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.

I think the issue that many people see is that Islam can often be used as a convenient way of imposing things on women that are cultural rather than religious in origin.

and because in some islamic countries women are not given the education that they have a right to, they may not understand their full rights under religious law.

Men tend, as you said earlier, to do what they wamt, regardless of their religion or culture

too many generalisations in my last post, but the kids were pestering me. Little it with 'some' and 'may be's' and you get my general drift

Riven, of course I won't be wearing one. But that's a trite response. I don't presume to understand or know how women who choose to wear burkas might "feel" But the confinement is a sad thing to me. What kind of a god would impose this on a human being? What kind of a woman would impose this on herself? The very notion that a woman's body is so shameful that it needs to be confined and covered like this is tragic. And your supposition that there is some difficulty in men and women being friends and that men just think about sex all the time...well, that's very exposing of your mindset I think. Shame.

riven, if men covered up in tne same way I wouldn't feel so strongly. But in every single religion and indeed in every culture, it's women who carry the burden of (male) sexuality and who have to respond to it by wearing provocative clothes or deny it by wearing a cloak of invisibility which is what a burka is, effectively.

As I say in all these threads, I don't like to see women provocatively dressed either. It's all a way of centring one's whole existence around what men do or don't think. Men never, ever have to do this.

Things men don't do:

-wear burkas or otherwise hide in front of women
-take pole dancing lessons
-wear tarty clothes for with the sole aim of attracting a man

If men don't do these things then I'm not going to do them either. Men would laugh at the idea that they should behave like this.

If the woman chooses (without coercion) to wear it, fine.

I find it insulting to men that the assumption is that an uncovered woman will be lusted after. I also can't get my head around a woman in a hijab with tight jeans and porn star make-up, TBH.

margo.....when I read your post I was reminded of this...somewqhat off topic, but good anyway. Sorry if it is too long, feel free to ignore

If Men Could Menstruate
by Gloria Steinem

A white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking that a white skin makes people superior - even though the only thing it really does is make the more subject to ultraviolet rays and to wrinkles. Male human beings have built whole cultures around the idea that penis envy is "natural" to women - though having such an unprotected organ might be said to make men vulnerable, and the power to give birth makes womb envy at least as logical.
In short, the characteristics of the powerful, whatever they may be, are thought to be better than the characteristics of the powerless - and logic has nothing to do with it.
What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?
The answer is clear - menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event:
Men would brag about how long and how much.
Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties.
Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts.
Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. (Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of commercial brands such as John Wayne Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-dope Pads, Joe Namath Jock Shields - "For Those Light Bachelor Days," and Robert "Baretta" Blake Maxi-Pads.)
Military men, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve in the Army ("you have to give blood to take blood"), occupy political office ("can women be aggressive without that steadfast cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priest and ministers ("how could a woman give her blood for our sins?") or rabbis ("without the monthly loss of impurities, women remain unclean").
Male radicals, left-wing politicians, mystics, however, would insist that women are equal, just different, and that any woman could enter their ranks if she were willing to self-inflict a major wound every month ("you MUST give blood for the revolution"), recognize the preeminence of menstrual issues, or subordinate her selfness to all men in their Cycle of Enlightenment. Street guys would brag ("I'm a three pad man") or answer praise from a buddy ("Man, you lookin' good!") by giving fives and saying, "Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!" TV shows would treat the subject at length. ("Happy Days": Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row.) So would newspapers. (SHARK SCARE THREATENS MENSTRUATING MEN. JUDGE CITES MONTHLY STRESS IN PARDONING RAPIST.) And movies. (Newman and Redford in "Blood Brothers"!)
Men would convince women that intercourse was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself - though probably only because they needed a good menstruating man.
Of course, male intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguments. How could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics, or measurement, for instance, without that in-built gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets - and thus for measuring anything at all? In the rarefied fields of philosophy and religion, could women compensate for missing the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death-and-resurrection every month?
Liberal males in every field would try to be kind: the fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life or connecting to the universe, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.
And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine traditional women agreeing to all arguments with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly. "Your husband's blood is as sacred as that of Jesus - and so sexy, too!": Marabel Morgan.) Reformers and Queen Bees would try to imitate men, and pretend to have a monthly cycle. All feminists would explain endlessly that men, too, needed to be liberated from the false idea of Martian aggressiveness, just as women needed to escape the bonds of menses envy. Radical feminist would add that the oppression of the nonmenstrual was the pattern for all other oppressions ("Vampires were our first freedom fighters!") Cultural feminists would develop a bloodless imagery in art and literature. Socialist feminists would insist that only under capitalism would men be able to monopolize menstrual blood . . . .
In fact, if men could menstruate, the power justifications could probably go on forever.
If we let them.

he he, that is great. Will have to save that somewhere.

I've always thought that the concept of penis envy was just bizarre. So clearly dreamed up by a man...Of course I don't want one of those - YOU FOOLS

Tell me why young muslim women wear head scarves as an expression of modesty and religion and then cake themsleves in make up, surely this is an opposing idea as make up is to appear more attractive. My friend, an Iranian who's father was very importnat, has many friends that thread away body hair but also don the burka... I cannot follow this and still believe that they are not oppressed. Oppressed to be a work of art for their husbands but for his eyes only.

cut and paste job

The burqa is a weapon that has been used by far too many regimes to inhibit and demean women for it not to be controversial. It is no coincidence that these regimes do not give women the vote or stone a women to death for being raped, for example. Although I believe the clothing itself to be detrimental to women, the historic connections that tenuously link it to culture and religion pale into insignificance to the links to oppression in it's most dispicable form.
The fact that the Qu'ran wants people to be separate and asks that muslims identify themselves from non believers holds everything within that ideal that makes me proud to be an atheist.

margo - have you read any Jackie Flemming cartoons - think you'd find some of them very funny.

