to stop shopping at M and S for selling hijabs for young girls

[worstmotherintheworld]

So M and S have started to sell hijabs as part of their school uniform range...aimed at primary school children. One reviewer helpfully suggests getting the small one for a 4 year old.

I have been shopping at Marks all my adult life and have remained a faithful customer despite some dodgy clothes of late and the uninspirational Sparks card, but I think this is going to be the last straw for me.

ThisIsTheStep

Haha yes. The attempts at equivalence are laughable.

If you want to, it's your choice. Just like it's the choice of the parent/child if they want to wear a hijab.

This isn’t about whether or not women should wear a hijab ( they can do what they like)
It’s about whether it’s appropriate for a primary school uniform.
It isn’t in the same way that nail polish, make up and high heels isn’t

School uniform in its self is often unsuitable and unfit for purpose and in many cases the sexism, racism etc is blatantly obvious. But go ahead get a outraged at the hijab whilst we all send our girls to a school that makes them ashamed of their bodies . . We are no "better"

giles you said exactly what I wanted to.

ThisIsTheFirstStep Not really noticed any children in heels or dressing in an overtly sexual way.

Occasionally you will get an outfit that might raise eyebrows but generally it is all pretty tame.

I know quite a few African women and not all straighten their hair. It depends on how they are feeling.

Hair straightening, wearing bras, make up
bikini tops etc are all choices.

Insisting on a hijab at 4 years old and completely covering them in 50degree heat is another matter.

I witnessed a child trying to remove her hijab, getting quite upset as she didn't want it on her and both her parents putting it back on her stood in the blazing heat whilst her brother and father were in shorts and t shirt.
The mother was dressed in black from head to toe and looked equally uncomfortable.
It didn't look like this child wanted to wear the attire she was in

I have seen the threads, I haven’t seen a little girl in heels and lipstick on her way to primary school, yet, but it’s not socially acceptable which is why there are threads
about it here.
Wearing the hijab is a woman’s right. A little girl is not a woman.

I haven't read all of the comments but I agree with the OP and other realistic posters.

The amount of people falling over themselves to be liberal and politically correct without thinking laterally is pathetic tbh.
And to compare it the the orthodox jews, christening gowns? Are you being serious?

Primary school children should not have to cover their head to remain modest. Not at all. It's sickening.
Who's gaze is being averted?
I find this as stone age as seeing Muslim girls 4 and upwards playing outside in 30 degree weather wearing long sleeves, a cardigan and jeans to protect their modesty.

It isn't right at all and doesn't belong in 2018 and the UK should be trying to stop these kind of things. Not encouraging them.

Wearing the hijab is a woman’s right. A little girl is not a woman

She also has a right to an education and to participation in life.

Do people honestly think families who wish their child in primary to wear a hijab will just shrug and say "oh well she can go without? Do you think if we don't see it it's not going on?

So we can feel superior about sticking 2 fingers up at misogyny and patriarchy by also dictating what people wear?

Not really noticed any children in heels or dressing in an overtly sexual way There are plenty of areas of the UK where little girls are dressed in a way that I would have dressed age 18 or so.

I know quite a few African women and not all straighten their hair. It depends on how they are feeling And I know quite a few Muslim women who don't wear hijab, so what's your point?

Hair straightening, wearing bras, make up
bikini tops etc are all choices They're not choices made in vacuums and I'm not sure how long you'd last in a public pool with no bikini top. Besides which for many Muslim women, the hijab IS a choice, so again, what's your point?

It didn't look like this child wanted to wear the attire she was in So what? You could say that about hundreds of children every day, children are forever melting down about their clothes, fussing about stuff they do/don't want to wear. Because one little girl didn't want to wear a hijab, you think it's acceptable to tell all Muslims that they are doing clothes wrong? How perfectly ridiculous.

When I was 8 or 9, I didn't want to wear tshirts, I wanted to run around topless all day. So let's say that all white British mums in the 80s were anti-feminist and repressive because my mum insisted I wear a tshirt.

It isn't right at all and doesn't belong in 2018 and the UK should be trying to stop these kind of things.

AGREE AGREE AGREE.

*People who get pissed off about girls wearing hijab are equally likely to be pissed off about bikinis/makeup/high heels being sold to young girls too.

It’s all part of the same problem that girls are sexualised in a way boys are not. Covering up or flaunting it still give the same message that IT matters*
Agree with this entirely. And a discussion about whether younger girls than before are wearing hijab is not prejudiced, unless anything to do with Islam is viewed as not open to discussion Such discussions certainly can veer off into prejudice, but attempts to close down any debate on this or other issues are ill advised.

And come on our schools are also dictation trouser styles and skirt lengths. No skinny trousers, no skirts above the knee.

