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?

You're the parent, it's up to you. Personally however as a non-muslim I would want my kids' experience of Islam to come from educated imams and not just from other kids in their school.

I'd let my daughter. Let her see first hand how sexism plays a big part in religion and then have a talk about how women are devalued in all religions, including Christianity.

But... it is important to understand what some people believe because we fear what we don't know, and we hate what we fear. So it's important to know the different cultures here so we can peacefully coexist.

"We demand of them daily respect for the default Christian culture of the UK"

I think you've answered your own question there.

Only for Islam does the search bring up a huge number of articles in which there have been visitors objecting to these requirements. If it was genuinely an 'unbiased' issue, based solely on considerations of sexism rather than on the basis of prejudice against a specific faith, the synagogue search should have brought up an equal number of examples of objections.

I suspect this is an extension of people's objections to Muslim women covering their outside of the place of worship, as well.

Sad. There are a lot of beautiful temples, churches and mosques around the world that require you to dress in a certain way. Including the Vatican, Buddhist and Hindu temples in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka and mosques. Despite being an atheist I've always found dressing in the way the temple requires is part of the cultural experience. YABU.

Also, while men many not be required to cover their heads in a mosque, they are supposed to cover their knees and elbows.

I'm an atheist but like learning about different cultures, different religions and visiting their buildings. I have no problems going to the likes of mosques and synagogues etc and happy to abide by their rules.

I just don't understand why such young girls are being asked to cover their heads when it's not normally required. Either the teachers are being over zealous or the mosque has stricter rules than some mosques about females.

I'd just be so bloody nosy, i'd want to know if my kids teacher was that ill informed, they were making things up.

It's racism, pure and simple.

If people were that committed to feminism, they would be campaigning about all the other inequalities in our society.

Perhaps they are.

if it was racism they'd be objecting to the visit.

they aren't.

they are objecting to a 7 year old covering their hair when many Muslims don't.

allow entry with otherwise perfectly reasonable clothing and they'd be no problems what so ever.

Bertrand

What's racism? People wondering why girls this young are being asked to cover in this case when they usually aren't expected to?

Bertrand Russel
So all the British people complaining about sexism in Christinity are racist towards.... Other British people??!?

bertrand I campaign against other inequalities against women? Am I allowed to think that most interpretations of Islam are misogynist bullshit?

Young girls before puberty never had to cover their head. It's a modern thing and rather weird even for many muslims. The girls don't have breasts or sexual attraction features yet so the reason to cover the head isn't really there.

I have read to page 10, and learned a lot; no time to read further so apologies if what I say has been said before.

When I was a child it was common practice for females to cover their head in church and males to be bare-headed, out of 'respect for the Lord' (where that phrase came from I have no idea). Men always removed their hats indoors. Therefore the fact that boys keep their heads uncovered in the Mosque seems acceptable to me, cultural influences I suppose.

When I visited a Hindu Temple I was asked politely to remove my shoes; when I visited a Catholic church in Italy I was ordered, rudely, by a young priest to cover my bare arms before I was in the building;(ankle length dress, high neck and stole at the ready).

What I find most disturbing about this post is the message from the school:
Mosque visit: Please can boys wear trousers. Girls either tights or trousers plus head covering eg. scarf. Thank you

To me this appears as an attempt by the mosque to impose their beliefs about dress on non-believers, in the way they are doing in schools with relation to PE and general school uniform for their girls. Is the headscarf to cover the head in the presence of the Lord, or to cover the hair from the sight of the males? The dress code imposed on muslim girls, an interpretation of modesty, seems to say more about their effect on muslim males than about their religious beliefs.

When I taught in schools with a high proportion of muslim children I had to deal with male relatives who wanted the girls to wear shell suits for PE, including large apparatus, because 'the shape of the female form should not be visible'. T shirts, leggings, shorts, were not acceptable, and these were nine year old girls. Later some schools (near Birmingham) was forced to have separate PE and swimming lessons for girls and boys, with huge disruption to the timetable.

With regard to the original post, I think if they were my children I would send them on the trip, but question the uniform requirements; will the children be excluded if they don't cover their body in the way stipulated? It does sound as though this has come from the mosque, not the school. Tolerance should extend both ways.

