Journalist dons face veil for a week

PARIS, April 29 (UPI) -- A French journalist who wore an Islamic woman's full-length niqab in public for five days to report on the experience said she felt isolated.

Elizabeth Alexandre, with Marie Claire, wrote an article published in the magazine's May issue dealing with the controversy surrounding the niqab, or face veil, raging in France, al-Arabiya reported Thursday.

"I wanted to feel the fabric on my cheeks and forehead and see the world from this tiny slit. I also wanted to know how the world would see me," Alexandre wrote. "I felt as if I am inside a tent. I couldn't see my feet and when I walked the garment rolled around my legs and I had to slow down. I was terrified I was going to fall on my face."

Al-Arabiya reported Alexandre drew three conclusions from her week under the veil. She said the veil is impractical and uncomfortable, it creates isolation and it arouses self-consciousness.

"Being totally covered made me feel that my body is a disgrace. All men around me turned into sexually obsessed beasts that want to devour me. It is then that I felt I need the veil to protect me from this imminent danger. For the first time in my life, I felt I was a sex bomb and a source of sin," Alexandre wrote. "This secrecy gives free reign to everybody's imagination and makes people wonder about what the hidden parts look like."