@Pepperwort
Why do we need to worry so much about what we "show"? Why do you think so much needs to be hidden? That's the sexualisation, just as surely as overtly sexualised skimpy clothes are.
I am stumbling around here. Perhaps it's just an over-reliance on worrying about the perception of others.
The religious element uses women's bodies as advertising boards for religious belief. It forces religion into public life. I do not care what beliefs people espouse in private or what buildings they choose to attend on their days off, but religion does not belong in British public life (and fwiw I don't like religious schools either, nor do most people I know).
That’s my point though, we shouldn’t worry about whether a woman is covered or not and what she shows or doesn’t show, I don’t think it should matter to me, or anyone, if a woman decides to walk in the streets with a mini skirt and bralette or covered from head to toe as long as it’s her choice, I don’t think it should change how I see her, I don’t think it should change how I interact with her, I don’t think it should change how people view her, I don’t think it should change how people treat her, I don’t think it should change how much people respect her and I definitely do not think it should increase or decrease her risk of being assaulted and/or hurt nor do I think it should change what people project onto her (and ideally people should just stop projecting altogether)
The fact that nowadays (some) people still think that:
- A woman covered from head to toe is automatically oppressed.
- A woman wearing a mini skirt/bralette is attention-seeking and doesn’t have much respect for herself and is happily feeding into men’s repressive image of the woman and the patriarchy.
- A woman going on a hike in nature topless is a liberated woman.
Why can’t all those women be seen as liberated if they are doing it because they want to?
Why can’t a woman wearing a skirt because she doesn’t care what people think of her and is confident and loves her body and understands that people being attracted to her doesn’t entitle them to her body and feel she should be able to wear whatever she wants without it saying anything about her shouldn’t be as as liberated as a woman who fits whatever the stereotype of a liberated woman is?
Why shouldn’t a confident woman who loves her body but doesn’t feel like she owes the world, especially random men down the streets, a sight of it, and would rather keep it and show more of it to whoever she sees fit and want to share it with, and therefore cover it when out and about because that’s what she enjoys doing with her body and makes her happy, be seen as any less liberated than a woman who chose to show more of her skin for similar reasons?
Why should someone who stop shaving and pandering to men in other ways that are irrespective of clothing, be seen as more liberated and/or less oppressed than them?
How is that okay?
Had you read my post you would have seen that I never said anything should be hidden, I don’t think a body need nor don’t need to be hidden, I think it should be as hidden or exposed as each specific woman feel comfortable with without it affecting her experience and treatment in society.
Women can cover (and some do cover) outside of religion, would you feel more comfortable if a woman wore something similar to a Niqab but didn’t happen to be a Niqab and didn’t belong to any religion? Would you be more comfortable and/or less bothered/more accepting of it if a woman was covered from head to toe with something that wasn’t a religious garnering?
Religion is everywhere, I can’t walk 5 meters without stumbling across a church or a chapel here, I could do without them but it doesn’t bother me because the presence of a church doesn’t convince me either way to join or not join a church, the same way a woman walking about her business in a Niqab wouldn’t be promoting Islam to me anymore than a Jewish man with a Kipa dropping his kid off at school, ignoring me, would be trying to enroll me to attend his synagogue.
My point was that, most of the posters who wrote about their will to see a woman’s face wrote posts about how oppressive Islam is to women and promoted how much more liberated women are and how liberating life is in the UK, yet their solution for women who wear a Niqab in the UK by choice and their “oppression” seem to be to oppress them more and take away both their choice and religious freedom by forcing them to uncover themselves and expose themselves and renounce things that are important to them and boundaries they had set for themselves. How is that any less oppressive? How is living in a country (UK) who, according to you, doesn’t feel like religion belong in public life and therefore, I assume, mean women are expected to uncover their hair/face and wear a Niqab when in public, any different than living in a country where women are expected to cover their face/hair/body? How is that not hypocrisy, that some people see one as liberating but not the other or one as oppressive but not the other? In both cases choices are being removed from women. How is that okay? And not politicizing women’s bodies and using them to promote something (either a flawed idea of modesty or a fake version of liberation and “freedom”)? How is the expectations that women be uncovered any more or less oppressive than the expectation women be covered? How isn’t that simply two sides of the same penny?
You literally said you do not approve of religious people showing their religion through their clothing so you would rather they didn’t wear those clothes
in public, how is that not limiting women? How is asking women to show more of her face or to stop wearing something she wants to wear more liberating and less problematic than her wearing what she wants and/or covering as little or as much as she wishes?
You say this “Perhaps it's just an over-reliance on worrying about the perception of others.” When talking about women who chose to cover YET go on to say women shouldn’t cover or wear religious garnments because the general public British population find it uncomfortable and don’t feel it’s appropriate and because YOU (and people you know) don’t feel it belongs and don’t feel like you/they should have to see it.
So which is it? Should women worry or not worry about what others, be it men or the general British opinion (or you), think of them or not? You can’t tell them to stop caring that much and then carry on to tell them that they should care about the opinion of the average British person and believe you are being consistent.
I agree that women have been shamed so much due to what they wear from men that some women have forgotten that when they do the same thing and push their perception of certain actions (being uncovered, not wearing a specific type of clothing) as something superior and more “liberating” than the choice and actions of other women, they are literally doing the same thing they are desperately fighting against.