So banning the Burka - freeing women from opression or taking away free choice...?

I agree with Xenia. I think wearing the Burka is stupid but the impact it has on the rest of society is minimal. There is no reason to ban it and it would be contrary to the British way of life to do so.

There are too many issues to reply to them all on the thread. Women who cover up are misguided and wrong and I'm glad I live in a country where I am free to say that but also in a country where if they want to and if men want to take bulking up agents as plenty of young men do so they look better or think they will or women want to inject poisons on to their forehead so they look better that they can.

The British tend not to ban things and we accept a range of eccentricity into our country which is why everyeone wants to live here because our culuture and life is the best on the planet. I don't think there is any wide movement in the UK to control letting women dress in silly ways but thankfully we are free to say they do.

If muslim women are worried about men eyeing them up they could just as easily wear very baggy dungarees but then the trouser thing gets them going too - in Yemen you'll be whipped if you wear trousers whereas in Pakistan they're absolutely fine, baggy trousers all the way.

If I am tolerant enough to say I wouldn't ban women who want to wear clothes which stop them running in parks and catching burglars in streets or easily jogging, can I have a few muslim women lobbying for my right to be naked please or at least topless. What a lot of women in the UK want is more liberal laws. Why can't I walk down the street with my top off? It's ridiculous that I can't. Let's have some nudist marches to no 10. We certainly don't need more hangups about bodies than we already have.

oops, correction, it was Diane Torr who did the drag king workshops

I totally get where you're coming from Riven and agree with your points about objectification intensifying: all part of the backlash against feminism though, isn't it? It just shows how far we still have to go. But I don't buy the argument certain 'new wave feminists' make that, as long as it's the woman's 'choice', it can be 'empowering' to conform to male ideals of what women should look like or how women should conduct themselves. That's just pure shite.

I totally understand how rejecting the male gaze could feel good.

This reminds me of a thread I posted on mn absolutely years ago about Della Grace's "drag king workshops". There was a documentary on TV about it. The workshops involve a bunch of women not only dressing up as men but learning how to move like men and occupy space like men. At the end of the workshop they all go out to a bar in their male guise. All of them remarked on how incredible it felt to be freed from the male gaze. That always stuck with me. (Not saying we should all start dressing up as men, btw )

Of course morals are opinions. But some opinions are more informed than others, which is why we have international research, the UN, and international laws, conventions and human rights.

Non-religious people build a rational framework of moral sensitivity based on analogical reasoning, deliberation and particularism. Humans are good at that because it is the way that we build decision making in areas that are not particularly morally fraught as well.

It is very worrying if religious people think that atheists operate on gut feeling!

A moral belief that is held because it is absolute in religious terms or because it is right because an individual's culture says it is is always going to be damaging in some situations.

The argument that something is not Islamic because it is not in the religious texts is irrelevant. Religions only exist through the cultural groups that adhere to them.

I have heard similar arguments from Christians all my life. 'Well homophobia (or whatever) isn't Christian because Jesus never mentioned homosexuality.' That is totally irrelevant when it is Christian groups who perpetuate that homophobia based on their adherence to a religion.

This argument about child sex could be ended very easily; the people who defended it or justified it on the grounds of it being part of a different culture (either because they are religious or because they are cultural relativists or both) could simply say that having sex with an eleven year old is always wrong, regardless of culture or religion.

But they won't. I can only assume that is because their religion or philosophical beliefs are more important to them that the rights of a child.

"I do feel free and liberated covering up (I'm not fat or particuarly minging either). Another woman might not. But I do feel free from wolf whistles, the male gaze and specualtion on my figure/weight/fashion sense. I feel free from having to loook a certain way. Then I feel poeple talk to me as a person."

This is pretty much exactly what the woman in the French documentary was saying, and I find it persuasive from a liberal point of view. But the problem from a feminist point of view is that - as purits and others have pointed out - the answer to objectification is not to cover ourselves but to tackle the conditions that give rise to that objectification in the first place. Another problem is that even if covering can be interpreted as a feminist practice, you're not rejecting objectification by covering yourself with some symbolically neutral garment (which dungarees were back in the 70s, I guess), but with a garment which carries all these connotations of patriarchal religious oppression. Reading the posts about the religious (not just Islam but any religion which requires women to cover themselves) reasons for covering, it seems to me that it rests on the assumption that the male objectification of women is inevitable: I don't see how that can ever be compatible with feminism.

