Burqa Barbie vs. Cheerleader Barbie: Who Are You Calling Oppressed?

Italian designer Eliana Lorenza has created dozens of barbies in various kinds of "traditional dress." But her latest design, to be sold to raise money at an upcoming Save the Children auction, has caused an uproar across the political spectrum, uniting right and left in common cause.

"Burka Barbie," held to the same ultra-thin, wide-eyed standards of beauty of most barbies, has the distinguishing feature of being covered head-to-toe by a (Italian-influenced?) lime green, mandarin orange, or black burqa -- alternately referred to by critics as a symbol of oppression, murder, polygamy, female genital mutilation, domestic abuse, rape, child abuse, and suicide bombing. Many bloggers and commenters have also thoughtfully suggested other barbies to accompany burqa barbie: "Be-headed Barbie" (brainstormed by the lovely Phyllis Chesler), "Illiterate Barbie," "Forced-Marriage Barbie," "Female Genital Mutilation Barbie," and barbies with accompanying suicide vests and "stoning kits."

The West has made the burqa the most visible and manipulated symbol of women's oppression, according to Lila Abu-Lughod in a brilliant essay entitled "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?" But back in the day, before the burqa was forced upon women in many countries, they had chosen to wear it for personal, cultural, and/or religious reasons. Many still voluntarily wear it as a symbol of piety and as an extension of the shelter and safety of the home.

Too bad Western discourse insists on portraying the burqa as representative not only of Iran's or the Taliban's repression and forced veiling of women, but as an avatar of a Darth Vader version of evil, out-to-get-you Islam in which women are little more than cowering, brainwashed pawns. This discourse shuts Muslim women out of the discussion of their rights and condescends to them with the awful, patronizing tones of colonizers.

In the comments at the National Post, one "proud Muslimah" attempts to explain why some Muslim women choose to wear the veil. She's shot down for being "brainwashed" and "delusional," then called out as a liar -- because, obviously, true Muslim women cannot read or write. As Joseph Shahadi at The Pomegranate astutely points out, outrage over Burqa Barbie has little to do with the rights of Arab or Islamic women, and everything to do with violently suppressing Islam and supplanting it with a colonial, Christian vision of "freedom."

In this case, the bombastic defense of freedom becomes particularly ironic, since we're seeing people defending Barbie as the emblem of all that is so free and enlightened in the West. The National Post, with apparently zero sense of irony, distinguishes the Burqa Barbie from one wearing the oh-so-liberated uniform of a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. You poor, poor veiled women -- someday your children will have the right to play with Cheerleader Barbie. Lila Abu-Lughod might jump in here and say, hey, guess what, most Muslim women actually don't want to be Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. She goes so far in her article as to claim that they don't even -- gasp -- envy American women.

But, as so many burqa-denouncers in their virtuous quest to save the Muslim woman (or, wait, impose Judeo-Christian values on her while taking over her country?) seem to believe, these women are simply brainwashed. They'll know better once they get their hands on Malibu Barbie in her bikini, with her convertible and her blond Ken -- true emblems of the Western dream of freedom.

Photo: KeiBi's Photostream