saw a woman in a burkha the other day

[onlygirlinthehouse]

can someone please explain to me how it can be ok, in 2008, for a woman to be walking down the street in an ordinary northern town in a full burkha. I personally find the wearing of burkha quite shocking but to see it in my home town was even more so.

I have no problem with the wearing of headscarves, it doesnt interfere with normal everyday social interactions, but we are now seeing more and more full face veils and as I have said, even burkhas, surely this is cutting yourself off from normal society.

Is this progress? Is this freedom of speech and expression? Someone please justify this for me.

LOL at the burka derived excuse against house work.

I think that a burka would significantly reduce your peripheral vision.

Just a head scarf would have no effect.

I would have no issue with girls wearing head scarves in science lessons, as long as it was tied back if we were doing a practical. But a full burka would be more of an issue as it would restrict vision. Similarly a Jilbab would be a potential trip hazard (and I'd say the same for a goths ling velvet skirt!

Where I work the girls can wear the head scarf (in school colours lower down the school, whatever they want in the sixth form) as long as it is tied back as needed. To date we have never had any complaints or issues.

so many good points have been made on this thread and the discussion has been really interesting and varied. It is heartening to know that I am not the only one that feels uncomfortable with this. It is from a femanist point of view that it makes me feel very angry to see women and girls treated in such a different fashion.

Of course, many people have posted on here to say that it is a womans right to wear what she wants and I totally agree, maybe I am trying to attribute my own feelings to the whole of the female sex, if I was to walk around with my face covered like this I would feel isolated and unable to participate fully with society. Obviously I dont know how it feels to be a muslim woman brought up with this as a part of their culture.

My original point was that in a society where women have been fighting for equality for more than 3 decades is it not a regressive step if we cannot comment on things which would appear to be damaging that equality?

The abaya is only as outerwear anyway, I'd think a girl/woman wearing one would be uncomfortable sitting around in it all day.

Dd goes to an islamic school (I pay for the privilege so dont get hysterical), part of their uniform is a small headscarf.
Interestingly, there's furious debate amongst the mums about whether the headscarf should be enforced or not (and it's only the mums who are getting worked up, the dads are blissfully ignorant), the older girls wear it anyway, and the boys wear the skull cap (very similar to the jewish mens skull cap kippa(?)), but it's optional for the younger classes. I persoanlly was thrilled...no nits. Except kids never keep their clothes in place properly do they?? But still no headlice so far.

LOL at the thought of you having to sew a name tag on the head scarf so that it doesn't go walkies!

My kids are geneticaly incapable of not losing items of clothing.

Head lice stop being so much of an issue when they get to year 3 IME. Thank god!

I'm not that sure that any moderate sane person would object to a head scarf/hejab.

People in the UK do, I think, find full veiling more of an issue, since facial veiling hasn't been practiced in the UK for hundreds of years and we are used to 'reading' faces. It is a cultural difference that people do have to take into account when deciding to go the burka route, i feel.

Whenever I see a woman in a burkha (and I do quite often), my first thought is how uncomfortable it looks. Especially in hot weather. I also sometimes find myself wondering what the woman in the full burkha thinks of the Muslim woman in just a headscarf. Reading this post and hearing so many people talk about the freedom of choice is quite interesting. Aren't the paramount rights of the individual and the freedom of choice basically relatively modern, secular Western ideals? It's interesting that they get used to defend a highly specific form of religious expression.

It's one of the reasons I wouldn't wear a face veil, I was born and bought up here, I just know it would make people uncomfortable and me a target, so I wouldn't do it.

The headscarf and abaya, I'd do regardless of other peoples discomfort, little old ladies wear headscarves so can I. And frankly I'd be lost without my abaya, everyone would know I'm doing the school run in my pyjamas if I didn't wear it, whereas instead I look cool, calm and collected at 7:45am with a nicely dressed child at my side......hah

its true the face veil or burkha does make me feel uncomfortable and almost as if I want the woman wearing it to justify it to me.

Any other form of dress though, headscarf, abaya etc are just another way to dress. It doesnt offend or upset me, in fact I love seeing everyone dressed up at eid in their posh clothes. I am honestly so laid back about how people dress its just the feminist aspect that gets to me I think. Why are womens lives being made harder than they have to be and little girls being made to feel so different than their brothers from such a young age?

riven, sorry it is probably my fault for not distinguishing clearly between the different types of veils, but I'm talking about burkhas and those ones worn by Agfghanistan women under the taliban - they are something different I think, but I can't remember the name.

A friend of mine bought one back with her after she'd spent three months with the UN and I tried it on. It was awful. It was made of some synthetic material and all you had to see out of was some sort of mesh. i nearly had a panic attack i wore it for about 30 secs.

therefore, if you have to wear something like that or the burkha (which on my understanding covers everything but feet and eyes) wouldn't it get in the way of
a) driving a car
b)being a surgeon
c) enjoying a trip to the beach
d) enjoying anything if the temperature was above 30 degrees or humidity high
e) enjoying running after your children in the park
f) working in a child care environment (see Dutch case where two women sued and lost for the right to work in a nursery. the nursery replied that the children had a right to see the faces of the women picking them up and it was I think a nursery staffed 100% by other women)
g) starting up a conversation with another woman who is not veiled and not used to it

those are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure I can think of more.

