So much subtext
Apr. 26th, 2007 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumMuslim Bikini Uproar
The woman who wrote this was abused, in public, because of what she chooses to wear when swimming.
Lots of people will address the "modesty" issue.
Some will say it's her choice what to wear.
Some will say she is making a tempest in a teapot.
Some will say she ought to bow to the public pressure (which means swimming topless in Cannes, perhaps nude in Sweden, and not at all in other places).
What I see is the sort of terrorism Orcinus has been addressing for years.
These were the passages which struck me.
Nobody saw how ridiculous the article itself was. Nobody except for one man. His nickname on the online board was Mr Town, but I would probably have nicknamed him Mr Angel. He posted a comment explaining, "I saw this woman swimming at DL and it was not dangerous or offensive. She wore a full-length suit, like the Aquablade they wear in the Olympics with a tabard type thing over it with a short hem bit that went into a skirt . . . This man obviously has some other motive."
The fact that only one person responded in such a way was more traumatic than the public humiliation Caldwell had subjected me to on the morning of March 4...
The online debate has created in me a sense of fear, and as a result I have not been back to the gym in the past month, even after assurances from the general manager at David Lloyd's Oxford branch that his management team would do their best to ensure I had safe access. The general manager agreed with me that things had spiralled out of proportion, and after I showed him my swimsuit, not only stated that it met swimsuit standards, but that it was now being offered for purchase at all David Lloyd's clubs throughout the UK. But Caldwell's actions had the desired effect: I stayed at home.
That is the effect of not standing up to racists, bigots, misogists, "x"ists. We will never now how many people agree with the Caldwells of Oxford, what we do know is only one person seems to have been willing to stand up to him (the article's description of the event is appalling, with the writer being, not dimissed, but ignored; apparently not relevant to the situation), which gives the appearance that his views are in the majority.
It's as true about things like this, as it was with AIDS.
Silence = Death.
The woman who wrote this was abused, in public, because of what she chooses to wear when swimming.
Lots of people will address the "modesty" issue.
Some will say it's her choice what to wear.
Some will say she is making a tempest in a teapot.
Some will say she ought to bow to the public pressure (which means swimming topless in Cannes, perhaps nude in Sweden, and not at all in other places).
What I see is the sort of terrorism Orcinus has been addressing for years.
These were the passages which struck me.
Nobody saw how ridiculous the article itself was. Nobody except for one man. His nickname on the online board was Mr Town, but I would probably have nicknamed him Mr Angel. He posted a comment explaining, "I saw this woman swimming at DL and it was not dangerous or offensive. She wore a full-length suit, like the Aquablade they wear in the Olympics with a tabard type thing over it with a short hem bit that went into a skirt . . . This man obviously has some other motive."
The fact that only one person responded in such a way was more traumatic than the public humiliation Caldwell had subjected me to on the morning of March 4...
The online debate has created in me a sense of fear, and as a result I have not been back to the gym in the past month, even after assurances from the general manager at David Lloyd's Oxford branch that his management team would do their best to ensure I had safe access. The general manager agreed with me that things had spiralled out of proportion, and after I showed him my swimsuit, not only stated that it met swimsuit standards, but that it was now being offered for purchase at all David Lloyd's clubs throughout the UK. But Caldwell's actions had the desired effect: I stayed at home.
That is the effect of not standing up to racists, bigots, misogists, "x"ists. We will never now how many people agree with the Caldwells of Oxford, what we do know is only one person seems to have been willing to stand up to him (the article's description of the event is appalling, with the writer being, not dimissed, but ignored; apparently not relevant to the situation), which gives the appearance that his views are in the majority.
It's as true about things like this, as it was with AIDS.
Silence = Death.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-27 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-27 05:43 am (UTC)I really do think the swimwear manufacturers don't quite realise how many of us would quite like a bit more cover. Modesty is not just a religious thing, it's an "I'm 40, do I *really* have to continue with this display and it's accompanying anxiety" for the next twenty years?