I'm with you, Posie (apart from the atheist bit - proud to be a Christian )

A few points:

I don't like burqas, they make me feel uncomfortable, as though I'm being judged as dirty for revealing my ankles. (But I also don't like our society in which every wobbly bit is put on show)

It's very hard to have a conversation with someone who puts up such a barrier, even, as has been said, sunglasses.

I don't beleive that many of the women who wear them feel they have a choice - they feel pressured by family/imam/husband.

They seem unhealthy and restrictive in a Politically Correct way - the lack of Vitamin D, the inability to go swimming/horseriding/play tennis etc. It sickens me that this is done to girls while the males can wear ordinary clothes, or that in hospitals the washing-up-to-the-elbow rule isn't being adhered to because it would mean showing their arms

Their society is, as has been pointed out, a stone-age one in which women are worth less than cattle and rape victims are stoned to death. I don't want this in the UK - it doesn't fit here.

They can have their 'freedom of expression' - in Iran or Saudi. If they want to live here they should just wear the headscarf.

The modest Muslim, just like the modest Christian and any other modest belief does not instantly outwardly define someone and present such a barrier quite like a burka/burkha/burqa. It just seems that the prophet Mohammed had a few laws that were appropriate for his time and even those some say are born out of his emotional response to people looking at his wife, for example, and I cannot quite believe that people have not moved on from the dress code. In another part of the Qu'ran it says (not perfectly quoting) if your wife misbehaves take her to the bedroom quarter and beat her, but I don't think burka wearing British Muslim adhere to this teaching.

modest,modest,modest....what does it mean anyway? i think this obsession with being dressed modestly says more about the person obsessing about it than a pretty girl in a short skirt....

I met a Muslim woman wearing an abaya and face veil in clinic the other week. She took off her face veil in the clininc room during our consultation and I felt that we got on really well.
What struck me was that I opened the clinic room door to get out and help her out with her buggy and here was a moment of absolute panic on her face at the thought that she would be seen by men with her face unveiled. I felt terrible that I had been thoughtless and insensitive but I also felt wondered where her fear had come from. In that moment my perception of her, which had been that she was an educated young mother wearing her chisen religious dress out of choice, changed and I wondered if she was actually far more oppressed than I had considered her to be.

edam said: "Covering the face does make communication more difficult. There are areas of the human brain that have evolved specifically to decode facial expression. And veiling puts the non-veiled person at a disadvantage as they have less ability to judge the reaction of the veiled person."

I agree - some people have suggested that learning to communicate with someone with a covered face is like learning to talk to someone who is deaf or blind - but actually it's not, because it's not the person with the covered face who is deaf or blind - rather by covering their face they are hiding their facial expressions and forcing the other person to 'fly blind' and carry out a social interaction without the feedback of encouraging/neutral/discouraging facial expressions. The person with the covered face is at no such disadvantage with respect to the uncovered person.

I freely admit I really dislike talking to people who keep their sunglasses on so I can't see their eyes - it's very unsettling and makes it much harder for me to tell how the conversation is going. As for veils - there was one mum and baby group I went to where a couple of completely veiled women were there and tbh social interaction between them and me never stood a chance. I'm shy as it is and find it very hard to approach people whose faces I can see. I would never be rude and ignore someone if they spoke to me, of course, but I would find it enormously difficult to strike up a conversation from 'cold' (which is what no facial expression gives you) with someone whose face I couldn't see.

So leaving aside all the other issues, I agree with those who say anything that limits how much of your face and eyes can be seen by other people puts those other people at a disadvantage in social interactions, and can put them off speaking to you. It applies as much to having sunglasses glued to one's face from May to September, as some people irritatingly do, as it does to full veils, IMO, but it is a real effect, and not one that arises just out of prejudice on the part of the nonveiled person.

I don't wear a bhurka, but I wear a scarf and a robe. I have friends who wear the full veil. There is some debate as to whether it is a requirement of islam or not, as you can tell by the variety of different methods of covering adopted by muslims women, opinion is divided. It is just a style of dress to the majority of muslim women. I certainly don't see it as a mark of my 'identity'. It is just a requirement of islam, such as not drinking alcohol, or not eating pork, or praying five times a day, etc.
It comes in useful when I don't feel like getting changed out of my p.j's. Just put my robe on, ready to go!
When in labout with my ys, the midwife remarked that with it on I looked 'prim and proper', and without it I looked kind of wild!
Really, jilbaabs are our dress, we are not oppressed!

I think that case of the Luton school girl was very interesting (sorry can't remember her name). She took her school to court for the right to wear the next one down from the burkha i.e. everything covered but face and feet.

the headmisstess objected saying that her school was predominantly muslim and the shalwar kameez was the dress of choice; children had spoken to her about it and stressed that if a more restrictive dress was permitted, they would then be pressured by their male family members to wear it and they didn't want that to happen.

I think she won in the court of appeal then lost in the House of Lords. the thing that strikes me about this case is that whenever you saw the girl on tv or in a newspaper picture, her older brother was always with her, standing very close.

It just made me wonder about the whole issue of free choice/indoctrination.

If its your choice, fine, wear what you like, I couldn't care less. If your wobbly bits are out I'll just stop looking.

But I've seen quite a few families recently where little girls - I assume no more than 6/7 are veiled (showing faces) while their little brothers run about in totally Western dress. And I feel very sad for them.