Mrs Risotto. You are using some very poor arguments here. Lets go through them one by one.
Starball's comment is merely her own opinion as to why women wear niqab. This opinion should not override why the women themselves wear niqab. She then chooses to make a whole slew of assumptions as to how niqab wearing affects these women's lives.
Aside from the complete arrogance of thinking you know more about someone's choices then they do, this line of argument reminds me very much as to when people talk about other clothing choices a woman makes.
So you find the niqab deeply unfeminist fair enough, I find high heels unfeminist but nobody would ever talk about banning them, because high heels are seen as a norm for British white women.
Nice Tabrad already used the "cultural norms" argument upthread. I pointed out to her how many other cultural norms had changed, but apparently niqab is the wrong sort of cultural norm, with the further implication that niqab wearers aren't progressive people so shouldn't benefit from progressive attitudes.
Do you honestly feel comfortable with these sorts of arguments? Or that niqab wearers should be held to a higher standard then all the other women who make choices you don't deem as feminist, because they are "foreign and other"?
Also this isn't just talk. Every single time the niqab comes up as a subject of national debate, it's with the viewpoint that it should be banned.
This is despite veil bans only leading to increased attacks and abuse upon Muslim women, as well as the foolishness of saying "wearing niqab oppresses you, so if you wear it, you will be arrested, detained and fined".
It will be a sad fact that during this slow news week/period of debate of debate about niqab, the numbers of niqab wearers being verbally or physically abused in the street will have increased.
I do know of several women in the UK who stopped wearing niqab because it was too dangerous as men - nearly always men, would spit at them, shout at them and attack them. Ever wonder what it is about these woman just going about their own business that these men feel entitled to express such violent anger towards them?
Which brings me to the fact is only a tiny minority of women wear niqab, so why is there so much outrage about it in the media? Do you never wonder about that? Why far more distressing issues of VAWG that are culturally linked, are not getting the same levels of media outrage? Why is a niqab wearing woman seen as such a threat to society?
I do think niqab wearers get slotted into the media niche of How Woman Should Not Be and are thus demonised and pilloried by a male dominated press whenever possible (just as other types of women classed as transgressive are) - they are portrayed as deviant women who need to be corrected by society. I feel that this is an area of analysis that many feminists overlook.
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