To not know how to explain to DSs why women wear a niqab?

[MrsJamin]

I live in a really diverse area - we've often seen women wearing a niqab on the school run and today I wondered what I would say if DS1 or 2 asked why they were wearing one. I honestly don't know what I should say or how I could explain it. They're 4 and 6. A good idea is welcome as I don't know.

jefferson

Yes of course it's personal choice but if the covering is about modesty then why wasn't the man swathed too.

I too don't wear shorts in public on a hot day but like you would probably wear a long dress etc.

But not swathe in black.

I am not criticising and as I said each to their own but to say it has nothing to do with power on control over women really doesn't wash.

all religions are ostensibly about power and control. Usually over girls and women.

I'd just say 'it's a religious thing that some but not all Muslim women do' and leave it at that. Some choose to wear it, some may not be wearing it out of choice, you can't second guess motivation. You also can't second guess whether it's hot, uncomfortable etc. Some niqabs look very cool in the summer and very cosy in the winter, it's imposible to tell. If you want to contextualisem you could also mention other religious or cultural modes of dress your DCs might encounter - nuns, priests, orthodox Jewish people, Sikhs - all have modes of dress or grooming (hair, beards) that can be easily identified. And in each case, some wear the 'uniform' some don't. People wear different things because they can. That's all there is to it. It doesn't need to be a fraught issue.

I tutor some teenage girls from v conservative Islamic backgrounds. They definitely see how they dress in terms of 'allowed' and 'not allowed' (their terms not mine) .They definitely don't have a choice about how to dress.

I also tutor some other Muslim children including a family where none of the women wore any kind of non-western clothing. The husband was not bothered at all about it but then one of the daughters became religious and took up the headscarf (she is about 20) and then the other daughter (about 24) and the mum did too.

It was interesting to me as in this case it was definitely the women's choice and nothing to do with being ordered to do it. I know that at least in the mum's case, she is peri-menopausal and was losing a lot of her hair. She admitted to me that the headscarf helped her to hide her bald patches and I think that's the main reason she took it up.

So there are lot's of different attitudes, as far as I can see, towards 'covering up' in Islam.

My son asks about the way people look and dress,I don't feel it's a character defect on his part.

as far as I am aware its nothing to do with religion but has come from their culture?

Men and women are asked in the Koran to dress with modesty.

I would explain that, that a book somewhere says something and people interpret it in different ways, its actually little to do with the relgion, in some cultures, like Saudi, women cant drive, not allowed in front, only recently allowed to ride a bike???

Then tell them about the suffragettes ( i pointed out the childrens mum in mary poppins to talk about them) and how women have died and fought for equality here, how the war helped women come to the fore and HOW LUCKY WE ARE TO live in the UK where we work towards equality.

Like for instance in our catholic church you have to keep standing and sitting and kneeling, its a ritual that means little, and has little to do with the bible and god and love but some one somewhere has decreed we have to sit and stand and kneel so we all do it in mass, but it means nothing.

all religions are ostensibly about power and control. Usually over girls and women.

yes of course,

mijas99 I am not saying that I necessarily agree with the choices that other people make but I don't have to. They make their choices and I make mine.
Of course, it would be silly to say that there aren't cultural influences at play, but none of us lives in a vacuum, we are all affected by influences and it is just arrogant and patronising to assume that we ourselves are able to make 'free' choices whilst other women are not.
And yes, as others have pointed out, we are talking about the UK where people do have freedom to dress as they choose.

I really feel sad that some posters see some posts as islamaphobic.

This has been debated so much in mumsnet and some really interesting points have been raised.

However for me personally I cannot see a woman covering herself and even her face and hands as anything other than sexist nonsense.

No one has ever put forward a view that explains why it's just women who need to cover.

However I think they have a perfect right to choose to do so and it is up to them.

Because different cultures have different dress. The end.

No need for my biased or ignorant interpretation.

of course if you see someone in the street or in a changing room/toilet or picking up (someone's) kids from nursary wearing the burqa you don't know there's not a man under it. It's been used by men a number of times to conceal themselves.

The body I think that Islam ascribes different roles and responsibilities to men and women, and I think that in that it is no different from any other major religion. To what extent you follow the religion is up to you - as a woman you can be a Muslim and live your life without covering yourself up in any way. I don't think it is about the religion per se it is about the extent to which you follow the rules, which may be an integral part of the religion or may have been made up by other followers at some point along the way.

I think if you deconstruct any major religion, you will find things which we would find sexist, as all major religions have their roots in another time, when cultural expectations of women were very different.

I still find it very odd though that people feel so threatened by women who choose to cover up.

I find it so much worse that female teenage popstars feel that they have to take their clothes off; that male rap stars release videos where they are fully clothed but surrounded by half-naked women, that there are pictures of topless women in a major national newspaper every day. And that these things are barely worthy of comment in our society.

I think there is a lot of ignorance out there from people who never really interact with people from different cultural or religious backgrounds. Islam is an easy target, as the women who choose to wear niqabs are so visible.

