to think this girl should have worn the headscarf in the mosque?

[singsinthebath]

here

Her mother sounds like a lovely tolerant woman (not).

A head scarf is hardly being forced to wear a veil.

yes it is.

lol

She wasnt asked to wear a veil, just to cover her hair whilst inside the building (not on the coach etc)

I'm surprised by some of the comments on the article saying that muslim children should be taken to churchs for school trips, that is pretty standard practice

When i was at school we went to a mosque, mandir, gudwara, synagogue and church on the same day. Everyone went from all religions and nobody had a problem at any one with the specific customs as we were only visiting looking at buildings and talking to volunteers there were no ceremonies we were forced to take part in.

eh? Onestone, I think you have missed the point about why veils are a problem - because they cut women off from society, partly. A simple head covering is completely different. There are lots of situations where you might be expected to wear a head-covering for various reasons - in a food factory, for instance, or a swimming pool where the filters aren't too good. I took some students into a cave once to see some rock painting and they all had to wear hard hats.

I am no fan of religions and their various loony irrational demands but this was on their turf - they are welcoming the schoolchildren into their mosque - so it is the height of bad manners not to comply.

If the mother (or daughter) had made a principled stand objecting to "a tradition which sees women treated as second-class citizens" or saying that "nowhere in the Koran does it say that women should wear the veil" then I might have some sympathy with that point of view, Onestone.

But all she appears to have said is that she "didn't want her daughter to dress as a Muslim", which does sound more like a racist attitude than a forward-thinking feminist stance.

I think yabu. The mum sounds absolutely pigshit thick but that doesn't mean you can force the girl to attend a religous building on terms she doesn't agree to.
I'd agree with it if she was insisting that she still be allowed in without the necessary attire etc. and wasn't being respectful. But she was happy to not attend for her own reasons which are surely equally worthy of respect as something as subjective as religion, which a good deal of people (not me personally I am religous) view as stroies about fairies used to justify contemptable practices.

Onestone, if wearing a scarf on a school trip goes against the girl's human rights, does that mean wearing school uniform also goes against the human rights of any child who doesn't like it?

If the girl had opted out of the entire trip and the mum had asked the head for her to be withdrawn for religious reasons, then I would indeed respect this. But the mum did not ask her to be withdrawn, just to be allowed to behave exactly as she wanted.

Wasn't it a Catholic School though? It's pretty hard to get out of RE if you go to one.

ofgs

with parents like this what hope have we got?

i personally think it's a brilliant idea to take children to a mosque or other places of worship as part of trying to learn about other religiions and cultures - they do it for police officer training and was only saying the other day that they should extend it to schools!

Onestone have you even read the article? No one was asked to wear a veil .

I also note that the Mail article states that girls were told to wear trousers, whereas the letter from the school they reproduce clearly states that girls should wear below-the-knee skirts (and I would be at least mildly surprised if the official school uniform code of which Amy is so proud doesn't already specify that skirts should be below-the-knee).

at pigshit thick. Sounds just about right as a description for the mum though.

I do agree that the girl should have been allowed to not go. Maybe the school wanted to force encourage it because from speaking to the mother they'd have though the girl badly needed to go on such a trip!

smallwhitecat - i see your point in general life, but in a mosque the men are expected to cover their heads as well as the women - its not sexist.

does anyone else think it was passive-aggressive and crap of the headmaster to use the danger of getting a bad OFSTED as a reason why she should do it?

I mean, either you believe in all this tolerance stuff in which case you do it for its own sake, or you don't. He loses moral authority by doing that, I think.

Seth - totally agree with you there, obviously just hiding behind ofsted.

Just to point out that jewish men cover their heads as well. So it's not sexist to expect one sex or the other to do it out of respect for religious custom.

You can remove a child from any religious content including RE, Riven (I am not saying you should but parents do have a right to do it).