Veiled Intentions
Haydars Article
Maysan Haydar a copy editor for "In these Times", published the article Veiled Intentions: Dont Judge A Muslim Girl by her Covering, in 1998. Although her article was a short and very brief story of her life, she was able to convey her whole self into the paper. Haydar grew up a traditional Muslim girl in the Midwest of the nation. Part of a small Muslim community, hijah (headscarf) was very typical to be chosen to be worn or not at the time the girls reached age 12, and that is where Haydar begins her story. The main claims of the article revolve around the central ideas of religion, tradition, conformity in your own body and typical stereotypes that are just that, stereotypes. Haydar is able to present these claims through various uses of evidences and strategies. Haydar often uses personal examples of her own life, like the story of her 12 year old self, or her experience walking down the busy streets of New York in her college years. She addresses the situation with anecdotes, and then furthers her claims with both traditional views of her culture and modern world views. Muslim girls are just as independent as anyone else, the choice to wear a hijah is completely up to them and this shouldn't be frowned upon in any culture. One basic strategy that is utilized is commonplaces and an additional one is exemplification. Haydar is able to make these two strategies useful yet the weakness that prevails is the obvious bias she has. Not to say that only weakness is evident in the paper, but it is definitely shown. The strength lies within her multiple examples, personal examples, and anecdotes. Overall Haydar produced a solid paper.
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