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.

"young women if a french high school were very vocally defending their right to wear the bhurka. In some cases they were not being made to by anyone; quite the opposite."

I don't believe that's an example of exercising freedom of choice. I believe that is an example of internalising oppression and becoming radicalised as a teenager.

Actually no women wearing headscarves have even responded to a smile, not that you could tell.... I guess in the west this is an introduction to having a conversation and perhaps is the greatest barrier.
With regards to the teens it is only the same as any extreme teens find themselves involoved in to attempt an identity.

But Quattro who was oppressing the girl who wanted to wear it and whose father wished she wouldn't? Only the school in suggesting she shouldn't it seems..

Perhaps they were using it as an example to be radical but that's not oppression either..

Yes it's moral panic casuing uneccessary stress and hysteria

I have to say, I wear an abaya to and from work for me it's serves the function of a jacket and I prefer the style.
At work I tend to take it off as there are only three of us all female who work together.
We recently got a temp in and she told me as we were leaving that she always thought muslim women only wore the abaya, apparantly she thought all muslim women were forced to wear the long black abaya as the only style of dress allowed... I was wearing jeans and shirt under my abaya, which impressed her beyond words lol..... I've never heard anything more hilarious actually, she is an absolutley lovely person.

What's the point of covering up your whole face?

I don't show any tom,dick and harry my underwear either. Not many women do, do they? Doesn't meanyou have to cover yourself in a bhurka.

My bra straps are showing. I don't feel particularly daring or slut-like . Am now wondering how many people have now noticed them who would rather not have and finding I don't really care

I find it socially difficult to converse with muslim women in full face covering but only because i rely a lot on lip reading as well as hearing. But that said its a womens right to wear what she wants, and s long as she is choosing to wear the burkha there is nothign wrong with thhat

On a social level i do find it difficult to converse with people covered in full veils, but that aside if women choose to wear the bhurka thats fine. If they are forced into it thats an entirely different matter

handy that headscarves dont bother you, my mum would be upset if they were banned, she finds them a plus for keeping her hair tidy when cleaning... . she's not a Muslim btw.

the only alternative to acceptng burkas is to ban them how precisely would that be a move towards freedom?

a deaf person has chosen to be deaf. Burkha is on a par with women who cripple themselves by wearing high heels - why disable the bodies that god gave us??

To answer fuzzywuzzy, I have tried to converse with a lot of veiled women, because I work as a market researcher and my job is to engage strangers in conversation. Unfortunately I have never been able to persuade a veiled woman to talk to me, maybe I have been unlucky I dont know.

I spend around 50% of my time working in predominately asian areas and have no trouble speaking to the vast majority of people, and obviously when I am speaking to a woman in her home she wouldnt be veiled anyway so maybe I am speaking to women and I dont realise that they would be covered if they left the house.

The thing that worries me with this is the way it seems to exclude women from the wider society, rightly or wrongly I feel there is a barrier being put up, and I agree with whoever said that women are having to take the responsibility for mens sexuality.

Really glad its got everyone talking though