But that's ok? We all know why they insist on hiding the female form and dressing it up as a uniform requirement

men Nice attacks on people who have a different opinion from you.

How do you propose the UK 'stops this kind of thing'? Banning it? That's totally anti-democratic.

If there's a demand, the market will fill it. You might think it's disgusting, sexualising little girls whatever blah blah. Maybe I think skirts sexualise little girls, but I don't see anyone saying we're not allowed to sell those.

Explain to me how it's different. A skirt is designed not for play or practicality, but to look nice. Equally, a hijab is designed, in essence, to make a woman look 'less nice'. Two sides of the same coin.

Whatever you personally think about the hijab, at least look at it logically before you start criticising an already heavily criticised group.

But schoolchildren are being dictated what to wear. It’s called wearing an uniform.

bees because so often people will only criticise Islam without also criticising their own culture. It all gets very Daily Mail very fast.

The hijab is the worst thing ever but bikini tops for three year olds are fine. How on earth is it different?

Gileswithachainsaw so we should pander to parents who would not send their little girl to school if she were without a headscarf? FFS. This is real "frog in a boiling pot" territory. Can any of you answer the repeated question on this thread: why did we rarely see headcarves on young girls 25 years ago and NEVER on little kids? Is it because this kind of religious fundamentalism, this set of ideas, is a recent thing and can we engage with that without the predictable shouts of racist?

And yeah as my name suggests, I have had more than my fair share of patriarchal religious bollox in my upbringing. My mum and aunties all had to be "churched" after childbirth to get rid of the stain of their (perfectly married, "respectable") sexual activity and my grandmother covered her hair in church all her life.

Seriously, some of you really need to listen to yourselves.

This thread has become even more depressing overnight.

Anyone expressing anything other than extreme prejudice is "woke" or "virtue signaling" while the anti Islam rants are dressed up as feminism.

What other women choose to wear on their heads or dress their daughters in has nothing to do with anyone else. It's their business. When they start trying to insist we all wear a hijab is the time to get incensed, until then how about we all concentrate on issues that actually affect us? God knows there are enough of them.

What is your problem with this op?

It didn't look like this child wanted to wear the attire she was in So what? You could say that about hundreds of children every day, children are forever melting down about their clothes, fussing about stuff they do/don't want to wear. Because one little girl didn't want to wear a hijab, you think it's acceptable to tell all Muslims that they are doing clothes wrong? How perfectly ridiculous

But this wasn't a case of a child not liking the colour or the pattern it was about dressing a child in inappropriate clothing for the weather and treating one child differently from another.

You might think a child should suck up and wear what parents want them to wear but probably I am one of those liberal parents and from the moment they could express themselves mine could wear whatever they wanted

I've stopped shopping at M&S because they are rather good st managing women out of their jobs whilst on maternity leave. What they sell doesn't come into it.

But thisisthefirststep the post I quoted said exactly that women who object to one are likely to object to the other! We are capable of holding two thoughts in our head at once. By all means point out the contradiction to anyone who sees one as a problem but not the other, but we can’t use this as a way of shutting down debate.
If pp is right that there is a big rise in young girls wearing hijab, then why not ask why? It’s the values that go with it that concern me more than an item of clothing. The woman I spoke to whose primary aged girls wore hijab, also did not want them to do swimming at primary school as they would see boys in shorts

Can someone explain to my why swimming costumes on young girls are fine but not bikini tops? Surely the argument is either both are fine or they should all wear shorts. Shock horror my 6yo has a bikini but she doesn't always wear the top - is it okay then in MN world as long as the top isn't on?

I agree with you OP adult women should be able to wear what they want but little girls going to school shouldn't. What children wear on the beach is completely different. I suspect I'm going to be flamed now over swimwear. I'd never wear a bikini FWIW. I don't like wandering around in glorified underwear personally but what others do is up to them.

But this wasn't a case of a child not liking the colour or the pattern it was about dressing a child in inappropriate clothing for the weather and treating one child differently from another

So you're concerned about children being dressed in weather-inappropriate clothing? That's your issue?

Like my previous example, I hated wearing tshirts. My brother could go topless in summer, I could not. How is it different?

irish and what's your solution then? Banning the headscarf? Because that will just result in little girls being taken out of school. Or is that better somehow, because their parents will magically become enlightened?

The hijab has become SO politicised but mainly in the eyes of non-Muslims. Have half of you even SPOKEN to a Muslim women? It seems like you all live in these bubbles where you judge these people but you don't even know anything about their lives or why they or their children wear the hijab.

There are people here who need to listen themselves, I totally agree with that. But I think it's the opposite side. So instead of getting pissed, why not actually listen to what Muslim women have to say instead of sitting here arguing for them?

I don't understand why you couldn't.

In my local park girls and boys run around with no tops on all through summer.