to not send my girls on this school trip because of my beliefs

[JustGiveMeTwoMinutes]

The trip is to a mosque and the girls (year 3 and 4) have to cover their heads with a scarf, the boys don't have to.

Just to be clear about where I am coming from, this is about a specific practice which I believe is discriminatory and therefore disagree with. I would not choose myself to enter a building that I could only enter if I wore particular clothes but where that requirement was limited to one gender or one group defined by arbitrary characteristics. I would be happy to cover my head as a sign of respect/tradition if everyone entering the building was required to do so.

They can make their own decision on this when they are adults.

Am I being ridiculous and petty or is it reasonable to stand up for my view that just because a custom is part of a religion that does not excuse it being discriminatory?

No Alex, men don't have the best track record.

As for the thing where the ninjas are covered head to toe?
Call me racist. I'm not. But holy fuck.
How am I supposed to properly relate to a long cloak?

Ask the school

Lets face it... God is apparently in the male form :)

Trivial requests

Bit of compliance

There are men in our society who like to look at women dressed provocatively.

Their belief is that women look better like that; they are enhanced with thick make up and tight restrictive clothes and high heels that make it hard to run away.

They believe it. It's also in their culture. There is literature that discourses on and illustrates this belief.

So are you also willing to wear a shorter skirt to show respect and deference for those beliefs? Push your breasts out of your shirt? Totter on high shoes or in thigh boots?

Would you concede to that trivial request? Go along with that bit of compliance?

And more importantly, would you tell your little girls to dress that way because it might be an education or a chance to learn about another culture?

That to refuse to do so might somehow insult those men and their culture?

Choice is the key word here. I choose to wear whatever the fuck I want.

There isn't someone in the corner telling me to cover my head.

In 23 Muslim countries it is a criminal offence to leave the Islam faith. That is not simply disappointment of their parents. Traditionally apostasy was punishable by death

Thanks Cleaty.

I had a lovely friend who wanted to leave the faith, well have a white BF actually and when I met her she was living with her BF but fearing for her life. Her parents were moderate and relaxed but her uncle was a high profile scholar and due to this, her action was unacceptable, death threats etc, couldn't speak to her parents or visit their house.

I had another friend at school whose bed was checked to see when she started her periods, she was living in fear of being sent to Pakistan to be married off. She had no choice she was just a slave being told what to do.

Me too, givemeamo, loads of mates sent to Pakistan and Bangladesh to marry against their will

I'm with you. I think it makes women out to be the inferior sex

There's choice and choice,... that girl born into the communist cult in London probably felt she was choosing her life despite being locked up in the sex cult with her father. If you are conditioned to thinking women are second class and must defer to men and cover up in ways men don't have to you probably think you make a "choice" to do that but it's not really choice at all.

@Olivepip: Well, yes, some women actually do. Though it's not called "respect", it's called "formal dress". Which more or less requires rather high heels. (Even though I have been told those aren't real high heels. Just, um, normal heels? Whatever. Uncomfortable shoes.)

It is those bits and pieces that make up oppression. Here a bit, there a piece, all fairly unsuspicious until you look at the larger picture.

Hefzi - I think you could well be right.

My objection to the whole thing is that in no mosque I have visited (ok, only about 3) has a 7 year old girl been required to cover her hair. And it could well be a confection by over-weaning liberal teachers.

Whataloadof: see, if amongst those Yr 7s there are muslim girls (for example) who want to wear the Islamic swimming costumes I have seen, then good on them - I am v happy for them to do that. The yr 7 girls who wear swimsuits are simply doing what is a cultural norm for them. By Yr 7 sex and sexual attrtaction (as well as a sense of sexual modesty) is an issue. At age 7 it is NOT. And IME 7 year old girls are not required to cover their hair in all mosques.

"Do these girls have freedom within their communities and families to choose not to carry on being a muslim." They do. My SIL is from a muslim family , and she married into an culturally Hindu family, her sisters took up hijab fairly recently not having been brought up with it) , and everyone does their thing. The whole extended family celebrate Eid, and Diwali, and Christmas. Because it's like that recent FB thing - "A Christian, a Muslim and a Jew walk into a café. The Muslim orders a big pot of tea. Then they all sit down together and have a good laugh because that's what people do when they aren't behaving like arseholes'. I do stuff that they don't do, they do stuff that I don't do. They don't expect me not to serve alcohol at family get togethers, we don't take alcohol to the muslim homes when invited. At the beach their dd's wear swimsuits with cycle shorts underneath, I wear a bikini. Their DH's never lift a finger in the kitchen or clear plates, my DH cooks and DS clears plates. And DS clears plates in other people's homes too.

But nowhere do 7 year old girls cover their heads, in this set up.

As was said below on this thread, the hijab, the veil, predates Islam. I is cultural, tribal, it is very much about keeping women out of the sight of other men and keeping the tribal bloodline 'pure'. That is its origin.

