Asa feminist what do you think about the burkha/niqab, liberating or oppressive?

[DarlingDuck]

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I think that in the society we live in there is access to help for those who are abused. I know there are cases where the abuser physically limits access to outside world so in these cases there is no choice. In other cases I suppose the woman has been broken down so much she loosed the ability to stand up for herself, or see what is happening, or she submits to the pressures to stay. Is this the case in your friends friend?

I was wrong in my comment, it was ill considered, however once a woman has the strength she can leave and the law will protect her. Actually she doesn't even need to leave, one of the mums at school got a restraining order of some sort to prevent her husband coming in to her bedroom after police prosecuted him for dv, although she didn't want to press charges.

But I still think it is her choice to stay as if she chose she could leave and she has been given tools and support to do so.

iran, yemen, egypt , pakistan, algeria, syria, oman countries or areas where very conservative muslim clerics rule. these women really have very little control over their lives, who they marry and when really wearing a niqab is highly unlikely to be a choice when such pressure is put on her to keep the family honour it may not be enforced by law but do they really have a choice.

maybe read some literature by the amazing nawal el saadawi on the lives of many of these women how many are making such choices that to you and i we take for granted but i am sure you are well aware already

i know the subject is jumped on by those who love to bash islam but there are many women suffering is the islamic world, they are forced to wear it so they are faceless to the outside world in the extreme their eyes are covered too and these women are so often forgotten when this debate comes up but this is where the attention should be turned to and there suffering not the those who have the choice and why they make that choice

That's just it I am not aware, as a Muslim I go to talks where I here syrians tell me how ladies wearing niqaab were dragged out of Masjid and not allowed to teach, I know yemenese women and none wear niqaab, and so many Pakistanis whose family disapproved of them wearing niqaab. Has that nawaal got books on eBay?

I agree if forced it is oppresive

And didn't the sheykh in al azhar force a girl to take her niqaab off? And yvonne ridley said he tried to force her to shake his hand?

but who are you mixing with middle class educated women this does nto represent all women from these countries

i am genuinely shocked that you have not heard of her she is one of the leading feminist of the last 50 years and the leading egypitian feminist and probably many would consider her the most important muslim feminist. she now lives in america as her life was in danger living in egypt as she was so out spoken against the government and in particular fgm

yes they are and on ebay and amazon

then again i do not know the name of every atheist feminist writer...

her novels are good too especially God Dies By The Nile

nailak - why haven't you got a debit card?

Noooooo! Conservative Muslim clerics do NOT run Syria. Do you not watch the bloody news?

You ignorant woman. Read about Syrian politics Anyone suspected of being too religious was removed by the authorities and never seen again. Google Tadmor prison massacre.

Stupid statements like this make so angry. My family in Syria are currently going through hell, over 3000 people dead and yet people remain ignorant.

And before any scumbag comes on here and claims it's better for Syrians to murdered in the streets like animals because they'd be religious fundamentalists, if they were allowed to choose their own government, you couldn't be more wrong. They just want a democracy, a government which doesn't steal and squander the money of the people and freedom of speech. I promise you, the vast majority of Muslims do Not look at Saudi and think "That's what we want to be like".

Algerian govt also is not religious (in 1992, an Islamic party was set to win an election. The election was cancelled). Oman is an unelected monarchy...

Knowing Nawaal El Saadawi does not make you an expert.

Forkful - why is it any of your business?

that is always the way until someone or a group highlight the suffering. her books are very interesting she challenges her own culture and western misconceptions of views on Muslim women in particular arab culture and women

I am curious as I know no one without a debit card.

i never said i was an expert

i also never said that they controlled the country i said in some countries they control areas, sorry if i am wrong about syria. i have read reports of areas that stay very traditional and women are suffering from oppression of the traditions both religious and cultural and the impression i got was that in these areas conservative clerics (i never said fundamentalists) hold power

as for the political issue yes i have seen the news, yes i do know that those fighting for freedom are not fighting for a government like saudi but for a government that allows people to have a choice how they live their life and feminist views in the west are different from those in the middle east. i have lived in a muslim country (tunisia), have family who are muslim i am not totally ignorant i understand the differences in culture and what we perceive as freedom is different i was not addressing the political struggles (as in the over throwing the governments) that are going on in these countries at the moment

and i am sorry that your family is suffering, i hope along with people in tunisia, egypt, iran and other countries the people get what they are fighting for freedom

For what it's worth, I thought the debit card question was rather 'off ' like a fishing expedition, in this context. My exH never had one.

Hmmmm. Interesting. Seems some of us can't win. If we ask for information, this suggests we are too lazy to look for it ourselves or seek it from a sense of 'entitlement'.

I have been reading lots of stuff thanks goth, on here and on Facebook. And this thread, like so many on mums net has been excellent and helpful in helping me to articulate my true unease about women who cover up.

