I am surprised at the level of Islamophobia on Mumsnet

@SallyWD you aren't wrong. But my girls get quite adamant about the colours! They are very girly and one is a pink girl and one a purple girl. They don't like the boys ones. I've tried that. And if i buy a size bigger they are too big on the waist. And the soft cotton/flannel types don't have the buttons inside to tighten.

Just don't see why they can't make them exactly the same as boys but just more colour variety.

If your teen DD is comfortable then fair enough. And what I'm about to say isnt related to you, what you have written or your DD.

But, we, as in those who chose to cover, get told we are doing it for men. In reality we do it because we want to. Not all women are told to cover for men or by men. But when a woman chooses to wear, say a short dress etc they are told good for you. Wear what you want. So why are we told we are being oppressed when we want to wear what we wear?

You could argue its oppressing telling us we can't wear our scarf, for example.

It can work both ways

I agree that there's no need for girls clothes to be shorter etc. However you can just buy your DD boy's shorts. I always got my daughter long shorts from the boys section - they come in all sorts of colours these days and of course it's fine for a girl to wear blue anyway.
Now DD is a teenager and likes to wear crop tops and tiny shorts which I'm not delighted about. I suppose it's the fashion...

@Brefugee hi. That was me.

That's the point though. There are many reverse people out there who do view young girls in such a way. It's wrong but it happens. I personally would be ok with shorts and t shirt for my girls at the beach for example. However the design of most girls shorts seem so much shorter than those on boys. Why is that?

I looked in various supermarkets and h and m and there was a good difference in length in the boys and girls shorts. Why do they need to be like that?

I think I will respond on community as that is important. This was my experience of living in an area where there was a conspicuous display of religion. Obviously I wasn't bothered by the idea in principle otherwise I would not have moved there at all.

But of course I then moved and have lived in all kinds of areas in London since which are mixed. And that experience has been without any repeat. In one sense I simply would not know if someone was a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew for example because the community was mixed. I might consider it, but has not been very relevant in the twenty years since.

Why did I raise my example? To say that in the main, I do not think that any area which is conspicuously religious as a way of life is all that good for those who are not. It seems give license or ownership in religious terms which is divisive or enable people to use it as an excuse to control or be antisocial.

I say religion because I think it is not confined to Islam. I can think of other places where religion becomes a dominant public expression and there are similar problems.

No.
You produced a straw man fallacy when you weaponised the pretence that the counter protests engage in the same set of behaviours as the pro-Palestine mobs.

Sometimes things like Islamophobia can seem to be very flexible in how the term is applied. I guess the offence is in the eye of the beholder so if someone says something is Islamophobic we ought to believe them unless there is evidence that it is not.

If there are Islamophobic posts on MN - report them, but if you feel able you ought to comment on the thread. It is entirely possible (but not always probable) that the poster may genuinely not know that what they said is Islamophobic and will learn from that (see also transphobia, sexism, ageism, antesemitism etc etc)

I have mostly skim read this thread. was there an answer about the standing of women under Sharia law? I did ask it on the German/Hamburg Caliphate thread but as far as i can see also no answer. (as a witness and/or victim in a rape trial for example)

a pp asked an interesting question way back, about The Troubles, if they are seen as Christian fighting/terrorism. In many respects, of course, yes. In others, perhaps not. I think it depends on the perpetrators, victims and when it happened.

but what i really wanted to comment on was this (sorry can't remember the poster's name)

In a time when most girls clothing. Especially young girls, is sexualised. I would rather my girls where in decent clothing. I went swim suit shopping for them and there was a lot of bikinis for babies and toddlers.

Anyone who looks at a young girl and thinks sexual thoughts because they are wearing shorts and a vest on a hot day need to get their thoughts recalibrated. I agree that bikinis for babies and toddlers aren't ideal - they don't have the shape for it and if outside should probably cover up with UV protective clothing, but shorts and vest-tops are entirely practical.

It seems that some people on MN only want to hear about negative experiences of these communities.

How on earth am I gaslighting? I clearly said I'm sure her accounts are true! I was simply sharing my own experiences of living in a Muslim area. I think that's allowed.

She hasn't said she disbelieves her. Look up the meaning of gaslighting, you've just embarrassed yourself.

