The Abaya Monologues, part 2

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As she begins her first day in her new clothes, she complains that her peripheral vision is impaired and that her niqab keeps slipping up her face into her eyes as she moves. Only if you wear the niqab incorrectly – that is, with no idea of how is supposed to fit – do you end up with impaired vision and an uncomfortable, slipping niqab.

I’d finally mastered how to pin my face-mask and cloak to each other so they wouldn’t slip all over the place.

This is what I mean by wearing it incorrectly: you don’t pin them together like this. There’s a good reason for that - it doesn’t work. And from her description of how the niqab slips into her eyes as she moves her head, it clearly isn’t working for her either. Anyone who does wear niqab could show her in minutes how to wear it so that it wouldn’t slip. If you’re going to pin them together, you need an underscarf to anchor everything, which she has apparently decided to omit. The argument that the niqab cuts off vision is commonly raised in support of banning the niqab, for public safety. However, most niqabs do NOT interfere with peripheral vision, nor do they usually slip up into one’s eyes. They are designed not to. Even women who cover their eyes with one of the niqab’s layers don’t have their vision seriously impaired; it’s like wearing a dark pair of sunglasses. (Of course, it’s possible to wear these items in a way that would cut off peripheral vision or block your sight – such as wearing too many layers over the eyes or covering the eyes at night - but that’s not inherent to the niqab nor is this how women usually wear them.)

Crittenden tries to wear the abaya and niqab while eating breakfast in her kitchen because, as she acknowledges, if she were Muslim she wouldn’t have to wear the overgarments at home, except that her house is being renovated so there are unrelated men coming and going without warning. Fair enough, but in my experience most women who observe this level of covering would either close the kitchen door to the rest of the house and warn the foreman that workers must knock before entering the kitchen (giving a woman enough time to pull her abaya or headscarf over her face), or would simply take her coffee and cereal to another, private room of the house. A good excuse to take breakfast in bed, indeed. Instead, Crittenden tries to follow the strict letter of the law without applying her common sense to the matter.

But then, as I poured a bowl of cereal, I reached for that first delicious sip of milky coffee and … there was this huge black napkin in the way of my mouth! So I lifted up the bottom of the napkin and guess what? I could no longer see my coffee cup. How on earth do Islamist women eat and drink? I assume by fumbling blindly, which is what I did. I slowly manouevered the cup toward the mask’s concealed mouth hole and felt for its rim with my lips. Ah, the warm sensation … seeping into the fabric over my chin.

It is difficult to learn to eat and drink while wearing niqab, but many women successfully do. It’s a skill that takes practice to develop. However, since when do you need to see your coffee cup in order to get it to your mouth accurately? I’m also confused about her reference to the niqab’s “concealed mouth hole.” A niqab is essentially a flap of fabric covering the lower face, it does not have a ‘mouth hole’ in any sense.