To ask you to help me work out why this grates?

[DrSeuss]

MIL lives in an almost all white, all Christian area. We live in a much more diverse area with a sizeable Muslim contingent. The sight of a woman in a dupatta/ hijab/ niqab is sufficiently common for me to not really notice any more.

The last twice that she has visited, MIL has taken her to the park. Both times, she has returned full of the fact that there were Muslims there in hijab/niqab. Not in an aggressive way, more the manner of someone relating how they went to the zoo and saw some exotic creatures. Kind of, hey wow, guess what I saw! It just totally grates on me but I can't really say why. I just want to say to her, "So, you saw some local mums at the park and they belong to a different cultural group? And? You do realise that some of them may be teachers, just like a hijab wearer of my acquaintance, or doctors or nurses or anything, really, just like people from our cultural group or any group? Must you speak about them as if they are aliens?". But I don't, to keep the peace.

I just can't put my figure on why it grates. She is not being aggressively racist. I think it's the whole way it comes across, like the Queen watching local dancers somewhere in Africa and smiling graciously. I am probably being very unreasonable but I can't quite say why I dislike it.

I don't think it's in any doubt that it's a cultural/religious difference that's being noticed Marianne.

I just don't think (as a non-racist) that there's necessary anything malicious about being intrigued by it. My DD1's best friend comes from a conservative Bangladeshi Muslim family. It's a different way of life, but it's quite nice to go round there and see how other people live for us.

its slightly intimidating to go from an all white neighborhood to seeing people fully veiled

sorry to admit it but it makes me feel slightly uncomfortable being unable to see peoples mouth when they speak to me

i was asked directions once and i got flustered and she removed the lower part of her veil and repeated it because although i can hear in a crowd i rely on lip reading to a degree fortunately she was not offended by me but as i said it makes me uncomfortable

i think it should be banned in the bank airports and anywhere you cant wear a bike helmet you should not be able to wear a veil

I think you are either a bit sensitive, or too ready to to paint her as a racist when she doesn't sound like she is on.

Do you like your MIL?

No, she doesn't explicitly say that, it's more the tone of wonderment as if she had seen a unicorn in the park!

Yes but that's the whole point - to her, she has. She's not used to it. It's a novelty. You'd be the same if you started seeing people walking down the street naked, or on unicycles. Or if you saw a grizzly bear in your local woods. The fact that you know logically there are loads of grizzly bears in north America would not stop you being fascinated at seeing one in your local woods.

And being around people who are fully veiled can be unsettling and intimidating when you are not used to it.

But there's a level on which it doesn't make sense to 'other' just some groups.

Someone might opt not to comment when they saw a) a nun in a park. (Covered head, very conservative dress, crucifix.)

They might not comment if they saw b) a woman in a headscarf in the park. (Hilda Ogden style)

But they would choose to comment if they saw c) a woman in a hijab.

In many British cities it would be unusual to see either a) or b) but utterly commonplace to see c).

pirate, YES! My DH is Englush, we live in Wales, I'm mostly Welsh. His parents go on about the bilingual road signs/unpronounceable words/hearing people speaking Welsh CONSTANTLY, every visit. He has lived here for fifteen years, get over it! They also refuse to pronounce anything properly, despite me explaining the correct pronounciation of common places about 46268 times.

I make the children speak Welsh more when they visit, purely to aggravate them.

Yes this is weird. Even if not everyone lives in a culturally mixed area, obviously everyone is aware that many people in Britain are Muslims and many people wear hijabs/niqabs. I think it was an interview with Martin Amis I read in which he was talking about his father's anti-semitism which he defined as just "noticing." It struck me that simple "noticing" is the form a lot of racism takes.

I understand why this might grate Op for the reasons other posters have examined (othering etc), but I'm guessing (though may be wrong) that your MIL annoys you generally, and that's the real reason that it grates?

I totally understand why non-intentional and non-aggressive, minor, almost unnoticeable racism grates, and get that the way she behaves could be seen in this way.

But, I'm thinking about someone I know who annoys me, who I don't like very much. If they say anything that is not 'perfect' or totally nice, I judge them more harshly than I would judge a friend who I like... (not intentionally, just one of those things) In other words, whatever your MIL might do, might grate?

I suspect it grates because she's married to your FIL. So a simple comment can't be separated from that. Plus if someone makes the same inane comment enough times it becomes annoying.
The mere mention of the alternative route to my parents' house sets my teeth on edge because my df says "Oh you should have come on the A12345" every time we have even the slightest delay on a trip up. There's nothing wrong with his observation in itself but it winds me up. Of course I am able to tell him I'll throttle him if he mentions it but it's not always easy to do that with ILs.

Chillyegg - if you are wearing scarfs for religious occasions are they highly decorative - I might take a second look at some of the beautiful Sari for example just to appreciate how beautiful they are - as I would many a national/traditional dress.

Maybe she just finds it strange that we're in the 21st century and women are still being treated like second class citizens

It just sounds like a game of one-up-man-ship to me. maybe you feel like she is winning?