Mummy, you reversed my post with this:

" Mummamayhem Fri 13-Nov-15 21:39:36

Loads of little primary school girls near my house wear short skirts and ridiculous long white socks, it's appalling, it's November! Their brothers have total freedom and warmth. It's very very sexist and equality for men and woman should trump nonsense British cultural norms."

But that's not what happens. For a start where primary girls where a shkirt and boys wear shorts it's virtually the same, just about all primary schools allow boys and girls to wear trousers these days anyway and a the freedom of girls is not curtailed in the way a head scarf curtails a girl. We fought long and hard in the UK over 100 years ago to stop women having to wear long skirts which prevented them from crycling, running free, playing sport and we will continue to fight long and hard to ensure girls continue to have that freedomg even if some sexist unfair cultures who damage women choose to live here. We won't ban things because we're English and nice like that but we will assert our right to say these religions are sexist to the core, very bad for women and will ultimately fail.

9 countries on the planet have a law giving the death penalty for people who give up their religion. I wonder what tolerant lovely religion they are? I think we can all guess.

I knew an apostate girl who was in hiding in fear of violence from Muslim family who had threatened her. I've never known that. In the sectarian Catholic/Protestant world I grew up in family ostracism was the worst that would happen to a girl/boy who married out. We (my family) thought that was mad enough!

Why are 7 year old girls seen as lust worthy in the first place?

good question.

We already see how confused, tradition, culture and religion are in some cultures, I believe its possible to marry much younger in other cultures possibly after puberty.

Yet, back in October, I watched ITV's Exposure documentary, 'Forced To Marry', in which two undercover reporters, posing as the mother and brother of a 14-year-old Muslim girl, called 56 mosques across Britain to ask whether they would perform the girl's marriage. Shamefully, imams at 18 of those 56 mosques - or one in three - agreed to do so

Frustratingly, many Muslim scholars and seminaries still cling to the view that adulthood, and the age of sexual consent, rests only on biological puberty: that is, 12 to 15 for boys and nine to 15 for girls

The damage that has been done to a nascent British Islam by pre-modern, Saudi- inspired, literalist dogma is incalculable. Consider this: in 2011, when the Saudi ministry of justice announced it might prohibit marriages involving girls under the age of 14, Sheikh Saleh al-Fawzan, one of the country's most senior clerics, issued a fatwa to allow fathers to arrange marriages for their daughters "even if they are in the cradle"

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/british-muslims-child-marriage_b_4310440.html

I have been to an award ceremony in London that specified evening dress. I didn't wear high heels, and I wasn't the only one to wear sensible shoes. I still got an award.

There is a difference between somewhere saying a certain dress is preferred, and from that form of dress being obligatory.

"Do these girls have freedom within their communities and families to choose not to carry on being a muslim." They do

No not all of them do. No.

If you are not comfortable then do not send your children. They are your children so you decide, not the govt and their curriculum. You can still teach your kids about the Muslim faith/Islam without sending them to a mosque. Seriously I have children at secondary school and I'm not impressed that they have to learn about Christianity and Islam and their different approaches to contraceptives or lack of. And this is all in religious studies. One question, why?

If you are born into a moderate Muslim family in Britain, you may be able to leave Islam. A friend of mine left Islam and converted to Christianity. Although her parents are disappointed, things have been fine.

However fundamentalist Islam is having more and more of an influence on British Muslims. And a fundamentalist Islam family would not allow their children to leave the religion.

@cleaty: There was some award ceremony this year where they didn't let women without high heels in. Though that caused a lot of anger and they eventually backpedaled and claimed that it had been just the person at the entrance misinterpreting the rules.

So ... it does happen.

My friends parents were moderate and reasonably happy for her to be happy, it was the uncle and the wider family she brought shame too. It was the uncle who was the issue and why she was cut off altogether and lived in fear.

There was some award ceremony this year where they didn't let women without high heels in. Though that caused a lot of anger and they eventually backpedaled

It was dropped, dismissed.
I suppose if all the ladies who wear a veil decide its not necessary to their faith, they can just stop too.

If you feel strongly stick to your beliefs. For my part I have visited mosques on several occasions and cover my head out of respect for their belief (which I do not agree with).

There is little that can be learnt on such a visit that cannot be learnt in the classroom, IMHO.

I also feel that if the aim is to promote better understanding between groups a party would be much more fun, and much more likely for young kids to promote harmony!

@anotherbusymom: Because those are religions? I am rather glad I got some education on religion, even though I'm agnostic. Children should know some things about the world around them.

Now, sure, you don't have to visit a place of worship to learn about a religion, but teachers likely think it's more fun for the kids to go somewhere and look at things instead of just reading about it.

Religion is a danger to society. Not a cohesive force.