Yes it does sound distressing and you were very unlucky to have experienced more issues with Muslims in a year than I have in almost 50 despite living, working and socialising in areas with a high concentration of Muslims most of my life.

I know. But it was frightening, persistent and it was not prevented by anyone. An isolated incident would have been something to shrug off. However that was not what happened over the course of the year spent living there.

I can't remember who said it or the exact words but its something along the lines of - Religion is the excuse Twats use to behave like Twats.

yes, that happened
in the D fail

Yes but this cultural expression is very visible. And it stays with people. It did me because of the violence of it.

The problem is it is a very visible cultural expression and the people who do it are loud in asserting their religious basis for being anti social or violent. That applies to any group.

What is different is that they could be explicitly degrading to me because I was not a Muslim, and that has stayed with me ever after as a potent example of what religion can mean to someone.

I believe her, take your gaslighting elsewhere.

There shouldn't be any Sharia Law in this country. We have our own laws.

But if those men were actually sticking to the tenets of Islam they wouldnt have even been looking at you.
Again, I suspect this experience was due to culture rather than religion

@SallyWD - I suppose the difference is that your average non religious UK bloke cannot leverage a whole culture or aspect of faith to say you are dirty or a slag. He might say so, but the effect is largely shrugged off. I left Bethnal Green because of the tacit acceptance by others that I was in fact such a slag. That is the difference.

Poverty did have something to do with this but it was the policing of my appearance which was ultimately nothing to do with anyone else but myself which I have not forgotten.

It's sad to read about this. I'm a non-Muslim living in a Muslim area with many Muslim friends and colleagues. I don't recognise this at all. I've never received any type of poor behaviour from Muslim men. I've noticed they are generally more respectful than white men. I do live in a middle class area where the Muslims are often doctors, lawyers etc so you might expect better behaviour from such educated men. However, there's also a very deprived Muslim area nearby with high levels of poverty - even there I've always been treated with respect by the men.
I'm not saying your accounts are untrue - I'm sure they are true. It's just that I think this must happen in only a minority of places.

Is it that dissimilar to the brits living in Spain sticking in their own "ghettos" and never learning the language?

I can't decide whether they are idiots, suppressed or abused.
How about none of those things,

I think to say men do not use their religious credentials to be abusive to women is wrong. Some of them do.

This is now twenty years ago in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel but I do remember an unbelievable amount of abuse from Muslim men who would call my friends and I slags, threw bottles and were aggressive. And there were a lot women covered from head to foot and small girls in the same state. It was s very divided area, with the National Front in it. There was a lot of tension and resentment and there was violence. I moved after a bottle was thrown at me for wearing an unacceptably short skirt in their eyes.

I moved to West London where money and lack of poverty made a big difference in the street, but I would still encounter extreme cultural interpretations of Islam such as total body covering, and memorably, a woman wearing a metal grill over hear face and a chain attached to it in addition to being covered from head to foot in black. It was an expression of real contempt.

There are a lot of angry men in the world who will use anything to police and scare women; you don't have to be Muslim. But I do think that this regressive cultural expression should worry us because it's a special form of pleading where people feel discomfort because they wonder at what looks like a clear disparity in status for women. I know the UK does not police what people wear, but the extremity of some men who are Muslims effectively policing what women wear is very concerning. It should not be a requirement to be modest; modest gives this power all to men, and places women second permanently.

Its very easy to view things through your own lense.
Many of the people who "willingly" stay in their own ghettos are afraid of coming out of them, largely due to some of the attitudes that we have seen on this thread. They dont feel welcome in "white" areas so are accuse dof living in ghettos, and thats before you consider all the women and girls who are given no choice in the matter

I have asked @DrJoanAllenby to specify which area she means as there are a few which would be in within walking distance of the museum. She doesn't seems to want to reply.

There are plenty of Indians who have been in this country for generations who still cannot speak the english language as they never mix with any other nationalities.

This strikes me as appalling. Anyone who comes to the UK and who willingly stays in their ghetto....Presuming they/ you came for a better life and wider opportunities? Honestly, I can't decide whether they are idiots, suppressed or abused. You'd have to tell me, but as a pretty regular English woman who has never faced any of that kind of rubbish, nor had much tolerance for men trying to tell me what to do or think, I would be quite quick to give you back my opinion.