To ask if you have a problem with the burkini?

[Mvslimah]

Honest answers please

would you give a woman (maybe Muslim maybe Jewish) a wide berth if you saw them wearing a burkini or modest (Ie fully covered) swimsuit at a pool?

if you see a woman wearing one do you give it a second thought or is it just a meh, who cares?

tia

My personal view of all religion is that its the opiate of the masses. A way to keep the plebs under control. And especially those pesky women.

I always think they look uncomfortable. I think the same about those swim dresses that are supposed to cover your stomach. A skimpy bikini would also probably be uncomfortable if you were to do much swimming in it, but mostly people don’t.

I am a fan of swim shorts though.

I've lived in Muslim countries for the past 9 years and it doesn't bother me at all. They're actually a lot better in hot countries as they provide better protection from the sun.

The swimwear is just the same as any swimwear, like a sunsafe suit for a kid, you don’t roast in it, promise

I completely agree. However forcing (through abuse,bullying,shaming etc) people,especially women to become atheists or drop /hide those beliefs is just as bad. Especially when there's ganging up on one individual and holding them responsible for all the (perceived or not) evils of their religion.

Your attitude is far healthier than the attitude that my aunt took when I was a child. I was in early puberty and wearing an age-appropriate one-piece. I was lying on a pool float looking at the play of reflected light on the ceiling when my aunt came over to me and told me to lie face down or get off the float. I asked why, and she told me that a man was following me around the pool staring at my breasts, so I needed to hide them. I was still at primary school and I was taught at that age that I was somehow responsible for the actions of an adult paedophile.

The OP's view, that the paedophile should avert his eyes, that he is the one at fault, and by looking at a child that way he is the immodest one, places the blame for the skeevy behaviour firmly at the feet of the paedophile and exonerates the girl, who is merely enjoying the pool.

Yet the OP's belief is somehow the misogynist one.

Immodest is the antonym of modest therefore by calling certain clothes modest you are implying others are immodest, and immodest is always an insult. You may not think this consciously and you may not care at all what other women wear but using the term 'modest' is offensive as in British history/culture it essentially means 'appropriate for a female' when used to refer to clothing. As you presumably know, until the 20th Century British women wore long skirts and the shortening of the hemline was an important part of the evolution of women's rights, along with other freedoms in what we wore such as bikinis, hot pants etc. Essentially, women fought very hard for the right to be able to wear whatever the hell they liked and not be judged for it - or called immodest - thereby challenging the notion that a woman's character is indicated by her clothing, though let's face it, we're nowhere near achieving that; if a woman is in a skimpy mini-dress she will still almost certainly be treated differently than a woman in a demure twinset, and though I'm no expert there are certainly a lot of whispers that a rape victim wearing revealing clothing is often treated differently to one wearing a baggy jumper. I think that is wrong and that's the problem I have with the term, it suggests a link between what someone is wearing and their behaviour - as you say yourself, modesty is far more than just clothing and in wider British culture it tends to refer solely to behaviour nowadays; I don't think we should go back to including clothing. And because I have an issue with you using outdated misogynistic terms you feel "real animosity" in my words towards muslims?! It's actually pretty unpleasant to accuse someone of islamophobia for disagreeing with you (though convenient). You'll no doubt be surprised to learn that there are actually muslims who don't use the term as it is considered offensive, and no doubt utterly shocked to learn not all muslims even dress 'modestly' (and I think also don't appreciate being called immodest). I assure you I react the same if I hear anyone of any culture, religion or skin colour using the term, and almost always it's white western women.

I havent seen anyone wearing one. I think i'd notice if I did, but I wouldn't think anything much tbh. It's like today I was in the park with dd and I saw a Muslim woman wearing a niqab. I know that in my head I noticed what she was wearing but didn't think anything else much about it. I certainly didn't give her a wide berth, as we had a little chat whilst our dad's played on the seesaw together.

