Marvel did not invent the skin-tight burqa. I’ve known, taught, and worked with many devoutly Muslim young women who DO wear sexy, skin-tight clothing (which they are very careful to make sure covers them from head to toe!) while at the same time these girls will honestly, earnestly say that they are being modest and moral.

Having said that, though, I do think that Marvel’s portrayal of Sooraya is crap and “putting sexy over story” is an accurate description of it. Their motivations for drawing Sooraya in such a way are transparent, and I don’t agree with them.

But I did want to point out that in real life, some Muslim women WILL dress that way. (In fact, among the young women that I’ve taught as my students, I’d say that MOST of them would dress that way. They only wore baggy coverings when they were trying to smuggle CD players and contraband snacks into the classroom.)

I’m sure that Marvel doesn’t know this or care, and the fact that “this sometimes happens in real life” likely isn’t the justification for their particular depiction of Sooraya. BUT I just wanted to say, it is neither “patently ridiculous” (referring to the linked OP) for a “self-professed modest Muslim girl” to wear “skin-tight robes,” nor is it “hypocrisy.” In real life, women (especially adolescent women!) are complex and contradictory and will say one thing and do another.

Maybe it seems like I’m contradicting myself. IF I was totally ignorant of Marvel’s (and comic-book-dom’s) history of sexism in female portrayals, maybe THEN I could believe that the writers and artists behind Sooraya had actually succeeded in showing a realistic portrayal of a modern young Muslim women who sometimes says one thing and then wears her clothes in an entirely contradictory fashion. BUT since I’m not naive, I’m more inclined to believe that Sooraya was drawn in such a way to blatantly display her assets, lipservice to cultural accuracy be damned. And it makes me mad.

[...] Marvel Comics: Unclear on the concept of the burqa. (Link via Johanna Draper Carlson.) [...]

Anybody can add anything to Wikipedia. Everybody has equal connections. Here’s Dust’s page. Anywhere it says ‘edit’ you can click.

Ideally to the point they get so bothered by our complaints they quit putting sexy over story.

’nuff said.