Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Gill Gimberg's avatar

You couldn't have hit the nail more perfectly on the head, "in a few years no one will even know the original reason people started wearing them". Lord love us, I think this will happen to the majority. I suffer from revulsion, almost to the point of nausea, every time I see someone wearing a face diaper. The day that this becomes acceptable to me, I will know that I've lost my last few marbles.

Expand full comment
Mark McDonald, M.D.'s avatar

I suggest a different comparison--mask and niqab. The necktie is a social convention, one I personally feel physically uncomfortable with but am not opposed to for social reasons, as it tends to elevate behavior, while facial coverings serve an entirely different function. As you rightly point out, they dehumanize--literally--by removing the face of the wearer from public society. They are facial fig leaves. Islamic theocracies love them, as they objectify women while removing them from all participation in life outside the home, where the husband rules supremely. For that reason, all Western societies condemn them as inhumane.

We should do the same with the mask. They are no different. It's ironic that a practice we rightly shun as religious oppression has been voluntarily taken up--by women AND men--and promulgated as a sign of virtue. Those who reject it face public attacks, beatings, arrest, unemployment, and social ostracism, no different than women in Islamic countries who reject forced face coverings.

The mask is the secular niqab.

Expand full comment
40 more comments...

No posts