Oxford Street. I wandered into M&S for food and found to my horror that they were selling clothes. I suddenly remembered I need a new pair of smart winter trousers; it seemed criminal not also to get a top. Nice combination of black, white and grey, but I was sorely tempted by the vast range of deep plum clothes.
When queueing for the changing room I could not help notice that 90% of the adult female customers were wearing jilbaabs. If people want to wear them, I suppose that's their choice, although Jimmy argues that it isn't necessarily - if they chose not to wear them, they may be socially and economically ostracised. That aside, it kind of made me laugh. M&S have decorated the cubicle doors with pictures of women reflecting a diversity of ethnicity, mainly in states of partial undress or wearing fashionably immodest clothes. I wonder what jilbaab wearers think when confronted with such images, an enormous store selling a wide range of less-than modest clothes and women like me, happily revealing cleavage, neck, arms, and glorying, when outside, the warm sun and cooling breeze on my exposed skin.
I popped up to the lingerie section and confirmed that M&S have still not woken up to the fact that their cup sizes are insufficient to reflect the new way of measuring bra size (up the cups, down the inches). They're proud they're going up to G in their sexy lacy ranges. The Bravissimo catalogue has arrived. Many of their ranges go up to HH, and some even to JJ. I feel an email coming on...
I finally found the food section and was perusing the coffee when a jilbaab wearer grabbed my attention and demanded some answer of me. I haven't a clue what she wanted to know; her speech was entirely muffled by the contraption covering her face. I did try, but it was impossible. So I just said "I can't tell what you're saying, and I don't work here..." I did think of suggesting she asked one of the hundreds of jilbaab wearers, but I was trying to focus on my own shopping.
Later, negotiating Oxford Street, I could not help noticing that with just one exception, every person who stupidly impeded my way was a jilbaab wearer. I'm not talking about those, including myself, who are a bit clumsy or tardy in side-stepping and weaving, I mean those who deliberately make no effort to compromise. And I see it at bus stops - almost always, if someone is stood at the bus stop blocking the path to or from the door with no intention of boarding, they'll be in a jilbaab. I'm often tempted to say something along the lines of "I know that ridiculous get-up is supposed to make you invisible but you retain a physical presence and it's in my way." But I don't like confrontation, and prefer just a furious glare and tutting.
It seems that the reason that Muslim women wear the jilbaab is 'to discourage any molestation by men who are not her family members'. So, presumably, molestation by family members is okay? As a feminist I find this objectionable - if there is a problem with molestation, shouldn't something be done with the perpetrators. If I were a man I would find it deeply offensive that this belief system decrees that men only need one glimpse of flesh and they are totally unable to control their animal lusts.
Later, walking along Oxford Street, I noticed two women in hotpants, cut shorter than a cutaway bikini I could hardly fail to notice them, they were very tall, with legs up to my neck, they were walking as if on a catwalk, and looked as if they barely had a braincell between them. I was simultaneously aghast and amused; my amusement increased when I noticed two seventy year old Caribbean men sniggering, a twenty-something white couple making vomiting gestures to each other, three teenage boys (two white, one Asian) sniggering derisorily , and a fifty something white woman with a look of amused contempt on her face.
I suppose the two women thought they looked great and would have welcomed expressions of admiration bordering on the molestation. Little danger of that! The six men I witnessed did not look in the slightest bit tempted into uncontrollable animal lusts, struggling only, as I was, to hide their hilarity.
