Let Women Speak Free Your Face Event

[IwantToRetire]

We will all walk to Speakers' Corner at 2.00 and read out the testimonies of women who speak about the niqab. I have something visual planned so we can elevate the voices of women who exist in a fabric prison, often, of their familys construction.

On the day I will hand out copies of testimonies for women to read at the heart of Speakers' Corner. We need as many women as possible to attend. This is your chance to show you care.

From https://www.letwomenspeak.org/event-details/let-women-speak-london-free-your-face-2025-06-29-13-00

Had not heard about this, but now there are a number of responses to the event such as this one:

In Keen’s , Muslim women are portrayed as passive, voiceless, and trapped by family, culture, and male insecurity. The veil is a “fabric prison,” and the women behind it are posited as unable to speak, act, or even “feel sunlight on their skin” without male permission. Their desires, commitments, and beliefs are never considered on their own terms. Instead, they are rendered legible through the eyes, imagination and political desire of Kellie-Jay.

The few “testimonies” —attributed to women in the Middle East—were anonymous, unverified, and clearly cherry-picked. It’s hard to believe that Keen’s public pronouncements on “Islamism” elicit nothing but thank-yous and confessions of helplessness. Of course, as an activist and propagandist, she’s under no obligation to include
counterarguments or opposing views.These testimonies function as a moral shield, allowing Keen and Let Women Speak to deflect critique with the familiar refrain: “These aren’t my words…” Indeed, her X/Twitter feed is awash with anonymized grateful wards, caged in fabric. These women are cast as mute victims—unable to interpret or change their own lives—and, by implication, grateful and dependent on these liberated English roses to speak for them.

https://morbidsymptom.substack.com/p/veilface?

DM coverage https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14858363/Moment-womens-rights-campaigners-Niqab-veil-free-face-London-protest.html

(Sorry if there is a thread about this already but couldn't find anything. If there is one please post link. Thanks.)

Unless you have hard evidence of that, your remarks are defamatory.
As time goes on and GC women have won the more serious cases, you do realise that they will turn to the internet libels don't you?
Your username won't shield you from legal action - and John Pesutto is down a cool $2.3 million dollars for bandying claims about regarding KJK and neo-Nazis... I shall just leave this here:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/may/16/bankruptcy-fears-john-pesutto-moira-deeming-defamation-costs-ntwnfb
You might consider reporting your own post - none of us will want it taken down as evidence against you!

“…because female sexual desire and agency does not seem to have occurred as a concept to Islamic thinkers.”

I actually think the opposite - much like horny 13 year teenagers, the exclusively male writers of this cultural hegemony actually think we are all gagging for it. In their heads all women are panting sexually lascivious temptresses out to snare good pious men into evil behaviour at any opportunity. That’s why women are suppressed, silenced and closeted. They think that by gagging and restricting women they are doing God’s work by saving us from our own sinful nature.

And therefore by extension, women who aren’t veiled, and aren’t performing the right amount of ‘modesty’, like the poor girls in Rochdale, are seen as ‘fair game’ for raping and abusing.

So actually those women, those temptresses, and their sexual desire, is very much a central and eternal problem in Islam for all those good blameless innocent men.

@Screamingabdabz I am non discriminatory when it comes to religions, and women's oppression, Christianity has also a bad wrap when it comes to women “jezebels” etc.

Judaism is not much better.

Having said that, sections of Islam are the only faith to call for killings, in the modern age and in fact do it.

We could spend all day discussing the brutalisation of women in the name of religion. Sadly it’s just plain old predictable misogyny across them all.

You cannot, however, deny the special cruelty of a religion that persuades women to cover and hide themselves in tented garments when their men walk around completely free of any such shame, encumbrance or theological compunction.

Don't these so-called believers ever question why such an infinite merciful divine creator would want such a reduced and inequitable existence for women?

I think that actually illustrates the problem for me. Its a bit like all those lefties who have their clever, clever, slogans or badges or scarves, which most people dont understand or recognises.

Its just a form of virtue signalling.

How many people will see that t-shirt and understand what it is meant to be about. And if there are women trying to escape social and religious pressure just being told to "free your face" when you aren't free to do anything you want, is basically not realising just how trapped some women are.

They are not T-Shirts. The specs are a bit of a giveaway.

The strategy with the "Free Your Face" veils should be familiar from the original "Adult Human Female" definition of a woman Billboard: it raised public awareness, it made the mainstream press, it got people talking, it lifted the spirits of a lot of women, it gave them hope and courage.

Of course there were detractors but aren't there always when a woman without the right feminist credentials fails to take her idea to a committee of the great and the good before sticking her head over the parapet?

The difference this time is that it was not planned. Nothing more would have come of a chance remark had not women who are forced to wear the veil responded to a 7 second video clip that went viral.

They say in their messages to KJK that they are pleased that someone is speaking up, glad to know that they are not forgotten and that they want publicity for their plight.

Other women are doing other things to help - the links that you and Arabella have posted are really useful. They have been shared now because you posted about the LWS "Free Your Face" event: so it has proved to be a catalyst for discussion and action here on Mumsnet.

The women who sent messages to KJK have taken risks to do so and maybe none of them will stumble across this thread. Maybe some of them will read but not be able to comment. It is their feelings and opinions about what is said here that I have in mind when I read the posts in this thread.

For anyone who has jumped in here and not read the thread, here is where you can read their words:

https://www.letwomenspeak.org/free-your-faces

The strategy with the "Free Your Face" veils should be familiar from the original "Adult Human Female" definition of a woman Billboard: it raised public awareness, it made the mainstream press, it got people talking

Yes. It looks to me like something of a campaign for brand awareness. Slogans and all.

