To think banning the burka

[hairytriangle]

Is a waste of time? If people want to wear it then they will. Let them be!

oh and BTW Melika - your so called 'joke' about flying off to see your terrorist pals in Dublin?

Dublin is in SOUTHERN Ireland actually.

Duh.

I don't like men telling women what to wear. I don't like face veils but by the same token I also have to object to any law that tells women what they can and cannot wear.

Shiney makes a fair point about when in Rome. And 5Dollar is right that the extreme dress requirements clearly discriminate against women.

It's a political statement that makes me wince everytime I see it. I never see the woman as anything other than a walking piece of political statement that shrieks "I hate the west", she is merely a representation of oppression. I can't be arsed to see 'beyond the veil' as it's a barrier to hard to cross.

It shouldn't be banned but pity the woman that wears it, she helps everyone around her fear Islam.

I live in a small Lancashire town, where the majority of the population are muslim.

Most of the muslim ladies wear hijab. But many are fully covered - niquab (eyes showing) or fully with a veil over the eye slot.

It is definitely more common to see this in the last couple of years. Today dropping DD off at nursery i've seen a driving instrucor with niquab on, young girls walking to the local girls secondary school with face veils tied on, mums in burkas pushing buggies on the school run.

Our local pool has a ladies only session. I have noticed that some of the fully covered ladies are white. Maybe they choose to wear it as they are recently converted (recent convert=very devout?), to avoid it being common knowlege it is a mixed marriage?

More young males in the area are also choosing to wear islamic clothing with long beards that seems less talked about.

I also wonder if it is a status symbol for some young males.

eg in the supermarket I often see young asian lads in western clothes, local accent with a young wife/sister? in tow in niquab or burqa.

too hard..

And if I see another little girl covering her 'ornaments' I will literally scream, it's like a western girl wearing a boob tube.

I really cannot fathom why anyone brought uip in the west with 'freedom' would choose to convert to Islam but to wear the Bhurka they may as well dance on the graves of the feminists that carved freedom out in the UK.

My husband's colleague is a woman - they both work for a huge UK pharma company, and she has to go to Saudi a lot as she covers the ME.

When she goes there, she has to cover herself up, sit behind the men in meetings, and write down anything she wants to say before passing it to a man to say it for her.

Please tell me what is fair and equal about that... Again, what is said in theory is so totally different to what happens in practice. To me, this and the wearing of the burkha, are just indicative of so much more that I cannot help but find insidious.

Again, my problem is not with Islam per se, but with the entrenched inequalities between men and women.

5DollarShake - why on earth are the company subjecting her to that?? That is horrendous.

To be honest most Westerners fear Islam, but not Muslims. An inflexible religion with hefty punishments and references to violence.

MsR - I know, but what can you do? When in Rome, etc, etc...

They are in Saudi, so they have to do as the Saudis do. It is their culture, must respect it, yada, yada...

In all honesty, I think it is great that the company has appointed a woman to that role in that particular region - at least they didn't bend over and appoint a man. I do think 'good on them' for making that small point.

IFancyKevin I have worn an abaya and shayla (the black "dress" that hangs from the shoulders and the black head scarf like the hijab rather than the burqua which is the cloak like garmant than hangs from the crown of the head with a slit for the eyes)on occassion and actually to be able to throw it in on for the school run did feel emancipating to me. Not having to worry that I looked vaguely human when in the throws of morning sickness was a blessing!

This of course doesn't apply when I have had to wear it on formal occassions when as someone says the effort that goes into what you wear/look like under the abaya is extreme....certainly the veiled woman I have spent time with adore their bling!

I am speechless!

Ifancykevin I think the girls with the long hair you saw may have been Plymouth Brethren - a conservative evangelical christian group. The girls typically do not cut their hair and wear a small hairband like scarf and they wear conservative clothes.

I don't know why they would be laughing at the display though....

All the feminists did PosieParker was give women the right to wear what they choose. Now if a woman has converted to Islam, has become part of the islamic community, and feels that she wishes to wear something that already exists and represents her status, and affiliation with that community I cannot really seee an argument for banning it outright.

After all, it could be said that lots of people aren't really truly individuals in terms of what they wear, but are to some extent following a trend or ideal which is put forth by someone else. I've known indivuals who have pierced their navels/got tattoes because their friends have them, is it REALLY their choice?