YABU, it is strange seeing women totally covered up so it's worthy of being commented on. I lived in the Middle East where most people are muslim and I never saw this, just headscarves.. Covering the face is not a requirement of their religion, it's imposed on them. It should not be allowed in our society.

You said it yourself, OP, it annoys you because she's treating some of your neighbours who are going about their business in the park as if they are exotic zoo animals, defined by their pelts.. What do you think she wants you to say in return when she keeps mentioning it? Are you supposed to 'validate' her amazement by saying, yes, it's terribly, terribly strange?

We live close to a hugely diverse city, and when my parents come to visit from Ireland, my father will make remarks about 'foreign gentlemen in turbans' etc. I have to point out that the majority of the local Hindu and Sikh populations have been here for generations, whereas I arrived in the mid-90s. I am the 'foreigner'.

YABU

Its not anything to do with age I dont think
If I saw someone in hijab/niqab I would probably mention it the same way as your mil has as it is something I have never seen before except on television.
Not everyone has the same life experiences as you op. I think you are projecting things onto your mil that arent there. Try and be more understanding.

It's not a big deal if she has no negative feelings about the people she saw.

I was in China in an area that gets hardly any tourists and people would burst out laughing with surprise when they saw me. Once I was on a train and an extended family were all leaning over the seats to get a good look at me - all amazed. I didn't mind at all as they were all lovely people - they were just surprised as I wasn't what they were used to seeing.

YABU. Don't you like your MIL? Are you projecting that a little bit?

It grates because she is your MiL. This thread is also a "look how NOT racist I am becaue I am accusing someone else of being racist" type threads. There are a lot of those.

(McCarthyism, Witch trials.... classic "I accuse therefore I am innocent")

We don't know whether your MiL is racist or not. We don't know whether you are racist or not.

We are all prejudiced to some extent - it is a way of using experience to make decisions. It is how you use that prejudice and how open you are to adapting your ideas and how you learn from every new experience that is important.

"Wonderment" makes it sound as though she's pleased! Maybe it's a relief for her to be able to talk to you about women in veils, because if she said anything to her husband (FIL), he'd go off on a racist rant, whereas to you this sight is normal, and you are happy to live alongside it. You may find it clumsy and naive, but perhaps to her, openly acknowledging these women in headscarves is a chance to be multicultural.

My father-in-law never fails to comment on the carer who visits him on Sunday morning being foreign and black.

Last time I saw him he was speculating as to his probably being African. He added that his carer might have been born in Britain.

He was puzzled when I pointed out that in this carer would be more British than he was. My father-in-law was born in Egypt - where his parents lived - and his mother was from Eastern Europe.

I think generally it's considered rather rude constantly to make remarks about other people's appearance - their weight, their choice of clothing etc.

Yes, there's the argument that some women may not have freely chosen particular items of clothing. But children don't freely choose to wear school uniform. Men in certain jobs don't freely choose to wear business suits. There are long discussions on Mumsnet as to all women who 'freely choose' to wear short skirts/shorts/short-sleeved tops 'freely choose' to remove body hair.

So the idea that one group is totally free and that another is totally oppressed, so that the first group must inevitably comment on how terribly subjected that other group might be is a bit dodgy.

One might as well say, 'Oh my God I went into town and all these women were wearing make up and had hair styles that needed loads of looking after and they had short skirts and they'd shaved their legs and were wearing really uncomfortable high heels, and isn't it awful and why doesn't somebody ban this and set them free?'

My Mum is a bit like this. She has very little proper life experience, and seems very naïve about loads of things, and drags out the old stereotypes and 'jokes' whenever something different to her comes along.

It grates with me because it's like she's a little girl, trying to sound coy, it sounds attention seeking.

She can come out with some blinders on occasion, she's obviously nice to people and doesn't seem to subscribe to racist views as in, go back home sort of thing, but she is incredibly ignorant about stuff like that.

She'll say 'but that's what they do, over there.' as if everyone in the whole country acts in the same way - yes, as if they are animals in a zoo. She thinks she is clever, putting people into boxes, figuring them out, 'solving' them. Ah, it's because they are from South Africa! or whatever. (erm, no it isn't, Mum)

I find it horrifying and have to ignore it and then she gets the message and shuts up. We have had a few 'chats'.

I wish she would bloody well grow up, sometimes. It makes me ashamed in case anyone hears her saying those things, which she doesn't do in public thank God.

I think she's just making conversation. It is something different for her to see this. Maybe she actually dislikes people wearing a full veil. (I know I do)

If there were lots of women wearing bikinis she'd probably mention that too.

Good post - interesting thought MarianneSolong

(In some ways becoming "old" has set me free from all that. I no longer wear heels, shave my legs, wear skirts or bother with my hair much!! It is actually surprisingly liberating.)

I know that is not exactly what you meant and I did get your point but just wanted to add that as an aside.

In short I think it possibly pisses you off because she's a woman, acting like a child.