>So, if my brown "third
>world" woman mother has certain preferences, say when it comes to
>bathing attire, that do not gel with what the West prefers, then she
>is exoticising herself.
Nobody, except you maybe, said anything about gelling with Western preferences.
The question is what are the ramifications of legal codifications surrounding e.g. clothing and sex/gender segregation.
I don't get why people think it's unusual to ask such questions. Whole books have been written about gender, class and race issues looked at through the window of the history of swimming in the U.S.