I don't know whether I was right to have been offended by this….

[DaisyHayes]

I am a teacher, and part of my role in school is to train and mentor new teachers and student teachers.

Last year, when we got the intake of student teachers, I greeted them and delivered my welcome presentation and induction as usual.

One of the students, when I introduced myself to him, refused to shake my hand when I introduced myself to him. He did not offer any explanation for this. I continued to offer my hand expectantly, and after an awkward pause, he told me that he does not shake hands with women on religious grounds.

I found this unbelievably fucking offensive.

Aside from anything else, the man was a student teacher on his first day in the school. I was (effectively) his manager who had the power to pass or fail him - I am fairly experienced and have been in my current school for eight years, so have some responsibility and superiority. He was at least ten years younger than me.

Firstly, I think that if someone in a professional environment is proffering their hand to you upon being introduced then professionalism and simple manners would take precedence over whatever religious conventions you adhere to.

Secondly, if you are going to be so rude as to not shake my female hand, then you should at the very least explain why you are not doing so, rather than let me stand there with my hand stuck out while you studiously ignore it.

Part of me worries that I am being incredibly bigoted. I am an atheist, but have never felt the need to demonstrate a Richard Dawkinesque crusade against those who have religious belief and think that it is good manners to respect others' faith.

On the other hand, part of me just thinks why on earth should I be understanding and accommodating about someone who clearly demonstrated that he thinks my possessing ovaries makes me utterly inferior to him and unworthy of simple manners?

I'd be really grateful for your thoughts on this.

From those quotes aren;t we at the whole understanding of what touch / lie with / etc means, as we are with Christianity and homsexuality?

there's always going to be a variation of interpretations within that. As for hadeeth- well many scholars 9non Muslim scholars, obv) would dismiss that anyway as you could apparently pay people to write HAdeeth (I know I am going to piss off Muslims here, sorry. ) way back when. So the link- back- to Allah .... is a matter of fiath I suppose

YANBU. If he is going to fit into a school he needs to go with the norm. It seems a bit foolish as a student. Does he not realise that you will be filling in forms on how he gets on with staff etc in addition to teaching skills?

That would be enough for me to remove my child from his class. He should not be teaching in the UK...neither males or females.

so the reliion says it is better to not touch a women who is not your relative? whats so evil about that?

sardine it is to do with sex in a way,

and there is no law sayin you have to touch someone when you feel uncomfortable doin so?

peachy put that verse in context with the one before it talkin about marryin women honourably and not keepin them as concubines

No man is to touch any woman who is not his wife. That's it. There is no need for the women are regarded as temptresses argument at all because there is no such thing. The ruling is very simply Touch only your wife, all other women are off-limits.

(I only mention wife but of course mahrem too)

But if it is about not having sex with people (as the quotes seem to be interpreted by some on here) then that's fine isn't it, she didn't want to have sex with him, she just offered him her hand to shake and he refused it and stood there in silence like a lemon.

I agree with others who say that he handled this extremely poorly. Whatever the basis of his beliefs, whether he won't touch women because they're dirty or because they are sexy or simply because it's not what you do in his neck of the woods, the way he refused the traditional greeting of this culture showed lack of understanding etc ie all the things that some are saying the OP is guilty of. Interesting that she is being exhorted to accept his cultural / religious peculiarities yet when he makes such a massive cultural blunder as refusing someone's hand with no explanation there is no comment.

When did shaking hands with someone (or offering to) become an offer of sex?

At what age do girls become women?
What happens when this sort of thing is taken to extreme like that fire at the school in ?was it saudi where the religious police prevented the firefighters from rescuing the girls as their faces were not covered?
Where does this man stand on the scale and how will it affect his dealings with his students?
This not touching women to shake hands comes from a place that elsewhere leads to very bad things. And sometimes leads to very bad things here. So it is not exactly out of line to think that finding out what views this man holds before releasing him to teach impressionable young people would be a good idea.

its not an offer of sex,

i aree he has to find an appropriate way of dealin with it,

and i dont understand how not wantin to touch women except in neccessity makes him a bad teacher.

And before people get excited this "women kept apart" stuff is not peculiar to Islam, there are many other religions with these types of strictures, in the UK, and with fundamentalist branches in the UK where people do not follow standard UK customs. I would be asking these questions whatever religion was involved.

saudi can be twisted, no one in their riht mind would aree, its been posted earler about if a women falls it is ok to help etc.

people are makin this in to somethin its not, it is not an insult to the capabilities of women, just he doesnt want to touch them.

well it makes him an extremist, doesn't it? since ime the muslim men i've met either socially or through work have not had any problem with shaking hands with me.

and i would be wary about any sort of religious extremist be they muslim, evangelical christian, hasidic jew etc, teaching my children as i think they would find it hard (or presumably impossible) to put their religious views aside in their everyday dealings.

Not shaking hands doesn't make him a bad teacher.

The question is that where does his belief stem from, does it have any aspects that are counter to UK law and would be inappropriate for a teacher.

If a person who is UK christain culturally british ~(IYKWIM) did something that raised questions about whether they treated males and females in the same way, questions would be asked too (I hope).

If there is an accident/emergency in his classroom is he allowed to help a female pupil (e.g. epileptic)? Rare though that may be it kind of cuts into his abilities to be the responsible adult in a room full of children. Maybe he will need a female T.A or some other female member of staff to do any touching of women that may be necessary on his behalf?

and i dont understand how not wantin to touch women except in neccessity makes him a bad teacher.

It doesn't. So long as he can learn to show respect, and (obviously) treat them as equals. The more I think about it, the more I think he's probably more a sort of victim of his background (I don't mean that in any strong or sinister sense), that has left him unprepared and simply floundering when faced with the OPs hand.

Ah ok Nailak he would be able to touch someone if there was a medical emergency.

Agreeing with everything SardineQueen is posting!

nailak but you don't know him.

He might not touch women because it's his culture and as simple as that.
He might not touch women because he has extreme views about them a la the taleban or saudi etc

If someone says they are a fundamentalist of any religion or sect that can have difficult views about other groups then these questions need to be asked. Whether that is a fundmentalist jew, christian, muslim, or whatever.

Grimma This chap has been to university, interviews etc. Have no idea how old he is but even if he is a fresh-faced graduate of 22/23 or so, he must have been in the situation where he has previously had to refuse to shake a woman's hand.

Not shaking hands does make him a difficult colleagues and representative of the school at parents evenings and with visitors.

This is what I am wondering hellatwork I mean it can't be the first time it's come up

The rule about touch is to do with sin, temptation and fornication.....

NOT respect.

Hmmm... on the one hand (excuse pun!) he is showing respect to her according to his religion, but then on the other hand according to OP's culture he is showing enormous disrespect by refusing her welcoming gesture.

So the question is, which one should win out? Hand-shaking man's religion or OP's culture?

And surely if it is a matter of respect towards OP, shouldn't OP get to decide what is respectful to her or not?

You'd have thought so, but I'm not sure I was ever called on to shake hands during 6 years at university (too long ago to remember!) - they don't always do the formal stuff. His first degree might have been a heavily male dominated subject. And he may have floundered on previous occasions when the situation did arise.

For which reason I think the OP should write a note gently suggesting he be helped with this somehow.

If is to do with menstruation then maybe OP needs to wear a badge saying "I'm not on my blob" - that might ease his mind a little!

Sorry, am being disrespectful, poor bloke doesn't know he's started a Mumsnet discussion.