AIBU to think face coverings in public should be banned?

The idea that someone else feels entitled to see my face makes me want to wear the Niqab! And I'm not Muslim. Maybe we could all wear red and green badges, green for "I'm open to connection", red for "please leave me and my face alone".

We don't all feel like interacting every day. Leaving my house and going out into public does not make me yours. What if I'm having a bad day?

I also don't want to live in a police state where I can be challenged because I don't unwrap my scarf quickly enough when I get to the pub.

Wow - “deprived, disrespected and resentful” and “choose to conceal [their] faces from me”
Respectfully, it is not about you. No one owes you sight of any part of their body, especially in inconsequential passing encounters like when travelling on public transport or doing the shopping. I am on the bus to go to work, not for anyone to look at. (Not that I am anything to look at without my mask!)

Of course no-one owes me sight of their face. And I don't owe them a close relationship. That's fine by me!

Totally agree, I think generally these types of comments are made by people who have had very limited actual interaction with a woman who dresses in this way. There are also plenty of young women out there who chose this so as a feminist I'll back that right to choice all day long. Its very different to a balaclava which is just unnecessary. If people feel unwell/ are immuno compromised why shouldn't they be able to wear a face covering to feel safer. I think there needs to be understanding that face covering should be removed coming into a business for example but with certain exceptions

But that’s not what you said. You said shops should be able to ban entry to people with their faces covered.

If you think shops should just be able to ban entry to “gangs of thugs” then why not say this?

(As I have said in a previous post, this is not a theoretical argument for me - I have been assaulted simply for sitting on a bus wearing a mask. These attitudes have real consequences.)

During the masked madness of 2020 and 2021, shop keepers reported that their pulse would race whenever anyone wearing a mask walked into the shop, which would be all the time.

Another shop had a little shrine to Saint Boris on the door: a picture of him at his podium (without a mask), captioned "Boris says you must wear a mask in this shop". That shop has since closed down.

Wow - “deprived, disrespected and resentful” and “choose to conceal [their] faces from me”

Respectfully, it is not about you. No one owes you sight of any part of their body, especially in inconsequential passing encounters like when travelling on public transport or doing the shopping. I am on the bus to go to work, not for anyone to look at. (Not that I am anything to look at without my mask!)

Demanding people reveal their bodies is as authoritarian as demanding people conceal their bodies. (I am personally very uncomfortable with cultural expectations that women cover their faces, but demanding women remove their face coverings is similarly controlling.)

I find it “disrespectful and resentful” to be told I should remove a medical device because someone else thinks they have the right to view my body without it.

No - the face is paramount in communicating all kinds of things in human societies.

I have no problem with 'modest' clothing choices. But you can't compare covering almost all your face with simply not showing cleavage or legs.

I do feel deprived, disrespected and resentful when people choose to conceal their faces from me. This includes people (celebrities or people aping them) who insist on wearing sunglasses indoors!!

Anna Wintour, I'm looking at you!

A shop owner should be allowed to decide who goes into their store to combat anti social behaviour. The vast majority of shopkeepers can tell the difference between a disabled person in a mask vs a gang of thugs in masks.

Very few societies have no means by which women can choose to shield themselves from 'the male gaze' for reasons of privacy and dignity as the woman sees it.
For you that might mean covering cleavage, upper legs, midriff, avoiding unisex changing/toilet facilities, or any of the many things non religious women may do because of personal ideas of privacy/dignity, safety, modesty even. Face covering may be considered extreme by Western cultural standards, but the principle is the same.
I wouldn't like people to be telling me that to cover any part of my body was illegal. Because telling women they must show their faces is as bad as telling them they can't.

I don't bother to try to establish a relationship if face coverings are worn. I don't mean a headscarf!! I mean the full mask.

My lovely DIL is a Muslim and she wears neither. It's not a religious requirement - it's a personal choice. If you choose to cover your entire face from me, I'll be polite, but I won't expect to build any kind of relationship with you.

To me, it's all part of the 'it's women's fault if men can't control their lust' attitude.

That doesn’t make it correct, or even reasonable.

”Last week a group of people wearing pink hats committed a violent, antisocial act. Banning hats will prevent this happening again.”

The logic doesn’t follow. The article you posted from The Guardian was from the peak of Covid restrictions when everyone was (supposedly) masking. Is there recent evidence that this is still the case? Banning masks won’t stop antisocial behaviour if that antisocial behaviour continues to go unpunished.

I am interested in what you really want OP? Do you want to make sure gangs of youths committing antisocial acts are stopped? Or do you want to stop people wearing medical aids or religious dress in public?

Nah I dont agree. I think it woukd lead to harassment of some people while others would be allowed to do as they wish. I think we just keep away from telling people what to wear. Imagine going into Camden Locks and trying to police what people are wearing. You'd end up in the bloody canal.

You’re missing the point (& sarcasm. Quelle surprise).
your issue with niqabs have nothing to do with public behaviour accountability or anti social behaviour. “Look it up”!

Sure, because women in niqabs zoom around on Lime bikes, shoplift & nick mobile phones…
WHAT public behaviour accountability are you after there?

I am sure I could suggest an obvious answer which the OP would then deny has anything to do with it…

Nah. I think the moment we start telling people what they're allowed to wear, we've lost something very important.

Face covering isn’t exclusively offensive or threatening to white people!

People can tell the difference between face covering for reasons of health or warmth, and face covering for antisocial reasons such as committing crimes or showing rejection of the society you live in.

No thank you. I don't want to live in a society where the government can tell me what parts of my person I must show when I'm in public. For official business, where facial identity is required, fine. I also support shops that may want to impose rules. But an everyday audit that I can't cover my face, if its cold, or I have toothache, or if I had an injury, or if I simply wanted not to be seen, no. Women's clothing choices have been policed for centuries. I'm not going to support any move to write that into law.
A ban on face covering in public will not stop criminals covering their faces just prior to committing their crimes. I've never seen anyone wearing tights on the face on public, yet I believe it was a popular choice for robbing banks.

So you are proposing to ban immunocompromised people from public life instead of appropriately policing and punishing antisocial behaviour?

Aside from the blatant disability discrimination, have you thought about the downstream impact of this? If people can’t safely travel to work, they can’t work. I hope you have room in your planned budget to put all the people currently cracking on going to work on public transport with a mask on benefits?

Antisocial behaviour needs policing and punishment - and the punishment should be targeted at the perpetrators, not other groups.