Texas and Taliban. The post by a male undergraduate urging women - those hussies - to get back into flowing and elegant (and constricting) dresses to better reflect their innate passivity and modesty has something in common with the fervent kind of Talibanism of the Muslim extremes. Consider this quote from the student's sermon:
The androgynous masculinization of the modern woman, through the donning of pants, suits, uncovered shoulders and unveiled hair, has in a sense led to the slow whorification of ladyhood. In discarding feminine dress, women seem to have symbolically discarded femininity and modesty (the virtues of women) in favor of sexual virility, promiscuity and immodesty (the vices of men).
The bolds are mine. I think Osama bin Laden would nod his head while reading those words. Isn't it weird?
Other patterns crop up in some of my recent posts, too. For instance, the idea that women are often seen as at least partially responsible for their own sexual victimization, even when there are no real grounds for that. I think this has a lot to do with our unstated assumptions about what is normal and who determines what normal behavior might be.