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.

So many woke posters on this thread. You can be a tolerant, liberal person and still think hijabs on little girls are not appropriate.

It is the UK yes. In 2018. Saying 4 year olds girls shouldn’t be taught modesty to protect themselves from the male gaze or to please their god.

@Zaidcapetown so she should be tolerant of people sexualising 4 year olds?

I agree with you OP.

Remember the long thread about M&S modest clothing line. I complained about the connotations around the word 'modest and here are posters condoning the covering up of girls going to infant school.

I'm going to M&S more because of this range of clothing which is so incredibly disability inclusive it made me tear up. As someone knows what a pain it is to dress/adapt clothing for someone living with a disability so they could still dress to their personality I think their inclusivity is something to admire.

Thank you @Racecardriver for confirming my understanding!

Its the height of irony that woke people support women wearing the hijab, but not having a women only changing room or toilet to be able put it on or adjust it.

@LEMtheoriginal I think I'd rather cover hair than walk around in those tiny bikinis they have for young girls- isn't that more sexualising? The hot pants ? Heeled sandals? Make up? I've seen plenty of inappropriate clothing for young girls- headscarf is far from being one.

I'm not condoning it at all.

But these girls who are made to wear them will probabky have a hard enough time as it is. I just think it's better they go to school. How will they supoort them selves or he abke to look after themselves if they can't read or write. Isn't that playing into the hands of the culture you are arguing against?

@UpstartCrow YES a million times yes.

I think it's great that they're doing this. M&S are good at comfy clothes, so hopefully they've created something that is convenient and helpful for their Muslim customers.

I've seen recently that they've also just launched a range of clothes for children with disabilities and who use wheelchairs, and again, I think it's great. Hopefully they've done a good job designing those clothes too, and parents and their children like them.

@frankincenced I was raise modest Muslim. We thought that people who did this were backwards an ignorant. Sometimes little girls would wear a hijab to emulate their mothers during religious events but it was deemed as just a bit of fun for the little girls. Wearing hijabs at school was not considered acceptable behaviour. And anyone who forced a young child was looked upon with suspicion. Girls typically started wearing them when they hit puberty (only if they wanted to most of the time but compulsorily during prayer). In more Conservative but still modest families (so not the kind who thought that all white girls were sluts or that jihad was acceptable for example but did only eat halal and didn't listen to music) I observed girls as young as 8 wearing them (8 is the youngest marriageable age in Islam) but it was usually when a girl started her periods.

@BengalLioness it's not zero sum argument though is it.
You can think that actually hot pants and high heels and hijabs are all inappropriate for young girls.
You don't have to pick one extreme or the other.

NailsNeedDoing
M&S made their changing rooms unisex, so I dont think conservative Muslim women will be rushing to shop there any time soon.

The Brownies also do a hijab.

I can't see where Marks & Spencer are specifying that these hijabs are for primary school age children.

Muslim teenage girls have the option to wear hijab as part of their school uniform, and why shouldn't their parents buy them from M&S along with the rest of their uniform - though from the review you refer to, it seems as if M&S haven't got the sizing quite right.

They've been selling bikini tops for primary school aged girls for years. Also entirely unnecessary for prepubescent girls, but a cultural norm among non-Muslims.

Muslim 4 year olds do not need headscarves. Is it still the case that very young primary kids change together for PE? How do you go from that to thinking the four year old boys will be distracted by the sight of a classmate's hair? I'm assuming that little girls who need to cover their hair also aren't able to do swimming with boys there. Primary schools should not be encouraging this it isn't as simple as a hair covering.

Jewish boys wearing a skullcap has nothing to do with modesty,

They sell Christening outfits too. Bastards

Not really the same is it? Covering your head every time you leave your house for modesty versus an hour long ceremony once

I agree education is the key. But so is continual disapprovement of young girls having to cover themselves. Otherwise we just normalise it which I think this by M&S is doing.

I observed girls as young as 8 wearing them (8 is the youngest marriageable age in Islam) but it was usually when a girl started her periods.

^^
Let me repeat that. 8.

EIGHT.

Bloody hell - that is seriously depressing. Little girls obliged to cover themselves in this way. I would personally rather see school as a place where children could be free of this bullshit. Choosing this as an adult woman is completely different to being obliged to wear this at school as part of a school uniform.

Giles, the fact that their parents would rather keep them home, uneducated, than allow a child to walk around with her hair uncovered should tell us all something.

You don't think that dressing little girls up like a bride for their First Communion is sexualising them?