Never is the objectification of a people more straightforward and complete than when they are pictured covered by cloth that completely obscures their face and body.
These women are all dead now, and even in their death, looking back at this moment in time one hundred years later, we can’t see them. We see figures, placeholders for people who were only allowed parts of themselves in life, and who now in death are disqualified even from being a face from the past in an old photo.
These women have been reduced to their plight. Photos like these are the reason I object to ideologies which promote the notion of modesty for women. They cover your ankles, flashes of stomach, your wrists, your chest, your neck….reducing you bit by bit, until you are gone.
The face is so important in human interaction, it really is dehumanizing to have to cover it up. I distinguish heavily between what you are wearing (including a headscarf) and something that covers your face, inhibiting your potential to connect with other people.
People don’t see your happiness or sadness or pain or anger, you are just a blank slate to project on.
Yes, all of this…you’ve put an interesting thought in my head, re: a blank slate for others to project on. I’m a “movie person” and love watching on a projector/screen. Obviously people project onto others all the time in a figurative sense, but it’s a pretty poignant remark to note that completely covered women could literally be projected onto. The level of erasure is pretty stunning, but the idea that you could not only erase but literally protect anything you wanted onto these women. Wow.
I need some really talented artist to create an art installation where different things are being projected onto covered women.
Follow-up thought, regarding your comment about faces: as a mother, I always wonder what the impact is on children of having a mother who is sometimes allowed to move about freely/uncovered, and other times is completely covered. To cover someone’s face even to their own children. That’s something.