As I said I just think that in terms of having the right to wear the burkha it should work both ways; as a British woman I should be able to wear what I like in a muslim country. But that's not the way it works. And so I don't think that accusations of intolerance become quite valid in the light of that argument really.

Feminists did rather more than allow women to wear what they want. They paved the way fro equality and then western women turn their back on equality in favour of a religion that oppresses women, it angers me somewhat.

In our tolerant society, mostly secular, we shouldn't compare it to less enlightened Islamic countries as there is no comparison. Our tolerance is what makes Britain great.

The bhurka does stamp an individual or collective barcode on a woman, it completely wipes her out.

Can't remember who asked but I also dislike the Niquab and find it equally divisive to our communities. Any item that covers the face I feel should be banned and doesn't belong in our society.

And in Saudi women are not allowed to drive a car. wtf! Is this what we want to see in our country.

Sorry Nancydrew didn't mean in any way to associate a whole religious group with laughing at a holocaust display. We wouldn't have really noticed other people at the exhibition, tbh, just that these women we laughing loudly and caught our attention [not many people making any other noise]. When we looked up we noticed they were both wearing red headscarves, had very, very long hair and long denim skirts.

Outside they joined a group of other women, all dressed the same, and I have never seen this before, and never have since.

Wasn't sure if they were British, from another country, if it was a religion etc..Assumed a religion....

Burkha = restriction of freedom.

They restrict a womens (not a mans of course) senses - can't see properly, can't smell properly. Can't communicate properly.

They restrict communication.

Tatoos, etc etc don't do this. Wearing a headscarf doesn't do this. Covering face completely does.

Anything can be dressed up as freedom and then met with indignant 'its my right' comment which then means that whoever is making the argument against is against freedom.

But there is no freedom in covering your face - it's repression, whether the woman 'chooses' to do it or not. Choices are based on life experience and cultural conditioning. As women we should be standing up against misogynist practices, not falling into the easy trap of 'if i choose it it must be right'. Need to think about where that choice is coming from.

Is a human face so terrifying/provocative/shameful that it needs to be hidden away from view? If yes, then why just a womens, why not a mans too?

why do so many people say that while it is unacceptable in Western culture, we must acknowldege that it is part of the culture elsewhere.

bugger that. oppression of women is unacceptable everywhere.

the practicalities of how to fight this oppression are diffcult and very much open to debate - I don't think banning veils is practical, but we could at least acknowledge the basic moral issue is simple and clear cut. We do not approve of veiled women, and we deprecate the cultures that lead to it.

No, shineynewthings, it probably isn't completely their choice. Because everybody's choices are limited to a greater or lesser extent by their culture. That doesn't mean that some ranges of options aren't worse than others. I have been having something of a crisis of faith for the past few years, but it is very hard to completely turn my back on some aspects of the culture I was brought up in. I am in every way anyone could hope to be a free woman, except that that part of my mind has been colonised. Except maybe for converts, I doubt many women make a free decision to wear a burka.

IMO, a burka is a negation of the woman underneath - an integral part of a system in which a woman is worth less than a man. In that way it is antithetical to western values (at least I hope so!) and that is the best reason for banning it. We should not accept that that is ok. On the other hand, I'm not sure banning it is the best way to go, because I am afraid it would isolate women who wear it even more.

Does no one talk about 'false consciousness' anymore? Is it unfashionable?

So if we banned the burqua today so they were no longer considered the norm, how many muslim women would want to wear them in 20 years time when they hadn't been raised to think they were compulsory ?

I can see that it's a personal freedom to be told not to wear it, but how many muslim women wear the veil because their husbands insist...which is also a personal freedom issue. Neither option sits comfortably.

dixiechick why would they have to wear it to "cover that they are in a mixed marriage"? i've never heard that one before, mixed race marriage is allowed in our religion so there is no reason for people to cover just so people dont know where they are from, but it is true a lot of white people and converts wear it, i know loads but also asian, arab and black muslims so not really restricted to any.

as for stamping on what feminists have worked, if that feminist work means we dont have choice and have to do everything the way they think a woman should be then why is that an improvement on anything else? thats the same ridiculous argument people say being a sahm is stamping on the feminist movement and wasting the efforts of previous womens liberation movement (being forced to work and wear less clothes than you want is not liberating surely)

Nope, choosing to follow a religion that completely opposes equality is sheer madness. It is like feminism never happened. I do concede that feminism is about choice but what a choice?