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.

Dawnmist

A poster said:

I am amazed this provocative and prejudiced thread is being hosted by Mumsnet. Quite disgusting

You responded:

So you think mumsnet should only allow threads where it might be considered that Christians are being offended? Some of those threads have been vile, is that not disgusting too. Or should Islam be above criticism. This is not even on the same scale as those threads. Nobody on here is attacking Islam the religion, no need to look for any perceived offence.

That does imply that you agree this thread is vile too. And the original poster didn't even say MN should only allow anti-Christian threads. You put those words in her mouth. Just as you're trying to make out that I think people who disagree with the hijab are racist. When I never said this. Your goadiness is obvious, you know.

The influence of political Islam pushed by the Saudis/Wahhabis (who the West need to keep sweet as they have oil).

And yet people pick on who they perceive to be the weaker group - Muslim women. It's Muslim women who bear the brunt of this, by having the hijab ripped off them, by being spat, by having bricks thrown at them. And yet not a word of sympathy for those women. Shocking but true.

Why not take it up with your government or go to Saudi Arabia and campaign there?

I'm not sure how comparing a skirt and a hijab is the same whoever took my opinion as a personal attack?

Yeah there are skirts available. You're saying that's the opposite of a hijab and it's to appeal and draw the eye. As opposed to the hijab which does the opposite.
If that's the case then I think regardless of the anti-social Islamic culture/ anti-western world culture - attitudes like yours are concerning.

I'm telling you now. I disagree with crop tops and high heels on children just as much as I disagree with the hijab and the covering of children in heatwave conditions. The difference here is
If my daughter rocked up to school wearing high heels and a mini skirt I would have a call from the school immediately.
However, in my opinion a hijab is also sexualising a child and inappropiate for that setting, but the schools would be more cautious/afraid to bring it up. Which is madness. It really is political correctness gone mad.

The bottom line there is no need for child girls to be wearing a hijab at school or at all if I am entirely honest.

They're discussing this on Jeremy vine now

I think schools should be neutral on all aspects of this. The best way to achieve this is to keep any religious connotations out of school. Especially at primary. Brainwashing can occurs from a young age and a 4 year old would be completely vulnerable to having a certain way of thinking put upon them. I include all religions in this despite having a religion and attending a religious school.

I personally think state primary schools should be kept entirely secular and one can go to private schools if they so wish to enforce this attire (or any religiously connected attire) upon children at school. Personally I think this puts pressure on to mums and dc to wear one if it’s part of a school uniform. This pressure should not exist within the school system.

Saying parents would just keep the dc at home also speaks volumes of the pressures these parents feel they are under to ensure their dc conform to their societies views.

Oliversmummsarmy can you refer me to a ban on hoodies in M&S

Just walk through the door with the hood up and you get pounced on to remove it.

Havaina I didn’t say my Ds was banned from M&S or Tesco or any other shop I was just pointing out we could follow a couple of people clad head to toe in black with only their eyes showing yet they can go through but Ds would be stopped to remove his hood.

I was working on a house. I had on a short sleeve t shirt and jeans and as I was wheeling a wheelbarrow full of bricks out of the house I was stopped by a group of guys old enough to be my grandchildren and told I should cover up.
I just replied why?

They argued with me a bit more something about it being a Muslim area then realised I was not going to run away and left

Dd was catering a private dinner function and would have been in the kitchen the whole time.

She just thought it was weird and as a health and safety measure not really something people should be doing and felt their was something a little off with the whole set up.
She walked out but the ones that stayed said after that they ended up having to run for the door when the host wasn’t looking as she was shouting at them to clean the whole house before they could go home.

As the agency apparently reminded the host that they supplied catering staff not cleaners.

Dawnmist. Have roman catholic women stopped covering their hair in church? Remember this being absolutely compulsory when I was young. My C of E mother would not have gone into a church without a head covering 2 friends were refused entry to a cathedral jn Italy, one showing too much leg, the other not enough, being outrageously attired in trousers. How conveniently short memory can be. Women should wear what they want without interference.

longwayoff there is a big difference between wearing a hat for church and wearing something that covers your head and neck all the time

What is the religious reasoning behind the little girls wearing this?

