Please uncover your face-Matthew Parrish

[mrsruffallo]

Interesting article here
I have noticed that there are more women covering up in the last few years.
Any opinions?

No - I have never asked but why would a child (Ive seen many) actually choose to wear one? Surely pressure to do so must have come from somewhere.

have to say, if I was in certain countries, I would wear a burkha by choice to stop the staring

Yasmin Alibai-Brown wrote an interesting column once, about being followed home by a woman who was wearing a burkha. A-B found it intimidating but turned out the woman was seeking help from another Muslim woman who wasn't covered. Her husband forced her to wear the burkha to cover up the bruises.

I don't understand how 'modesty' means such different things for men and women, though. Don't see any Muslim men covering their faces.

Yes, probably, in the same way that our dc are "pressured" to wear clothes, because it is normal within their home, it is accepted and desired in their culture for many reasons, some of them modesty, some safety, oh, all sorts of reasons.

Do you look at a child wearing a sun hat and think "oh the poor thing she has been forced by cruel parents into wearing that"?

We are all pressured in all sorts of ways, yes, but a child wearing a head scarf is really not one I think it is worth worrying about.

Modesty is different for men and women in our society/culture too, how many toples women do you see in the supermarket on a hot summers day?

I saw an interesting documentry about Islam and the increase in women wearing the burka - I think it was on BBC2, last year.

They showed film of women in 1970's Cairo, just doing their shopping, drinking coffee, whatever and NOT ONE had her head covered, let alone a Burka. It looked like any secular European city of that time.

Cut to present day Cairo and the majority had covered their heads, albeit with rather pretty, brightly coloured scarves.

So what does this show? That women are being oppressed by their increasingly hardline muslim husbands? Or that the women are choosing to adopt headscarves/burkas as a political statement, in solidarity with other muslim women against Western oppression/influence?

I don't know.

But as a Western woman I dislike the Burka and the idea that women should cover their bodies. I'd also say I hate the 'pornification' of women's bodies in the West too.

Last summer I saw a muslim family in the park. the two little boys were kicking a ball and wearing Man U shirts with trendy trainers and baseball hats. The girl (aged about 9) was wearing a headscarf and robes - she looked so constrained by comparison and it broke my heart. It's not fair.

Riven I don't think the headscarf scares anyone - just the veil.

from a western point of view, there's an element of a power thing

the way you want people to take off their sunglasses so that you are conversing equally

if it's worn through choice it's still for me a little intimidating because of that

Riven I agree - it's always the ones with the guts and moobs that strip off. i hate bare chested men in public too.

Or maybe they are just hot and want to keep their heads cool with a scarf?

Again Nancy, did you stop to ask her if she was unhappy with it or did you just make your own judgements?

Kingcanuteiam - you think it was her choice do you?
yes, i formed an opinion based on common sense and observation. She was dressed in a way inappropriate for a little girl on a hot summer's day. And, since you ask, no she didn't look particularly happy.

The things is, hating barechested men is not the same as it being "wrong". You are asking about inequalities between men and women, yes there are inequalities, the world over, including right in front of you. It is usual for there to be inequlities between men and women, mainly because men do not have norks. (well some of them seem to try hard at redressing that balance).

Im sorry but I dont think any of these small girls are given a choice.

I haven't read the article. But I think they are horrible.. they dehumanise the person wearing them, and I feel uncomfortable talking to someone whose face is covered. I find it hard to connect and cannot warm to someone if I cannot see their facial expressions, but then again I am not used to them.

That said if a woman wants to make this sort of statement of faith(though I just cannot fathom why anyone would), then it is her choice.

The increase in women who wear these veils just seems like two steps back. Though I do understand that moslems have had a hard time of late with so much negativity surrounding their religion, and it is natural for followers to want to make a statement.

'It is usual for there to be inequlities between men and women, mainly because men do not have norks.'

I don't understand

Why was she not happy? because she was hot and bothered? because she couldn't play, because she had had a row with her brothers, because she was on a tv ban for bad behaviour?

Yes I think it could be something she would be unhappy not to do. The same as most 9yo girls would be unhappy to not do a lot of things their mother/sister/aunts do.

Canute, I think many people try to understand the veil, and I think it's intolerant not to try to understand why others might struggle with it.