It is just absurd to claim it has no health impact when studies from many parts of the world have shown it does. That health impact is avoidable - women could continue to cover up and avoid getting osteomalacia and their babies getting rickets by taking vitamin D supplements. Pretending that there isn't currently a health problem is not helping inform those women, particularly when the NHS in areas where rickets and osteomalacia are present are trying to inform people of the risk.

It is similar to women going out drinking in short skirts and ending up with hypothermia. You don't have to stop drinking or stop wearing short skirts, but you do have to be aware of the risk of hypothermia and make sure that you take appropriate steps while out to avoid it.

Dittany is right.
I am libertarian but also a Capitalist feminist and very interested in religion too.

I think going as far as banning is going too far. I would ban it if you're giving evidence in court and have to be identified and I would ban it on GPs working in their surgery or places where you'd fall over because of all the stupid long material. I would not impose a general ban however.

Then there are other things done in the name of religion or even God which I would and we do ban - like the FLDS in the US underage sex or in the UK we ban female circumcism operations which sadly large numbers of UK little girls endure abroad.

In other words there is a line to be drawn where we say objectively this is morally wrong and is not allowed and indeed that we should intervene to stop it happening and other things which are just religiously and culturally stupid and if women want to get taken in by them then so be it.

The covering up issue however is a femininst issue, very much so. Plenty of British women adopted dungarees, flat shoes, short hair to ensure they weren't sex objects and lots adopt relatively modest dress at work so they can lead the company without sex getting in the way. I think how we look and react to men and women has a huge impact on how we're treated. I don't look too bad in my 40s and I've used my image although it would be 5% of what I am compared to my professional expertise - I like to think I'm the best at what I do in the UK etc.

I didn't feel sexually liberated from the male gaze in Iran. I felt a massive barrier was erected, that the constant fiddling with the stupid head stuff got in the way. I couldn't hear the translation properly because my ears were covered. I hope that all those problems which could be so visibly seen and were recorded helped make my audiences realise how ridiculous those clothing rules are.

Sometimes I got out in flat shoes fairly covered up. You are treated very differently and that can serve a particular purpose. At other times I find I get better attention and service when I look mym usual reasonably pretty expensive but that's more a class than a covered up issue.

Most of us don't entirely choose what we think we choose though, do we?

The femininist issue in all this is whether covering up your sexuality, adopting the lesbian dungarees look in effect which is what the burka does, frees women. I'd say it was a silly way to free you as you can't do handstands in the park so easily so it's not freeing the sense Victorian women who started to wear trousers found - that was more truly freeing.

The internet frees us too. I could be 40 stone and disabled and look dreadful but no one would know. Plenty of women who cover up are fat and ugly and I bet that frees them. Just think about that Indian sports man who married by phone (muslim , valid marriage). had never met her. Then he finds out she's fat. Anyway he's sorted that out as he's divorced her and can marry his true love who of course is thin.

Would it be the 'done thing' to repost this in religion, not feminism? Just a thought.

I have not tried to bully you off the thread, but the thread was becoming something that it was never meant to be!

I suggested that if you wanted to discuss other topics then you should start your own thread. That is all. The thread was completely hijacked by a rant about child abuse.

I personally don't agree with burqa wearing. I never said at any point that I did. I seek to understand WHY women wear these clothes and whether they should be forbidden to do so. Admittedly no burqa wearers have come forth but several muslim women have given their thoughts on why they wear the niqab. And not one of them say they are "forced" to do it. They choose to dress as they do. I KNOW this is not the case for everyone, and that it could be argued that they "choose" to because of religious expectations/requirements and that it is not a free "choice" at all.

Dittany, I might not have read all the right literature, but I believe we are all entitled to have our beliefs and live our lives in the way we want to. Surely THAT is feminism! That women can do what they want....?

On this thread there have been many responses from Muslim women who have explained why they wear the clothing they do. I have learnt a lot from that which was my aim.

I fully agree that a lot goes on in this world that is not right. But having a go at me is not the way to change anything.

MillyR, yes you have a good point there. I have to admit that before this turned into 7 pages of paedophilia/religion bashing I was hoping for a female/feminist approach on what it means to wear this clothing and what it might mean to individuals if it was banned.

dittany this is NOT a thread about patriachal religion per se either. You are ranting now. I want to be EDUCATED. This is not AIBU!

Portofino, yes this is a feminist issue, but it is also an issue for many people who have perspectives on it that are not influenced by feminist thinking.

Are you seeking feminist perspectives or a range of different perspectives?