How about we all just stop telling females what they can and cannot wear?

Novel concept, I know.

The principle of free speech necessitates views that some believe are ‘vile’.

We simply do not have free speech without people being able to voice opinions that others may find abhorrent.

Opinions: fine defend and debate. Discuss and debunk.

Insults: We can choose , in any given context, to exclude insults. On MN they delete, on the street insults can be defined as hate speech and not allowed.

Physical attacks: not acceptable at all, under any circumstances, whether it be an older brother forcing and threatening his sister into a hijab or men physically dragging hijab / niqab off women in the street.

I think schools should be neutral on all aspects of this. The best way to achieve this is to keep any religious connotations out of school.

That's not being neutral. Neutral is allowing the child to wear the hijab if they want to. What you're proposing far from neutral and very controlling.

longwayoff there is a big difference between wearing a hat for church and wearing something that covers your head and neck all the time

Yes, white people do the former, brown people do the latter.

Ergo the former is fine, the latter is wrong.

Just walk through the door with the hood up and you get pounced on to remove it.

So you can't actually prove it? In that case I'll take your anecdotes with a pinch of salt, as with the towel head one.

Havaina that's a bizarre assumption that Christians are white and Muslims are brown.

Agree Irishfeminist. Clearly she hasn't got a clue what she is talking about!

I don't personally like seeing younger girls wearing them (and I have seen them occasionally on reception age girls - who were very much wearing them "to look like mummy" as I was eagerly informed by the child in question as she bowled through the classroom door grinning from ear to ear), likewise I have similar feelings toward Catholicism in terms of the difference in how the girls and boys are presented for First Holy Communion (boys dress smartly or wear school uniform - girls have that whole mini-bride look going on) and nuns wearing their veils too. I don't like any religious or cultural practice that still falls into the "women must be modest... men just do what the fuck you like" type mould of dictating female appearance.

Women in hijabs don’t bother me remotely. They can use the coercive control laws to stop anyone forcing them and it’s not that long ago working class women all covered their hair.

What I do think we should be getting out there is a very firm message targeted at Muslim men that uncovered women and women doing other haram things like drinking are not fair game and asking for it. It’s something all men need to know, but it needs targeting at Muslim men because there seems problems getting that group to internalise the message.

And the police have a role to play too, when they know grooming and harassment is at high levels in specific places in their towns like taxis or takeaways they need to start taking zero tolerance approaches from the first reports, not wait until there are thousands of serious cases because they don’t want to be accused of racism.

“Just walk through the door with the hood up and you get pounced on to remove it.”

So fight that! Plenty of people protested and got this stereotyping of hoodies / teens overturned. Maybe boycott M&S on these grounds 😛

Likewise, don’t you find it ironic that skimpy tops / crop tops/ micro skirts are banned in schools precisely because they are viewed as ‘immodest’, which is the reason a hijab, tunic top and trousers are allowed for Muslims (and any other girl who chooses to wear trousers).

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

That wasn’t my experience. I went to first school with girls who wore headscarves.

I have similar feelings toward Catholicism

Ah now I could go on all day about Catholicism, I think for misogyny it is the very worst of all. But this thread is about the Hijab on 4 year olds.

Well said gingered

I've never known young girls starting school to ever want to "look just like mummy", they usually want to look like the rest of their friends. I definitely think it's down to the parents.

Havaina that's a bizarre assumption that Christians are white and Muslims are brown.

It's not me who thinks in this binary way, but sadly a lot of people do.

Dawnmist you're right.

My youngest daughter will sometimes prance around my bedroom in my high heels and I pretend to put a bit of blusher on etc but she would never want to go yo school looking like me.

She wants smiggle bags, jojo bows or whatever the current fad is.

Then again I'm in my 30s, haggard and have a clear like for cakes so can't say that I blame her