" I campaign against other inequalities against women? Am I allowed to think that most interpretations of Islam are misogynist bullshit?"

Absolutely you are. So do I.

But the people who come out as "feminist" every time there's a suggestion of a visit to a mosque with their Daily Mail sad faces are just using it as an acceptable way to express islamophobia. Any other feminist issue and they'll be lining up to mock the humourless hairy legged dungaree wearers.

Some schools were forced

on the contrary. what I see is peolel so desperate to not he considered racist they would comply with anything and everything in order to show how tolerant they are.

you can disagree with practices and refuse those you are uncomfortable with and not be a racist ffs.

I said i've seen an increase iof very young girls wearing hijab and covering up more. It's a new turn that i'd rather not see growing and being encouraged.

Yes, it's the young mothers not the 40+ older muslims in the UK who have taken to covering up. In fact if you look at pictures even from Iran before the 1979 revolution women looked like women in London. It has just all gone backwards.

It will pass and get back to normal in a few decades, I'm sure. It is almost an act of rebellion to cover up.

Photos from pre revolution iran look bloody amazing. At least they still adore art, poetry and literature and protect their history.

My Iranian (born there post revolution) cousin did a double take when she saw a fullly covered woman (only eyes showing) out in the boondocks (US). She couldn't believe that anyone would go the full Monty through choice.

Talking to women who have actually lived under these rules makes me wonder why women who don't have to cover up do so. It is not 'freedom' in any sense. They hate and resent it.

It is almost an act of rebellion to cover up.

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. I imagine there's quite a bit of secret and bewildered eye-rolling that goes on among older more moderate Muslims in the west at the moment as they observe their children and grandchildren going all old skool and romanticising fundamentalist Islam for all their are worth.

I think it's a knee jerk reaction against the widespread fear and mistrust of Islam in the west since 9/11. It was pretty rare indeed to see fully covered Muslim women in the UK before that. Now you can go to even fairly small and far flung UK towns and find at least a few women totally covered, including hands and face.

It's quite the thing these days for young Muslim people to look as ostentatiously Muslim as possible and to be as ostentatiously Muslim as possible. Blending in or being moderate is seen as selling out.

I agree it's an act of rebellion for some. There is another thread running about being proud of your roots. I think since 9/11 it must be quit hard to have been a muslim in the UK. I wonder if young muslims feel pushed out, othered and have decided they won't be ashamed or hide what they believe and where their families are originally from.

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.

^this part of your post rings alarm bells for me. A vast part of life in British society requires you to wear a specific type of clothing to enter their institutions- school uniform itself in the majority of cases requires girls to wear a skirt but boys are allowed to wear trousers. Many workplaces insist on a specific dress code for women - air stewards/hostesses, office wear, professional sports (eg tennis or swimming).

So actually the way I see it every time someone gets hot and bothered about Muslim women covering up and assuming it's oppressive to them - actually British values aren't all that different. I have plenty of memories of years of having to wear a dress that would blow upwards in the wind at school while the boys never had to worry about flashing their underwear. Same for leotards.

FWIW I think yabu teaching your dds that the way women dress in different cultures/religions is anti-feminist. But I also think the mosque should not be worried about girls under 11 covering/not covering their heads.

You don't need to go to a mosque to learn about it. If they even care to.
YANBU.

If I had a DD I wont be sending her either. It's teaching girls that they have to do certain things before being allowed to enter - that isn't in our culture.

I really thought it was weird when I went to a mosque on a school trip and all the boys and girls were separated, I found it disturbing more than anything. The boys could see what was going on but the girls couldn't...

I wont be sending my DS to any religious school trips as I am not religious and they are my beliefs, so they should be respected too. It's fair.

I will not be interested in any way.

A vast part of life in British society requires you to wear a specific type of clothing to enter their institutions- school uniform itself in the majority of cases requires girls to wear a skirt but boys are allowed to wear trousers. Many workplaces insist on a specific dress code for women - air stewards/hostesses, office wear, professional sports (eg tennis or swimming).

I don't know any schools that say girls must wear skirts and only boys can wear trousers. I don't think that they are even allowed to have this rule nowadays. Very few (if any) work places discriminate either.