women wearing burqa, this riles me

[southeastastra]

i am sorry to be saying this as i know we should all be equal and embrace diversity but when i see women dressed in this it raises my hackles and i want to get out and rant at them. i can't just think it's okay in the western world.

am i allowed this view on mn?

This is a slightly odd, but well referenced article if anyone's interested: www.bible-researcher.com/headcoverings3.html

Garlic, could you really be any more patronising? Do you honestly think Muslims aren't aware that other religions and cultures cover their hair.

Anyway, today is a happy day, because the vile Parti Quebecois, who wanted to ban public sector workers wearing any religious clothing, including hijab, turbans and kippah (see here: educationfutureimperfect.bangordailynews.com/2014/04/06/quebecs-charter-of-values-is-disguised-bigotry/) have been trounced in the Quebec elections.

Muslims are not a monolithic group and going back a few years, IME, there used to be far more mixed opinions about niqab, particularly about wearing niqab in the west.

However, since niqab bans have come into existence and have generally increased hostility towards Muslims and Muslim practices, far more Muslims are supportive of niqab wearers, because we know that once they ban the niqab, notions of hijab bans/restrictions, halal meat bans and other nonsense hove into view.

OK, I didn't mean to be patronising. I'll re-hide this thread. And stay away from all other threads about it, because it upsets me when posters I normally respect won't let me explore matters from any other point of view than their own. Were I staying, I'd like to know what you thought about sticking with 900-year-old fashions that were dictated by an extreme patriarchy, Gosh - but your answer appears to be "shut up".

I'll get back to you when I decide to wear a wimple.

mmm Garlic, don't go. You have a valid view point. I do, however, also see Gosh's pov too.

Garlic I think you are failing to take into account that some women want to wear these garments. There's a huge distinction between wanting to do something and doing something by force (passive indoctrination or otherwise).

I think a lot of posts on this thread are very focussed on the feminist aspect at the expense of what a lot of Muslim actually want. If it's their belief and they want and feel happy with wearing niqab/burqa then it's offensive and slightly un-feminist to dictate they shouldn't.

a lot of Muslim woman actually want.

Garlic - your post greatly interested me as it gave me a historical perspective I was unaware of.

I find it odd that anyone would choose to cover their face - for whatever reason. Faces are the way we communicate. I love meeting people of different cultures - but if I can't see your face, how can I smile in return from your friendly glance, or nod in appreciation at a pained expression in the supermarket when fellow DCs act up. Or recognise if you want to make chat in a cafe. This is how I meet people in my daily life. And people in masks and other face coverings unsettle me. They segregate themselves from others as a result. That is their choice but I find it utterly bizarre and not necessary according to my understanding of Islam.

I don't ever view this in terms of faith -whatever faith that is - but as how we humans live and interact as social beings.

In relation to vitamin d - my concerns are by no means fake. Vitamin d supplements are not the same thing as the sun. I am one of the mothers who gets myself and my kIds out as much as I can in summer months without sunscreen if burning is not a risk. Short sleeves and bare legs. Vitamin d deficiency is absolutely rife amongst everyone because for various reasons none of us receives enough sun.

Supplements are only a part of that. The sun provides much much more than vitamin D. UV light regulates our circadian rythyms.

On the vitamin D thing. I am the palest person you are likely to meet (Scottish and Irish ancestors) I have fair hair and blue eves.

I do not feel the cold like most people, already this year I have sat outside a couple of times. Once it gets warmer I will be outside from early morning until about 11.30 (that's when I can burn in my garden even in the shade with sunscreen) with bare arms and legs.

If I am working I will still have coffee in the garden and be there for a couple of hours every morning and then again in the afternoon/evening.

At the weekends I am out from about 6am to 11.30 and then from 3 until I go to bed (or want to watch something on TV)

When my GP tested my vitamin D level it came back as 7, normal is about 135 (can't remember what the numbers are measuring).

If someone as pale as I am and who is outside as much as I am isn't getting enough vitamin D from the sun then it has nothing to do with clothes / covering.

I do cover up 11.30 - 3.30, I have been known to sunburn through long sleeves though.

"If someone as pale as I am and who is outside as much as I am isn't getting enough vitamin D from the sun then it has nothing to do with clothes / covering. I do cover up 11.30 - 3.30..."

Now, if I were Sherlock Holmes, would I conclude that covering skin has nothing to do with getting Vitamin D through sun exposure, or would I advise you to NOT cover up between 11:30-15:30?

GarlicAprilShowers I haven't found any of your posts to be patronising. You are entitled to say what you think and what you have found out through research as much as anyone else, even if they do know it all!!!!!

"I think a lot of posts on this thread are very focussed on the feminist aspect at the expense of what a lot of Muslim actually want. If it's their belief and they want and feel happy with wearing niqab/burqa then it's offensive and slightly un-feminist to dictate they shouldn't."

I have said from the start that I understand that many women choose to cover. What I am saying is that it is an anti feminist thing to do. Obviously women have the right to cover if they want to. But just because a woman chooses to do something does not make it a feminist choice.

And I would still like reassurance that no woman is ever forced to cover, and no woman is ever punished for not covering. And that men take the admonition to modesty as seriously as women appear to do.

I also find it odd that no niqab/burka defender will ever allow that there is a price in terms of face-to-face non-verbal communication.

It just seems to be one of those very emotive issues where people become miltant and therefore unable to say "well of course there are drawbacks x + y, but in my experience the benefits a + b hugely outweigh those"

That is what then polarises the debate and inspires incredulity.

