"Many of the Muslim girls I teach are fiercly independent, politically active and believe in modesty. "
A friend at uni did her dissertation on a feminist approach to Islamic law. She wasn't exactly a poster girl for oppressed womanhood, I have to say - in fact she was at one point elected women's officer for the student union. She appeared to find her feminism and her religion completey compatible; the sexist approach to Islam, she said, was sociological/cultural and independent of religion.
It's interesting - Mum teaches at Woodbrooke, the Quaker college that's affiliated to Birmingham University. They do a lot of conflict resolution workshops for people from war zones all over the world. She says that challenging your own cultural assumptions is often the hardest part - a Somali woman genuinely couldn't get her head around the concept that she needed to ask/tell someone when leaving her little boy in the building alone. She was, "but - he isn't alone. There are dozens of adults here." The notion that she was individually responsible for his care was totally alien to her. And yes, in other ways she might be oppressed - violent parts of the world are rarely kind to women - but still, quite a freedom, to grow up in a society where it's everyone's job to look after children, men and women, not solely up to the mother.
Skidoodle - the point has already, repeatedly, been made that you are asking parents of children whose lives might be at risk - never mind their civil liberties - if the BNP gained power, to accept someone who is actively funding that party being in sole charge of their kids' education and development for many hours a week - and to pay for the privilege, via their taxes. Now, of course you have a legitimate argument when saying that freedom of speech, belief and political activity are such central tenets that they cannot be overridden. I have and I do acknowledge that. But the point is that the BNP would and do cynically use and abuse the democratic process. They'll say and do whatever they think will work, to gain power. You're not dealing with a conventional political party, here. This bullshit moral indignation about how Islam treats women, from a party where an elected official says women like being raped - seriously, you can't fall for that? I agree that it's economic issues behind their increased support; nationalism always gains ground when economies are in trouble. But I also do not want my taxes to pay for my son to be taught by someone who's actively funding a party that at best wants him and my DH out of the country, and at worst wants them dead. Why should a teacher's freedom to fund racism trump my son's right to be tsught by a person who doesn't? THAT is the point - you're talking about competing rights and freedoms, here, not a no-brainer incursion into teacher's freedoms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'll back my son's every time.
There's no curtain, no, because our pool has a sheet of wall to ceiling glass fronting on to a main road, a skate park, and a green. Horse > bolted. But I have to say, I do love swimming without the crap, and the skater boys peering in is still crap. My boobs were 32E before bf, and are currently 32F. Perve magnets.
We also had women only pilates and yoga at college. It was to help counter an awful lot of body issues women had there - very high levels of eating disorders. Some of the guys raised it at the union and tried to argue, until the (Muslim) women's officer produced the stats showing that 5/6 of the sports funding went on men-only teams for football, rugby, cricket, rowing... that was funny.