to think that JL are perfectly within their rights to sell a hijab as part of 'school uniform' ranges?

[MaybeIAmJustNotReasonable]

John Lewis signed contracts to start a sale of hijabs within their school uniform range, having signed contracts with two schools in London and Liverpool. AIBU to think is actually okay, and we should accept the fact people can dress how they like, in terms with their religion?

You are presuming their families know that they are doing this. How many parents are clueless of what their teens get up to once they leave the house until it is too late. Delinquency and anti social behaviour of young men is a general problem that is present in every demographic group and muslims are not immune from that. The influence of parents over their children has been corroded by many different factors in modern society. These sorts of incidences should be reported the police who have the authority to deal with it and please take it further.

Even in the UK the areas where the rate of unemployment is highest are the areas where you see the most domestic violence.

www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/News-and-Comment/Domestic-violence-in-north-Liverpool-six-times-national-average

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9003245/Liverpool-has-biggest-per-home-unemployment.html

So even in the UK there is a link between violence against women and poverty. So for whilst many of you the only factor you pick out when you see violence towards women in muslim countries is religion I would attribute it more to poverty and instability.

For those in doubt that some on this thread are attacking adult muslim women's rights to wear headscarves see the poster above me.

Muslim women going shopping is "Western" and therefore "incongruous"

Hahahahahaha!

You don't know anything about us, do you? Yet you feel oh so happy to dictate to us what we should do. Following orders from someone who thinks shopping is Western is not freedom. Leave me alone.

Shopping is Western. No one buys things in any other part of the world - thanks for the entertainment hell2theno.

IPityThePontipines I am challenging peaceful's constant narrative that hijab-wearing is always and forever a free choice made freely by the women involved. If you constantly push this narrative, you cannot be surprised when people suggest, if women wearing what they want to is what you are honestly after, that you also speak out against when women are being harrassed for not wearing hijab.

I am also challenging peaceful's narrative of being "doubtful" that things like this rarely happen, or that they are isolated incidents that could, if only we bothered, be swiftly cleared up by reporting it to the police. I asked peaceful for alternative suggestions because she implied that a quick call to the police would clear this problem up, and it won't. It's a lot more widespread than that, and I'm really, really sick of it being minimised and characterised as just a few lads behaving badly. It's a disgrace that this is happening in the UK in 2014.

And yes, if groups within communities I am part of (both faith and any other type of community), you can be absolutely sure that I would - and do - challenge it, not seek to minimise it as a problem.

• "doubtful" that things like this happen as often as is claimed,

(not rarely)

So its my fault pudding. Whatever.

Ive already told you I dont agree with it. Ive never come across it personally if I did I would challenge it. If what you are suggesting is that I become a vigilante and start policing the streets from gangs of young muslim men to prove that I actually dont supprot it I think you are gravitating towards delusional and ridiculous.

Pudding - peaceful never said hijab is always and forever a free choice, just that it generally is in her experience. She has not belittled the harassment you've described and has instead told you of her own experiences and how she dealt with then.

So.I ask again, what actions are you wanting a stranger on the Internet to take against some young men she doesn't know and has never met?

Did I say it was your fault, peaceful?

I'm just sick of you minimalising it as a problem - you are "doubtful" that it happens as much as people say, much, a call to the police will clear that right up, oh, it's just a few teens being delinquent.

Yeah, no.

I'm asking her not to minimise it, which she has been doing.

I'm a stranger to you on the internet, and yet you are demanding answers off me. It's just amazing how MH works, no? Hint: it's called a conversation.

Well, peaceful, if you're not going shopping anymore because it's "incongruous" and "Western", that should leave you plenty of time for vigilante activities - get to it woman

And here you are, IPity, attributing stuff to me that's nothing to do with me.

It's so good to know you take the public harrassment of women so seriously.

Pudding - I'm not asking you to solve any problems in my personal life, though am I? I'm just questioning your posts on here.

I don't think peaceful is minimising the harassment, she's been through it herself, as she explained.

I'm asking her not to minimise it, crescentmoon, or make out it's not really a serious problem. It is a serious problem, and she's been minimising it. And I find it fascinating that you seem to think that me pointing this out is the thing that needs chastising here.

Pudding - Harassment, I take very seriously and would agree that it should be a police matter and that if you get no joy, you should take it up with your local Mp/councillor andblocal media, rather then expecting Muslim woman on the Internet to intervene with the harassers.

No, she hasn't been through this particular harrassment herself, IPity. She's been through different harrassment, a type that I have seen nobody be "doubtful" about. I'm pretty sure most women on this thread have suffered harrassment of one sort or another, whether religious, racial, or simply for being female. Doesn't magically protect them from being arses about another type of harrassment.

I've done all that, IPity, except for the media bit, because I'm not willing to make myself a public target for attack any more than I already am. If you had bothered to read my posts, you would see that I'm not expecting random Muslim women on the internet to intervene with the harrassers, but asking a specific Muslim woman not to minimise it as a problem seemed to be a good start. But you clearly don't agree.

Note to self: asking women not to minimise all the incidences of street harrassment by men of other women = a Bad Thing. Gotcha.

Its hardly surprising that the parts of the world where women have the best opportunities are the ones that are the most developed

Saudi is hardly a developing country, in fact it's one of the richest in the world. How do you explain the lack of women's rights there? Or as far as I'm aware a strictly enforced dress code?

I don't have all the answers but I think it's important to listen to the women of that country and region with regards to what they perceive the problem to be rather than dictating to them what we think. This article might interest you.

english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2013/04/26/Saudi-women-victims-of-restriction-for-protection-.html

I'm not following how that article you have linked supports your assertions that women choose voluntarily to cover up.

peaceful you seem to refuse to see any relationship between religion being used as an excuse for misogyny, and the fact that that intrinsically halts a country's development. As PuddingPam points out, women's rights go hand-in-hand with improving living conditions, education, etc for EVERYONE. You cannot de-couple the two. Yes, the reasons for a lack of development in some countries is "complex" - but part of that complexity is religion being used to prevent women from improving their lives.

Its difficult for people with entirely different worldviews to have a meaningful discussion.

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with the link to the article?

When I lived in Saudi, I felt very much a second class citizen; often third class as I am mixed race and non-Muslim.

I didn't see much joy-in-covering in the pre-teen girl I saw being beaten with stocks by the religious police for a slipped abaya which showed her hair.

When I lived in the UAE, I rarely saw UAE nationals working outside governmental roles; if Emerati women are now taxi drivers, things have certainly moved on apace.

Covering is not enforced as several Emirates chose to pursue the tourism dollar when they discovered oil was running out.

But certainly in the less populated Emirates like RAK, I know western-dressed women were frowned in and sometimes verbally abused by the Bedouin.

I seriously fail to understand how the hiding away of women (shameful? Unclean? Inflammatory?) has any place in the 21st century.

The Victorians made a virtue of prudery and called it modesty. They fainted clean away at a well-turned ankle and had little girls covered up in all weathers. They were laced into corsets so tight they used all their brain power not to faint and when that didn't work, they kept them in twilit rooms smacked out on laudanum.

They claimed it was because women were such delicate flowers but that was patriarchal bollocks.

People died so that I and my nieces and sisters could be equals in the eyes of the law.

If you have been brought up to think that women who don't cover up aren't chaste and don't therefore deserve to have their chastity respected then you are not likely to treat non Muslim / non hijab wearing women with respect.