It does have a big impact on communication- perhaps it was designed for that purpose though.

I often smile at people and they smile too,, strangers in the supermarket, in the street, maybe they just put up the divider on the conveyer belt to separate shopping, I will smile at someone if they allow me to pass if they are chatting. I smile at another parent if they have a cute child. I smiled at a man in a shop yesterday because I overheard him tell his child how helpful they were being and i thought that was such a nice affirming thing to hear.
Sometimes people just smile because it is a nice sunny day and it's good to be alive- I notice older people do this a lot.

Life would be poorer if all these random every day smiles were gone, covered up lest the be deemed ungodly or immodest.

It seems to me that the concerns about face-to-face communication though they may be held very sincerely are really excuses. Blind people cannot see other people's faces, yet they manage to interpret other people's emotions and intentions through their voice. You can, of course, smile at someone if you cannot see their face, and if you are really smiling, you will communicate that in your voice.

It also seems to me that if sisterhood, as a feminist value, means anything, it means supporting other women as they are and on their terms rather than trying to dictate the terms of that support. Support for women is nothing if it is conditional on them changing in order to correspond with your ideas about how they should be. One of the things that we could do is listen to Muslim women about what they think and, instead of trying to prove them wrong, do what they are asking.

If I were a Muslim woman reading this thread, I would feel that I was being got at, rightly or wrongly, and it would be very hard for me not to become defensive. I think this is the lesson of France, where banning head-covering in schools has in fact worsened already fragile inter-communal relations, and produced aggression on one side and defensiveness on the other.

We all get angry, as the OP has, about things that other people do. One possible response is to let it out, and feel our anger as justified, and seek more and more justifications for it. Bu this just fuels anger and divisions and defensiveness. Might it be better to walk away from the anger?

I agree. The face to face contact thing is a red herring.

And I of course agree that women should be supported. But just because a woman makes a choice does not make it a feminist choice. And nobody will answer my points about whether women are ever coerced into covering or punished for not covering, and whether the admonition to modesty is taken as seriously by/for men as by/for women.

But the question is, surely, who gets to decide what counts as feminist? I seem to recall big debates in the women's movement in the eighties where black feminists argued very strongly that white feminists should not dictate the whole terms of what it means to be a feminist. I see this as an analogous situation.

And on a personal level, if you are reaching out to someone you cannot reach them where you would like them to be, only where they are.

Sorry Martorana, but I don't care if something is a feminist choice, tbh. Us women should have the right to make choices that are not for the good of all women, be it waxing our pits or watching porn.

On the other hand, I agree with your concern re being coerced or pressured into covering. When the burqa ban debate was going on in France, there were people arguing that the burqa makes it possible for some of these women to leave the house and that they would be effectively confined to within their homes if the burqa was taken from them (because their fathers/husbands would not let them leave the house)

It is all fine and well for converts from liberal British families to decide for themselves what to wear, but there are many others from conservative Muslim families who have to cover up.

"Us women should have the right to make choices that are not for the good of all women, be it waxing our pits or watching porn"

You have. But you can't then call yourself a feminist.

That's OK. I don't have to

But you also have to accept that the choices you are making are actively damaging for other women- which is a bit more problematic.

Of course some Muslim women will be forced to cover up, the same as some non Muslim women are dictated to and made to wear certain clothes by their partners. If you are an abusive arse you are an abusive arse - whatever religeon/culture you are from.

No-one has the right to tell someone they should or shouldn't wear certain items of clothing wether its a muslim man telling his wife to cover up or a non Muslim man making his partner wear high necked tops or a female telling a Muslim woman that she shouldn't wear a niqab.

I feel the same rage as the OP. I live for most of the year, as a Christian in a Muslim country that officially tells me I don't need to cover at all, only Muslims have to. The reality is, I DO have to. I've lost count of the many times a member of the religious police have shouted at me to cover my hair, even when wearing the abaya from neck to trailing on the ground. I'm using my blond greying hair to attract male attention.
Now, what am I supposed to do? In the UK, these men wouldn't feel free to abuse women in public for fear of a backlash from the women involved or from the people around them. But, because they have a mandate to promote purity and virtue, they are allowed to slowly erase women, because WE are the ones who entice men to sin. Men are just animals with no control over their 'desires'. There have even been Imans saying that nikabs need only have 1 eye uncovered as 2 eyes are the sign of flirtation.
So, from my perspective, I don't think the OP is being unreasonable. I think the UK will slowly sleepwalk into the same kind of society because we are so tolerant of others beliefs, that one day, because we are so tolerant, 'aren't bothered' we too will end up as a Muslim society. And an intolerant one too.

Oh FFS not this again. This is the type of thread that reminds me what absolute twits roam the threads of MN.

Martorana - If some women are damaged by me waxing my armpits and bikini line, they will just have to live with their damage.

The case of the burqa is not only about women's freedom to dress as they please, though. It is a symptom - a very stark, undeniable symptom - of an alien mentality that says women must be hidden away under dark curtains so men don't have to be tempted and for this silly reason, it is perfectly fine for women to live half-lives, unseen and segregated.

France has made the bold and admirable move of saying "That is not OK and we don't want that mentality here".

That's astonishingly illiberal and intolerant. Who are you to say what is and isn't a fulfilling life?

France: where racism flourishes, where the far right goes from strength to strength, where intolerance and prejudice are the foundation of policy-making.