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?

What is British culture then?

Britain is and has always been multlicultural, that's what we're about.

"A woman cant walk past a group of blokes without calling and whistling on their part."

I assure you I can

ha ha - me too beastie.

Or even worse - a group of blokes were walking behind me recently and starting making "cor, alright darlin'" type of remarks and then when i turned around and they saw I wasn't 21, they said: 'oh! sorry love.'

but they're stooopid - just makes me laugh. they're not all like that.

My neighbour is out in her garden today spread out on a sun lounger in a bikini. Pasty skin and saggy flesh on full show, I had to cringe and pull the curtains when I saw that. I just can't fathom why anyone would willingly want to do that. It is totally infeasible that it is her free choice. It must be her husband forcing her. Poor oppressed woman.

But it is true that there is a disturbing amount of objectifying of women in our culture. Many women are campaigning against what they see as "insidious misogyny" (as it was called in another thread). These women have a problem with children being bought up wearing playboy clothes, thongs, high heels, make up etc etc. I have spent time arguing the case for sensible middle ground approach on that over the last couple of days.

Now here we are arguing exatcly the other extreme, that we don't want women to be too covered up. So we don't want them too covered, or too uncovered... It does seem like we are actually trying to bring about a higher level of conformity than that which we are trying to get rid of.

Veils et all = out
Mini skirts and boob tubes = out

We are left with what? Jeans, knee length skirts and blouses for the entire female population? It really does seem that we are soo busy over analysing every single thing that happens that we are in danger of doing more to oppress women than we are to liberate them.

My neighbour is out in her garden today spread out on a sun lounger in a bikini. Pasty skin and saggy flesh on full show, I had to cringe and pull the curtains when I saw that. I just can't fathom why anyone would willingly want to do that. It is totally infeasible that it is her free choice. It must be her husband forcing her. Poor oppressed woman

W O T ?????

Hear Hear Riven.

It is arguing the toss over what does or does not make something oppressive/misogynistic or whatever that makes me give up with the whole pro-female thing. Instead of worrying about what people put on their backs or heads why not get on with dealing with the real issues!

it's not just about what they wear though - it is everything the veil and burkha represent.

The only islamic countries where complete covering of the face is required are the ones where extremism rules and women have no rights. where a man can still beat and rape his wife and where a woman can be stoned.

This is not a coincidence.

Any muslim woman lucky enough to live in a free thinking western society but who still dresses like the women in these backward thinking countries is betraying her muslim 'sisters' - unless, of course, she has no choice in the matter.

Nancy, you are Muslim I assume?

No, I am not and I have a feeling I know what's coming next....

No, there is nothing coming next Nancy. I think that finishes things off quite nicely actually.

Riven - thank you for your earlier answers to my 3 questions.

I wanted to respond to something you said way back up the thread but I think it has been covered by others now. It is a very interesting debate.

I agree with a lot of what you have said and I think your choice of headscarf would cause no offence to anyone. My only objection to the full face veil is that erects a completely false impenetrable barrrier between me and the women that wear it and that seems wrong if they want to be part of UK society.

I think you are being very harsh and unfair on men in your more recent comments though. Honestly, we are not all like that and am sorry if you feel in any way that you have to cover up because of how men look at you. That is also wrong in UK society.

Does it? How?

If I saw a man beating his children in the street would I not be entitled to be outraged by that - because I don't beat my own?

Riven - it is all lumped in together you can't separate the two. Extremists want to oppress and deny women, one of the ways they do that is to force them to dress in a certain way. If you also choose to dress in the same way when you don't have to - then you're embracing hatred

Riven, I'm angry about all of those things too - but this topic isn't about those.

It just does Nancy, I am sure others reading this will see exactly why, you won't and that is fine.