Jan McGirk titillates in the Independent with In Foreign Parts: GI Janes flaunt their sports bras as body search arrives in cultural minefield of Afghan frontier:
I idly mention to my translator in Peshawar how a war photo published in all the Pakistani dailies has outraged everyone who has seen it.Sgt. Hall was the one who detected some of the "ladies" smuggling weapons under their burkas. You can see the picture here and a profile picture here. So what's the solution?
Janula Hashim Khan is usually rather bored by my attempts to make polite conversation, but he suddenly comes to life, eyes ablaze. "Yes, I know the photo. It's a disgrace to see our sisters and mothers mauled like that," he says. To my amazement, he pulls a carefully folded newspaper clipping out of his wallet. "Is this the one you mean?"
The picture shows an Afghan woman being subjected to a body search by an American soldier.
The photo had provoked weeks of venomous letters to the editor condemning this practice. The same shot had been blown up and used for the Yank-bashing election campaign that swept the clerics into unprecedented power in the provinces closest to the Afghan border. To most Pakistanis and Afghans, this photo is hyper-offensive, showing a demure Islamic beauty disrespected by an American brute.
The latent feminist in me cannot be stifled. There is some potent propaganda to be countered. "Look a little closer," I said. "That is a woman soldier who is patting the Afghan lady down."
"Impossible," all the Muslim men in the room say in unison. The masculine ambience of this frontier city near the Khyber Pass is so pervasive that, at least in a warlord's antechamber, a female soldier is utterly inconceivable, even if you have a picture of her in front of you.
"Look again," I insist. "Under the helmet, her hair is bunched at the neck. The US army has plenty of women soldiers, just like this one."
In fact, I later learnt that the original caption, never used in Pakistan, identified her as Sergeant Nicola Hall. The bearded men are unconvinced.
"Well, then look at her childbearing hips," I continue. "Broad. Like mine." Khan blanches and hesitates before he translates my words. The men scowl.
Now American female soldiers start gun raids in Afghanistan by bounding out of helicopters and stripping down to their sports bras. Only then do they take village women aside to be searched. It is a quick way to prove their femininity to Afghan elders unaccustomed to seeing women in trousers. I reckon it must leave quite a few of the old boys slack-jawed and goggle-eyed.Of course on Star Trek, the guys wore leotards and the women dressed like cocktail waitresses. Then they set their Norelco razors on stun.
