She was not happy at all, the girl, holding hands with the captain of the Spanish national team, parading towards the center of the field. The joy on her face contrasted with the lilac fabric covering her head and neck, that garment emblematic of Islamic misogyny that is imposed so that women know our place in the world, so that we internalize that the mere presence of our bodies in public space poses a problem, a conflict, a challenge to the patriarchal order. More or less traditional, rigorist or fanatical religious people, all say that we are naked if we leave our hair uncovered. And nudity provokes men. Poor them, they have so little control over their instincts that we have no choice but to take measures to spare them the discomfort of arousal caused by those dangerous fibers that sprout from our scalp like Medusa’s snakes. This is how the sexual difference that does not exist is marked, because men and women have hair on their heads.
Read more The Oceanogràfic of Valencia names one of its grey sharks Ferran Torres
That the world has decided to ignore the sexist meaning of the veil does not make the garment harmless. Quite the opposite, its symbolic load is of an unbearable violence for anyone who believes in human rights and in respect for the dignity of women. The hijab is as degrading as the shackles of slaves; but it must be respected because it represents diversity. What tolerable diversity is that way of branding women, of wrapping them in the flag of submission to the international theocratic order?
Of course, the girl doesn’t know about that, just as those who are dressed up as hypersexual little women don’t understand that they are being molded to get used to being what men have decided they should be. Before, Muslim women wore the veil when they got married, then when they reached puberty, and now it is imposed on them at increasingly earlier ages so that they get used to it, because no one is born with the vocation to erase that part of their individual identity. They could shave us bald like the Nazis, but they prefer to cover us up and allow only the husband to access that exclusive privilege. They will say it is identity, and some will have been happy to see the veiled girl entering the stadium. Or they don’t care that a child is sexualized in this way before the eyes of millions of people. It’s their culture, their religion, it must be respected. Perhaps children, with their free hair, don’t have any of that. Although, what can we expect from FIFA and that misogynistic fraternity that holds power in the world of football?