Maybe more people should ask others why they make the choices they do in life - I have had lots of interesting conversations with Muslims about why they make the choices they do. As long as you ask out of genuine interest I don't think many people would be offended.

There are lots of things we take for granted that other people find odd - school uniform, for example. I have American and German friends who cannot understand why we would choose to take away our children's individuality by making them all look the same in uniform (as they see it). I hadn't ever seen uniform as anything other than a positive thing.

AussieMum

No that's not really a good enough explanation to dcs in my view as you cannot get over the fact that in some cultures it's just the girls and women who are required to cover up.

solosoling

I totally agree with you. As I have posted all religions are formed so some humans get control and power over other human beings.

These are generally run by men for men and the women are at the bottom of the pile.

I have nicer felt threatened by women covering up or by women in porn films. I have never found another woman threatening anyway.

If women choose to follow religions/practises that's completely up to them but please don't assume that those who wonder why the bloody hell any would isn't ignorant or prejudiced but merely incredulous.

And I would gladly see school uniform banned as I would allfaith schools

it's the most natural thing in the world. As a species we are programmed to look into other people's faces to gather information as to their mood, intentions - to help with communication.

In many cultures (not just western) when we mask our faces it changes the way we behave - look at masked balls, masked cults and religious practises where people put on masks to communicate with the spirits -the world is full of examples. Hiding your face is not the norm for our species, however much we vary in the way we dress, so no wonder people find it difficult to deal with.

Seven Whatever you do please do not use the explanation that was given upthread "For some Muslim women, not having men staring at them and thinking they look nice is an important part of their religion. It means they don't want strange men to fancy them."

That was me. You're right, I hadn't thought that through. I was speaking off the cuff to a hypothetical five year old about a hypothetical question. I shall modify my hypothetical answer accordingly!

I totally agree with you too in the vile pop videos and mysogynistic views of women in them.

I am part of the ban page 3 group and actively campaign against the increasingly sexual nature of these videos aimed at children.

Abuse and misuse of women's bodies are indeed across the world and across all religions from those making women feel they should cover their bodies to those who feel they are cheap enough to display breasts in a national newspaper.

Barbarian Mum "In many cultures (not just western) when we mask our faces it changes the way we behave - look at masked balls, masked cults and religious practises where people put on masks to communicate with the spirits -the world is full of examples. Hiding your face is not the norm for our species, however much we vary in the way we dress, so no wonder people find it difficult to deal with."

This, I think is a very telling point, that it's not just western cultures. I got the impression (can't remember the source, unfortunately) that one of the pieces of cultural advice given to British troops serving in the Gulf or Afghanistan was to remove sunglasses when talking to the civilian population, because being expected to be able to see your (male) conversational partner's face and eyes was culturally important. So it very definitely is a question worth asking as to why, if it is important in men's interactions with one another in this culture, that the face be visible, women's faces are expected to be hidden.

BTW, totally agree that pretty much all major religions historically have been deeply misogynistic. Whether one can come to a more liberal understanding of them is one I know many women practising these religions struggle with, and their answers on the whole (as far as I can tell) are a very individual choice. But way upthread, Peacockwoman posted an article by a woman in Mosul living under the threat of IS, and having to cover up for her own protection. So I think it is reasonable for a woman in this country to be puzzled when she sees another woman choosing to carry out a certain action of her own free will which in other parts of the world is associated with fear, coercion and oppression.

And this isn't Islamophobia - I for one was similarly puzzled by my Catholic schoolfriend's mother's choice, for religious reasons, not to have a hysterectomy after 8 children despite haemorrhaging more or less continuously, and I'm horrified by the history of symphectomy in Ireland - apologies, may have misspelt this. And I find women on the internet posting pictures of themselves with slogans saying "I'm not a feminist because..." weird too. They may have the freedom to do these things in our society, and I'm glad they do. But I have the freedom to find their choices weird when set in the context of the damage (see comment upthread about judges attitudes in rape trials for instance) their choices do to women as a collective group. And I have the freedom to try to critique these choices and offer my opinions as to why they are actually damaging choices to make.

LurcioAgain yes agree with your whole post. Well put.

Put simply, the intention is to stop communication - between the women themselves and unknown men. I used to live in an area with a large Somali population - lots of the women were veiled. In the mother and toddler group (women only) they'd unmask. It was fine for them to laugh and chat with me, a female, even though they may never have met me before. Same in other female only spaces. The veil was solely for use when men were around.

DD asked me a while ago. I said 'they wear it because of their religion And all religions make no sense to me.' I made sure I got that message in. I think DD understands now that people do very weird stuff in the name of religion and the best thing to be is an non-religious.

"they'd unmask"

Sorry thinking one thing and typing another. Should read "remove their veils"

Yes I think it's absolutely vital to question all religious practises and cultural norms as we question anything else in a free society.

Debate should never he shut down.

LurcioAgain Very good post