I've lived in Saudi Arabia for several years. Some of the women told me they felt their husbands respected them if they wanted the wives to cover themselves completely. Some felt more secure when outside the home. You don't get body parts oogled when you're talking. No need to say "Eyes up here!" (Frankly, though, I feel if women have to cover up, men should, too. Then we could all just pay attention to what people say instead of being turned on or off by looks.)
(An interesting thing I learned from a Saudi woman friend was during the pilgrimage to Mecca, it's considered improper for a woman to cover her face. And apparently, while the Koran requires women to cover their heads, it doesn't mention the face. Face covering was a later cultural development. It used to be a status symbol that showed a woman wasn't a nomad or a farmer. During Haj all are equal. No ostentation is allowed.)
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the U.S. has a large population of Finnish origins. It used to be very much amining country as well as a logging region in addition to farming, this last despite the harsh, long winters. My uncle married a woman of Finnish background from the U.P. Surprisingly, Finnish is from the same language family as Turkish! It's not an Indo-Aryan language, which most common Western and Eastern European languages are. My husband, who's studied Turkish, and my aunt once spent a fascinating morning comparing vocabulary relationships and language structure.
When a baby is your own, you learn to love and deal right from the start, fortunately for most of us. (It helped me having other mothers around to consult and to reassure me, I'll admit.)
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(An interesting thing I learned from a Saudi woman friend was during the pilgrimage to Mecca, it's considered improper for a woman to cover her face. And apparently, while the Koran requires women to cover their heads, it doesn't mention the face. Face covering was a later cultural development. It used to be a status symbol that showed a woman wasn't a nomad or a farmer. During Haj all are equal. No ostentation is allowed.)
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the U.S. has a large population of Finnish origins. It used to be very much amining country as well as a logging region in addition to farming, this last despite the harsh, long winters. My uncle married a woman of Finnish background from the U.P. Surprisingly, Finnish is from the same language family as Turkish! It's not an Indo-Aryan language, which most common Western and Eastern European languages are. My husband, who's studied Turkish, and my aunt once spent a fascinating morning comparing vocabulary relationships and language structure.
When a baby is your own, you learn to love and deal right from the start, fortunately for most of us. (It helped me having other mothers around to consult and to reassure me, I'll admit.)