Support Camden School for Girls

[Greengrow]

Petition www.change.org/p/camden-school-for-girls-uphold-their-decision-to-ban-the-niqab-full-face-veil/sponsors/new to support the school in maintaining its uniform code fairly and equally for all.

[ToffeePenny]

I can't view without joining - is this a petition to allow the student to wear niqab or a petition to support the school's ban on full face covering?

[PuffinsAreFicticious]

The latter, Toffee.

[Greengrow]

To support the school. there is an opposite petition.
I am not against people wearing what they like in the streets at all - including being naked or topless if you want even if that upsets people with hangups and beliefs in invented Gods but schools can set their own rules and having been forced to cover up when working in Muslim states I can testify to how anti feminist it is and how it curbs and affects women. I thought it might be liberating and free but instead it's hot, awful, hard to move and just very very anti women and certainly not what any God, if there were one, could possibly have intended.

[ReallyTired]

The big issue with the niqab is that completely covering the face affects communication. Deaf people cannot communicate easily with someone who has covered their face.

The schools has to balance the rights of people within the school community who might be hearing impaired with religious expression. I feel that the rights of hearing impaired children should take priority.

[kissmyheathenass]

I've signed.

[Quangle]

Completely agree.

Wear what you like elsewhere although even on the streets I would prefer people not to have the right to conceal their identities. But a school should insist upon the standards it wants upheld within its community and hiding your face is not acceptable in a school.

[NotCitrus]

I've read the girl has been at the school for 5 years and wore niqab before, including for her GCSEs. Can anyone confirm this or know why the policy has changed, if it has?

[PuffinsAreFicticious]

Sorry, I have issues with this.

The petition isn't worded in a way which mentions anything to do with feminism for a start, it purports to be set up so that the few girls who might choose to wear the niqab might not face potential racism. It also seems to suggest that only those girls who might choose to wear the niqab are Muslim. I find that difficult to believe.

The problem I have is that those families where the women might choose to wear the niqab are likely to just pull their daughters out of the school, not that they will have a Damascene moment and suddenly the girls will wear the hijab instead. What then for those young people? Do they just get no education?

It looks and feels discriminatory toward girls who choose to wear full face covering.

Just by the bye. In case anyone wants to leap on any tall horses, or look for their extreme judgey pants. I agree that no religion has a clean sheet when it comes to misogyny. I also agree that covering the face impedes communication.

[Greengrow]

It can work the other way - the girls can be very relieved they are allowed to say to their parents sorry school does not allow head covering and the girl is very pleased she has that excuse to get around family pressure.

The articles I read said until she came back for her A levels this girls had always followed the uniform code and came back fully covered.

I certainly would not ban it in public just as I want women to be free to wear bikinis in the streets even in very Muslim or orthodox Jewish areas. Signs in London saying women must walk on one side of the road in Hebrew and English were left up too long after a recent Jewish event on a public street.

[PuffinsAreFicticious]

It can, but it tends not to. And it doesn't answer the question.