to point out that full abaya and niqab is not conducive to a proper workout. That’s why women don’t usually exercise in their full overgarments. There are many options for covered women – especially in the greater Washington D.C. area, where she lives - including women-only gyms, women’s nights at regular gyms, routines one can do at home, brisk walking (which can be done in overgarments), and even private women-only classes offered by community organizations. Crittenden’s decision to work out in her full overgarments would be considered a little silly, even eccentric, among many Muslim women.

She ends her article with a series of experiments testing the limits of tolerance in her city. She carries a black backpack and acts suspiciously on the train, she buys a one-way refundable ticket at the airport while acting nervous, she observes the reactions of Washingtonians around her as she goes about her day. She is astonished at the general lack of reaction she receives from those around her, and questions if perhaps tolerance has gone too far. Not only is it not particularly helpful to actual Muslims that she spent a week trying to get people to react to her with antagonism, she seems to believe that people SHOULD react with fear or hostility to a covered Muslim woman because it’s possible she’s a terrorist and ought to be treated like one.

In the end, her conclusions that Muslim women in conservative garments are submissively oppressed by the patriarchal order, and that their garments effect the erasure of their individualism and identity, is based solely on Crittenden’s own expectations. She began with the question, What is daily life like for an Islamist woman? However, she did not even begin to answer this question. None of her experiences in abaya and niqab are at all relevant to the question; it is impossible to draw generalizations from such subjective and uninformed experiences. The only way she could have drawn anything useful from this week-long experiment would have been if she’d spent time talking to women who do wear conservative garments about their experiences, thoughts, and motivations. If she had, she might have actually learned something.