Surely you must agree that wearing a burkha is going to be a pretty big impediment to a lot of things that are pretty enjoyable about life??

I have friends who wear the face veil they all drive, it depends on the style of the veil, friends wear a headscarf and then a seperate viel covering the lower part of their face leaving the eye area uncovered.

Aren't surgeons practically completely covered up anyway? I wouldn't think a woman who wears a veil would be significantly disadvantaged for veiling her face...surgeons wear masks surely?? I've a friend who wears the hijab and is a very successful peadiatrician in south africa, we sat down and worked out how she could adapt her head gear to allow easy acess for the stethescope....

The chador -the sheet which a lot of somali women wear which covers them from head to toe isn't the only style of niqab available. Women are allowed to and do adapt their clothes to suit their needs. BTW, I find my abaya cooling in the summer, direct exposure to sunlight gives me the worst migranes....

Ok fuzzy, I take your point with a) and b) but that still leaves c) to g)

sorry, fuzzy on rereading, you do deal with c)and d) if there are cooler versions available, but that's not an option it seems for quite a lot of women who live in hot countries and are required to veil. the niqab (?) I tried on was made of polyester. My friend hadn't found any other versions during her three months there.

and I'm not that sure that driving is a good idea,isnt your peripheral vision affected?

you dont know what they're wearing beneath the chador, the more volumnous it is the more air circulates and one is not directly exposed to sunlight so it's more comfortable.
We dont all enjoy sizzling in the sun. I get god awful migranes from direct exposure to sunlight, it only takes five minutes and then I'm out of it for two flipping days and only then if I take a chemist full of drugs at the onset of the migrane!!!!

Having said that we're going to cornwall for the summer and I will not be offending the sunworshippers by walking around in a burkha...
still on the quest for a decent swim suit for myself tho....may have to make it myself I think perhaps.

Spero, you only think there are no decent burkha/abayas available, because you dont wear them. There is a whole world of islamic couture out there. You can get any style in any fabirc that you want, my cousins get their burkhas specially designed for them, I am positivly dowdy by contrast... cousins dont live in the west by the way.

Hmmm, fuzzy, I'd be surprised if you can get a 'decent' niqab in Afghanistan.

I'm also interested to know how 'different' these styles are or could be?? Maybe I'm just culturally insenstive but all burkhas look alarmingly similar to me; like a big black shroud.

But I think this is just shimmying around the real point; ok, you may not like sizzling in the sun, but the woman I saw on the beach was covered head to toe IN BLACK so even if she was wearing the most diaphanous lingerie underneath she was still going to be hot and uncomfortable while her husband shashayed along in his flip flops and shorts.

Just seems very unfair. and completely unnecessary.

I haven't read the koran but I am told by those who have that the requirement is to dress modestly, which does mean different things for men and women but which does NOT require a burkha or anything similar. So how are you proving your devoutness by wearing one?

I doubt one can find a decent anything in Afghanistan or iraq for that matter.......

The women who do wear the face veil will tell you that it is encumbent upon religiously. It varies from sect what parts of the body one person will cover or not. For men and women, it's can get very pedantic....

Black is a dreadful choice of colour if you want to stay cool though, as it absorbs most of the suns rays of any colour (that is why it looks black)

MB, re; the friend who wears an abaya on the beach in spain, she insisted she wanted a black one as it keeps her cooler and doesn't reflect the sun on to her face making her burn....I thought it would be hotter too, she said not. Dunno and keep in mind she is most definitely not muslim, I took her word for it as dont think she would have an ulteriror motive to lie about it.

I wonder whether the real issue here is that western woman like me react so strongly to the burkha because it is tied up so much with really shocking images of oppression. One image I cannot get out of my mind is the woman being executed on the football pitch by the taliban.

And when i'm told its all about not letting men gaze upon you lustfully and yet i meet women who won't take it off even when its only me and her in the room...

i just get confused.

This has been a very interesting discussion but I'm still left thinking that my real distaste for the burkha/niqab/jilbab is not irrational.

If my daughter decided to wear one I would be very very upset. i'm afraid I can only see it as a symbol of hypocritical and unfair oppression of women and I just don't buy this 'its so empowering to wear one!' message, see my earlier comments about Margaret Atwood.

freedom to every time!!

There is something called 'black body radiation' (physics and not to do with people) but I don;t think that would compensate for the extra absorbtion.

Her perception might have been that it was cooler. but the physics really is quite sound.

Well MB yes, which is why I wanted to get one made in white for her...but she insisted it had to be black, she was using black sundresses before I gave her the abaya, she seems sane enough in all other ways

fuzzy, if you find a decent swimsuit, please tell me!

I'm from Birmingham originally and went to school with a lot of Muslim girls. From what I experienced first hand, I really pitied them. Their lives were not their own unlike the boys who are free to do as they wish and they certainly loved cavorting with western women in my experience. One of the Muslim girls that I was at college with actually ran away because she wanted to live her life in her own way.

The burkha is a symbol of oppression and it is about forcing women to erase themselves from society for the benefit of men, in the same way that oversized breast implants are designed to titillate men. How any woman with a brain cell can condone the wearing of the monstrosity that is the burkha in the 21st century is beyond me.