Warbler said:Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
Yes they are choosing to wear it, but the reality is that some of them are being denied choice,
not in the US. They are free to wear them or not wear them.
Dude, seriously? How are you not understanding this? It is not rocket surgery. Yeah, legally they have the choice, but realistically, they don't have a choice. Sometimes there are psychological walls, familial restraints, or reasons of impracticality that keep us from doing things.
If she doesn't wear her burka, the US applauds her, but now she has committed a violation of expectations within her culture. Her husband could potentially leave her or disown her, or at the least retaliate for it.
But again, if it makes you happy to think that Muslim women in the US who wear burkas are doing so 100% of free will and out of their own personal desire to do so, then more power to you.
I once worked a temporary job involving a dozen Afghan women. They were all married and all wore hijabs. Only one of them spoke English, and during down time she'd try to teach me some farsi, or about Afghanistan's cuisine, and other cultural interested. We talked about the covering she would wear on her head, she admitted that it would be nice to walk around with her hair free like other women, but her husband wouldn't allow it and she would feel uncomfortably immodest. Here you have familial and cultural restraints preventing her from going into public without her hijab.
I think this Palestinian-American blogger has her thinking on the right track on the subject: