To think it's ironic about Niqab and face coverings

[IsntItIronicDontYouThink]

Just thought about this and how ironically, face coverings have become mandatory on public transports and it makes me think of Muslim women (Niqab wearing women specifically) who've had a hard time because of their face coverings to now find that everyone has to cover their faces (for different reasons yes but still ironic, isn't it?)

Googled to see if anyone else mentions this. Here's a piece I found about it (There's more but just picked this one).

www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2020/06/12/face-mask-compulsory-muslim-women-12838585/amp/

@022828MAN But then obviously someone somewhere has given you the idea that it brings you closer to God and is a good thing to do?

Someone, somewhere, gave us all all of our ideas! Nobody who exists today is having a thought that hasn't been thought before, not you or me!

Extending on from what @Yourproblem said, who gives women who get lip fillers the idea to do so? Breast implants? Hair dye to cover up grey hairs? Who gives women the idea to remove their pubic or bodily hair? Where do those 'good ideas' come from?

@june2007

So you go to eat in a restaurant you have to find a place facing away from everyone. (so that lists your choices.) Then lift up you vail to eat, which sounds very awkward and will inhibit the enjoyment surely and shows how impractical it is.

You would remove your fail to talk to a deaf women, well what if it was a deaf man? and why would that be an issue? Again highlighting the difficulties. And not everyone will tell you they lip read.

Lift your 'vail', remove your 'fail'? 😂

I'm not a Muslim woman, but none of the extremely few deaf people I've come across could lip read. I've written down or typed out (on phone or computer) what I wanted to say to a deaf/hard of hearing person.

Just to add a women in Islam doesn't take her husbands last name when married to preserve her lineage. Also any money she earns is for herself to keep and any money her husband earns is for the family. So there are many rights we have that aren't in western society. Just to highlight the fact that there many aspects of our life that you have no knowledge on and you only like to highlight the covering. We are liberated, cherished women in our society and hold a high regard in our family and community status. Men in our communities see covering as an honorable thing, just as we see men who dress modestly with beards as a honourable thing and many men wear the thobes which are long dresses to the floor themselves. So modesty works both ways. And rights work both ways. We are happy women, so why not point the finger at yourselves and what's wrong within your communities rather than point fingers and hold judgments into communities you have no understandings of?

Someone, somewhere, gave us all all of our ideas! Nobody who exists today is having a thought that hasn't been thought before, not you or me!

Yes. But I'm sure if I started wearing a paper bag over my face and claimed it made me closer to a fictional sorcerer in the sky and was the 'right thing to do', but took it off around blue eyes people but not brown eyed people (unless a family member), it would be likely I'd be considered insane. Just because niqab has cultural history doesn't make it any less insane.

who gives women who get lip fillers the idea to do so? Breast implants? Hair dye to cover up grey hairs? Who gives women the idea to remove their pubic or bodily hair? Where do those 'good ideas' come from?

These are equally ridiculous practices ALSO created by the patriarchy to control women just in the opposite direction. One is to control how sexually unappealing they should be, the other to control how sexually appealing they should be.

Both terrible.

Men in our communities see covering as an honorable thing

And herein lies my point.

the usual shite spouted by people who are anti-Muslim – sorry I mean anti-face coverings – 'it's scary/socially awkward not being able to see someone's face properly blah blah blah' seems to be not in evidence at the moment. Strange, huh?

Actually the scary/socially awkward line is very much in evidence - especially relevant to the return to school debate.

The point being that we are respected. And the choice is ours to wear niqab or not.. It is actually against Islam to force anyone to cover, pray, practise or marry.

My question being why do u judge? I may think its insane to walk out the house with your hair and face showing and to be practically naked on the beach, with your husband in tow whilst other men look at his woman. However I would never speak on that or judge. Each to their own!!!!

I'm not a Muslim woman, but none of the extremely few deaf people I've come across could lip read. I've written down or typed out (on phone or computer) what I wanted to say to a deaf/hard of hearing person.

If you have come across extremely few deaf people then you're not in a position to know. Every deaf person I know lip reads. From the profoundly deaf to the moderately deaf. My profoundly deaf aunt used to carry a note pad around because people couldn't understand her, but she was pretty much spot on with her lip reading and rarely used the notepad for herself.
I have several severely deaf friends and they always lip read among hearing people and dont carry notepads around. If they dont understand anything we just explain it in a different way. Or very occasionally spell something out.
Face coverings are a huge hindrance to the deaf community. It remains to be seen if I can continue in my usual job if face coverings become mandatory in public settings.

This entire thread can be summed up like this:

Mumsnet: The veil is a terrible, oppressive thing that nobody would choose to wear.
Muslim Woman 1: I'm Muslim and I've never met anybody forced to wear it.

Mumsnet: No, no, you don't know what you're talking about.
Muslim Woman 2: Well I wear it and don't feel oppressed and nobody forced me to wear it.

Mumsnet: No, you have a choice because you're in the UK but women in the Middle East don't have a choice.
Muslim Woman 3: Actually, I live in a Muslim country and wear a niqab because I want to, and it's never been forced upon me.

Can you see how ridiculous this is becoming? Muslim women are literally trying to share their actual lived experiences with you all, and so many of you are refusing to accept their choices as being their own, simply because they differ from choices you would make. Your faux outrage and inability to accept the decisions of others is mind-blowing.

with your husband in tow whilst other men look at his woman

I'm not my husband's. I'm my own woman.

Not ironic. Masks are to help protect people. Very different

Who gives women the idea to remove their pubic or bodily hair? Where do those 'good ideas' come from?

There have been countless threads on here and it all goes a similar way..those who remove pubic hair insist it is completely their idea, they prefer it, it’s for themselves, men and social pressure have nothing to do with it...

It’s pretty much impossible to separate out free will from societal conditioning. We do many things out of “free choice” which aren’t really. They’re a response to approval or disapproval from others and society.

Like @Muslimah2020 says, covering in her culture is respectable. No different imo to women here who change their name on marriage and/or use “mrs”- to demonstrate their social status.

How do you know that it 'gets old' to wear a niqab? And niqab doesn't have to 'sit right' with you - many choices people make don't sit right with me, but I fail to see how it affects you or anyone else

I don’t know, but wearing a niqab while eating is definitely not practical, is it?

Also, what doesn’t sit right with me is that adult women have to sit on the beach due to modesty rules, while the men and children get to play together. Does this seem right to you? It seems very sexist to me, and I won’t apologize for thinking so.

That’s my experience of most beaches, tbh. The women sit around looking after the gear, sunbathing, tending to children, while the men and kids run off doing the physical stuff

Where are you going to the beach? Where I’m from, women play in the surf with their kids, or go paddle boarding or maybe even surfing. They do not sit in groups on the sand while the men and children have fun.

Plus which is actually more impractical for “having fun”- a niquab, or a bikini?

I dunno, I mean you can play very physical games like beach volleyball and go surfing in a bikini ... while it would be very difficult in a niqab (because not only would you be wearing a niqab, but you’d have to be wearing an abaya as well).

A burkini is actually much more practical and suitable for modesty purposes. The women who wear them tend to be able to do so much more activities, but only relatively progressive young women wear them here. Still considered a bit risque.

The reasons women remove body hair, wear makeup, very revealing clothing etc are equally unpleasant and patriarchal. I am just as critical of those practices as I am of face/hair covering for religious women (including nuns, by the way - they’re hardly liberated, are they?!)

Muslim women are literally trying to share their actual lived experiences with you all, and so many of you are refusing to accept their choices as being their own, simply because they differ from choices you would make

I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t say this about polygamous Mormon communities in American or Southern Baptist ‘surrendered wives’ but there is a general acknowledgment about how sexist those communities are by modern Western standards.

I respect Gulf culture by dressing modestly (although legally, I kind of have to). It would be nice if people who move to the West could respect my culture and be more understanding of our discomfort with veiled faces.

The niqab is a public erasure of women, I simply cannot support the ideas behind it. I really don’t care about the hijab, it’s fine and doesn’t interfere with daily life like the niqab.

But FWIW there’s hardly any women wearing the niqab right now because they are mandated to wear face masks. I wonder if it will change any cultural habits ....

@Muslimah2020 I wish you were my friend in real life! You sound wonderful.

Absolute LOL at everyone questioning and shaming your beliefs. Ignorant white women at their finest.

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned you sound wonderful too! Send me a DM would love to be friends 🙂

Some Muslim women are upset at suggestions that they are forced into covering their faces. I understand that.

If you did choose it then you'd be upset.

If you're wearing it because you were told to you'd be upset AND embarrassed.

So those posters may be pleased to hear that it doesn't actually matter to me why you wore it.

The masks worn for the virus will go away soon. They are bad for communication, security and so on. They are hard on children who can't see the teacher/carers face and they are hard on deaf people.

To save lives we must endure the masks for now and if anyone can show that a burka saves lives we'll endure those too.

Well, lots of “white women” are quite happy to conform to gendered patriarchal norms and are steeped in internalised misogyny so why should it be different for Muslim women?

Deaf people are a tiny minority in the UK. How often would they be interacting with niqab wearers?

Well, lots of “white women” are quite happy to conform to gendered patriarchal norms and are steeped in internalised misogyny so why should it be different for Muslim women?

Well yes, the difference is I'll openly admit that I've worn make up in the past and had botox previously because of patriarchal societal pressures. I'm trying to unstick myself from it but admit that I still give in to a lot of the pressures (ie removing visible body hair etc). Most women I know would admit they've succumbed to the pressures and know that. It's the flat out denial of PP that she is in anyway pressured to wear a covering that I find ridiculous.

@LastTrainEast

Some Muslim women are upset at suggestions that they are forced into covering their faces. I understand that.

If you did choose it then you'd be upset.

If you're wearing it because you were told to you'd be upset AND embarrassed.

So those posters may be pleased to hear that it doesn't actually matter to me why you wore it.

The masks worn for the virus will go away soon. They are bad for communication, security and so on. They are hard on children who can't see the teacher/carers face and they are hard on deaf people.

To save lives we must endure the masks for now and if anyone can show that a burka saves lives we'll endure those too.

We'll endure those too.. Wow this says it all really.

Well, lots of “white women” are quite happy to conform to gendered patriarchal norms and are steeped in internalised misogyny so why should it be different for Muslim women?

It's not different.

There are women who are happy to conform to the patriarchy everywhere, and it's their choice. What happens on this thread is that the women who conform insist that because they have made this particular choice then that is the valid choice for all other women, and who deny that there are many women who are denied having a choice over something as simple as their clothing.

The face covering is a red herring. The skimpy bikini is a red herring. The real issue is misogyny.

Deaf people are a tiny minority in the UK. How often would they be interacting with niqab wearers?

Speaking for myself, i don’t interact because I can’t.

However living in a city I see niquab wearers a lot. Shopping, in the street. I find it quite marked that when I’d usually look at someone’s face to communicate- little things like your turn first at a till, or oops sorry when we both go the same way, that is taken away and I do notice it. It separates us and takes those little daily interactions away.

It's the flat out denial of PP that she is in anyway pressured to wear a covering that I find ridiculous.

@022828MAN why is it anymore ridiculous than women who choose to wear make-up, shave their legs etc?

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

What happens on this thread is that the women who conform insist that because they have made this particular choice then that is the valid choice for all other women, and who deny that there are many women who are denied having a choice over something as simple as their clothing

We’re not reading the same thread. What I’ve read is people trying to make Muslim women who wear the hijab/niqab responsible for what happens to other women. Not their circus, not their monkeys.