I would only find a burkini problematic if it was being worn by my DD. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if anyone else was wearing one.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. None of them were actually wearing anything as cooling as a birkini. They were just in ordinary black clothes, the mum completely concealed, the daughters with headscarves on.

No one (outside of the racist gobshite types that can pop up anywhere) would comment where I live. It wouldn’t be a particularly unusual sight and historically women only bathing sessions have often been mainly attended by Asian women but I don’t see so many timetabled these days. I would hope you felt able to go again and that you have a better time. The hygiene argument is bonkers - we all know it’s the kids who are the most unhygienic in pools!

I have friends who wear them and their dry land equivalents for bike riding or going to the gym. I support their choice as I would yours but I will admit that I don’t like the cultural value that sees the woman’s modest dress as being more stringent than the man’s. I am vaguely aware of the different definitions given to modesty and to some of the key words in the Quran and debates about whether they apply to clothes or hair but I am generally uncomfortable with values being placed on a women to do with looks and modesty. I don’t like either extreme of being uncovered in tiny dresses or fully covered as both fetishise the female body in a way I don’t want to be part of.

Male friends, swimming in mixed groups and changing al fresco is all very ordinary for me and with some Muslim friends we talk about how different some parts of our lives are when other bits are so much the same. Neither of us would swop as we both think we are right. One difference for me is that nothjng I wear symbolises clothing that some women are forced to wear or are killed for not wearing. Ultimately, that’s why I would prefer modesty to be much more liberally interpreted but my framework is so secular I struggle to relate to religion at all.

It's their choice, no force involved and nothing to do with bowing down to anyone. The men cannot do as they like, they have guidelines to which they try to stick and have to dress modestly.

Obviously there are men, and women, who are only nominally Muslim and don't care too much but I think a woman wearing a burkini or something modest while swimming would be married to a man who kept the faith.

Orthodox Jewish women also wear modest swimming clothes if men are around.

Yup. And apostasy is not without adverse consequences in many religious communities. The humane thing to do is to accommodate religiously-motivated behaviours where they don't conflict with the rights of others so that religious people can participate in public life. Allowing burkinis would be an example of such an accommodation.

It's not their choice in Iran though and other countries. They are being murdered for refusing to cover up.

OP is not responsible for that.

I would probably wonder if it was a free choice and hope that it was.

Of course, non Muslim women only ever wear clothes for themselves, what men think of them is completely irrelevant

I was referring to the person who said it was a free choice. I doubt it is precisely because of the issues in other countries. Such brave women protesting the forced hijab.

Pressuring British muslim women to wear conventional swimwear won't improve the situation in Iran and will make it worse for muslim women in the UK.

No-one is doing that though.

But modest in this context is the closest translation of haya حياء but Arabic is a complex language so the English doenst quite map so it’s not as straight forward as modest / immodest or decent/ indecent

حياء covers everything speech, mannerism, behaviour, inflection, bashfulness, dress, tone, gait etc. I’m using modesty here because it is the most accessible when talking to majority non Muslim people because the assumption is they won’t know Islamic terms.

hijab is more used (again wrongly) to refer to covering the woman’s body in a more dichotomous sense ie a hijabi or non hijabi.

ive also never ever encountered a Muslim triggered by the term modesty. I myself would argue it’s used sometimes as a beating stick against women by some very misogynistic cultures/ scholars/ individuals but it’s bSed on a very superficial and oversimplification of the concept of haya

Apart from the people giving OP the side-eye and muttered criticism at the pool, and the people on here saying the burkinis are unfeminist...

That is not the fault of Islam. Nowhere in the Quran does it say that women who do not cover themselves should be murdered. This is the fault of extremist males. The patriarchy.
Many hideous things are done to women in the name of Christianity. Yet the Bible teaches forgiveness. Again, this is the fault of extremism.

Muslim men are not supposed to wear swim shorts. They should be covered at least from the navel to the knees.

OP - out of interest do you find the burka and niqab as a choice for women too?