Perhaps I can share something from my field of expertise.

the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill had it's first reading in the House of Lords in June 2011. It's explicit aim is to stop sharia courts claiming to have jurisdiction in family and criminal matters because sharia law discriminates against women, allowing a women's testimony only half the weight of a mans.

The way Muslim men interprets islam discriminates against and oppresses women. Covering the head and face is another example of this and it makes me very uneasy.

I am not 'entitled' to an explanation as to why intelligent women then chose to cover up, even though it is NOT a requirement of their faith - but I am certainly interested to know more about why. Engage or not, it's your choice. But I haven't come knocking at your door and sat myself down on your sofa, refusing to leave. You have chosen to engage with me on a public site.

So it's a bit rich to accuse me of being start and entitled.

Thanks to my auto correct I now have no idea what word I wanted instead of 'start'. Feel free to insert whatever word you feel most comfortable with.

Forkful, I am sure that some of the niqab-wearing women I know are oppressed. Some of them aren't. I guess what I'm saying is that I can't make that assumption based on what they're wearing. (BTW I know the arguments on the thread are rigorous and complex - I'm just responding from my own limited experience to the OP. Haven't got the time to read the whole thread now but I'm looking forward to getting to it later).

Even the word 'sister' is tribal. Or should I refer to non Muslims as my sister?

And I know women don't have to cover inside unless there's a man who needs protecting from his lust. When you strip this garment to it's bare bones it's sexist, it's not about women, it's about women wearing it for men. It's sexist.

Oh c'mon, old fart feminists like me can remember when feminists called each other sister. It's also common for African American women to refer to each other as "sister" because it's a cultural tradition, but not intended to make non African Americans feel left out or bad.

Whether one refers to groups or tribes or clans or interests or communities or what have you, we do fall into some of these and that isn't inherently wrong, surely.

I see lots of women wearing clothes "for men" - all styles, because within a patriarchy, women do not have full agency in decisions they make. This is kind of known, right?

That they do, K, and with that comes consequence. Perhaps we all, belonging to a patriarchal society, do things for men at least the original instruction was from men. But covering up not only seems subservient but it's divisive and destructive for both the individual, group and society. Bit like any uniform, whether it's stripper like, Neo Nazi or any other clothing/garment that says a lot more about a person than what clothing they like. IE. Today I'm wearing brown leather boots, grey knitted top up to my neck, jeans and a nice belt, I have my hair up and curly (quite glam) and make up on. What this says about me is that I take care of myself and that's it, no political allegiance or religious, you possibly can tell I'm not below the poverty line or very very wealthy. And you know I'm white European, not necessarily British.

Well said posies. The choices we make as an individual can impact on others far beyond our immediate families and friends. That's why I will continue to feel 'entitled' to ask for information and engage in discussion.

I agonise about expressing this because anti-niqab remarks are often a way of making racially motivated anti-Islam remarks. But I don't like the niqab. Not because I have a view on whether the women wearing it are individually oppressed (any more or less than any other woman under patriarchy) - how would I know that? - but because I don't like the effect that it has on the world for me.

It's a small thing and not worth getting het up over - in most contexts I would hesitate to express it because my minute first-world-problem is not as important or damaging as the racially motivated abuse suffered by many Asian muslims in the UK. But when I shop, as I often do near my house, in a shop where everyone else is either a man or fully covered up, I feel exposed and vulnerable. I feel that I am suddenly in a culture where my body is indecent and this makes me shy. I feel as if I were in Tesco in a bikini. This doesn't really matter as I am only buying bread and bananas and going home - but it might if I got the wrong change and had difficulty challenging it, or something like that. I feel a heightened sense of the usual background threat that you had better bloody be without any physical or moral flaws if you are a woman and you need to stand up for yourself. It's tiny and it's trivial but that is how it is.

What I really want to say is that your right to wear what you like does not exist in a vacuum. I don't want to stop any individual wearing what he or she likes but it is simplistic to pretend it has no effect on anyone else.

In such an environment I can see how it might be individually empowering to wear a niqab. I certainly feel very unempowered not in one. What does that mean though?

Nailak you said "if choice is taken away it is definitely an oppression"

I disagree with this statement. There are many choices that are taken away from us and we do not consider it oppressive, but accept that it is for the good of society as a whole. For example, we legislate against hate speech - does this oppress our freedom of speech? We legislate against public nudity - is this oppressive?

I think vezzie has a very good point. Women wearing the niqab, whether by choice or not, do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of a wider community. And like it or not, their individual choice affects that community as a whole, normalising and making mainstream the mentality and attitude behind the veil.

It could mean that other Muslim women feel cultural pressure to wear one. It could mean that non-Muslim women feel intimidated and awkward.