Which is KJK's forte. She's very good at it.

if I recall correctly, she studied theology at university - and used to work in advertising.

This is going to be very, very interesting.

I think Bee is just being disingenuous, the posts don’t come across as particularly youthful to me.

Fantastic, it's great that she's using her platform to share women's stories about this.

Women just can’t win - if we do nothing to help women in other cultures we get desultory “and where are the feminists” from the anti women brigade. If we do try and act we are then far right / racist / / white saviours / too old etc.

Is there any focus on any other group who restrict freedom to wear and be seen as you like? For example, Jewish women who must cover their hair once married, Sikh women who may not cut their hair, women who may not show their legs, or shoulders etc Why is the focus particularly on Muslim women?

@TomeTome That is quite a list. Perhaps we start with the most egregious of oppressions?

4 million Muslims in the uk, a large proportion of them are conservative. Sexist sex-based restrictions negatively affect millions, literally millions of women, just in the UK.

280 000 Jews in the UK, most of them secular. Sexist sex-based restrictions only affect a few thousands.

500 000 Sikhs, they have restrictions but not sex-based to my knowledge.

That’s for the numbers.
Then you have the extent of the control.

I have never heard of an hassidic family murdering a family member because she stopped observing. I don’t see the rules getting tighter and tighter for Sikh women. I don’t think Christian’s fundamentalists think it’s ok to throw acid at people’s face.

Not the same, not the same.

@TomeTome Why is the focus particularly on Muslim women?

You have either never seen a burka or you are being disingenuous. My money is on the latter

I’m don’t think I’m disingenuous or ignorant. @WithSilverBells do you know any women who wear or have worn head or face covering? @inkognitha are a large proportion of British Muslims particularly conservative? What do you really mean by “conservative”?

For transparency because I can see there is going to be lots of rather stereotyping and supposition as to my nefarious intent. I am not in favour of covering or the oppression of women but I am in favour of freedom to dress or follow the religion you choose. I am extremely wary of the level of Islamophobia expressed in the uk and the racist undertones to discussions of this subject.

“ I am extremely wary of the level of Islamophobia expressed in the uk and the racist undertones to discussions of this topic”

and that tells us to shut up and be quiet.

we were told this when discussing the rape gangs……..

I am extremely wary of the level of Islamophobia expressed in the uk and the racist undertones to discussions of this subject.
I understand the wariness and I am wary myself. However, 'islamophobia' is being used in a similar way to 'transphobia'; to shut down debate and create, either intentionally or through ignorance, a safeguarding issue.

Perhaps you should read the messages; they are after all Muslim woman's (silenced) voices.

@TomeTome I am not going to explain the term conservative to you, your ignorance and fudging urges because denial are not my problem tbh

Also, regarding ignorance, can it be pointed out for the billionth time and one more that Islam is not a race, nor a unified set of rules…

If you cared to look beyond your oversimplifying biases, you’d realise Islam’s faith is lived very differently according to local cultures.

Senegal is 80% Muslim, polygamy allowed, the lot, women covering their hair over there are quite rare. Turkey, Muslim country, a scarf is enough for practicing women. But it’s not like that in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia.

We don't expect you to understand the oppression of women because you are an oppressor yourself.

Nearly everyone is beginning to look youthful to me - especially the Police!

Here are three BBC journalists discussing Louise Casey's grooming (rape) gangs report (my bold). They are Adam Fleming (Newscast) talking to Alison Holt (Social Affairs editor) and Judith Moritz (Special correspondent):

'...whenever we talked about this issue over the last 10 years, we went to people in position of authority who had access to better data than we could do, because we are just members of the public at the end of the day, and these people in authority said "No, the data suggests that there aren't certain ethnic groups over-represented in these crimes" and we took them at face value when actually a lot of these people should have been saying " We don't know because the data doesn't tell us because it is really patchy because in a lot of places it's not collected". That would have been a more accurate thing for those authority figures to have told you, me and Judith'

Senior BBC journalists, who should have known better, quietly accepted the poor data being peddled because .... racism....islamophobia....community tensions.
If the Great and the Good shut down debate of issues of concern to people in the UK, then the issues do not go away. They fester and people's frustrations on all sides are conscripted by bad actors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0ljnbr3

I think it’s an excellent campaign.

She has started the conversation happening here and elsewhere. Everyone who sees it is sent the signal that this conversation is now in play.

It says nothing about Islam. It simply says ‘free your face’. Many people observe Islam without a face covering. So this is not a conversation about Islam. It’s about the repression of women so severely that in some places they are not allowed to be seen or heard outside their homes.
In others they must be fully covered.

That level of oppression is hard to believe from our perspective. However believe it you should- you can see it! What on earth leads you to believe that the women you see who are fully covered are making a choice to live that way?

It has no place anywhere in the world. I can’t do a lot about Afghanistan. I will do what I can here in the UK.

No one has the right to tell us not to talk about this. No one has the right to tell us to accept it, to accept that a subset of our population are living in subjugation.

To claim it’s none of our business- as if this isn’t about women and children in our country- is racist as fuck. Othering the women and girls who live like this.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/43b1fa0b-bf81-46a0-9fe1-150cdecf6d43?shareToken=9cc6843e1edbded17202eaad19ec55b6

'Last week The Times published correspondence between the author Kate Mosse and Parand, an Afghan writer who was risking her life to reply. It is one of the most moving things I have read, and I have read it several times now. Every time I do, my eyes leak.'

There is a link to the article in the text - I can't seem to link to it for some reason. However here's the first letter from Parand.

Dear Ms Kate
I am truly excited to write to you. When I got your letter, I could hardly believe that I would be able to correspond with such a well-known figure in contemporary English literature.
But then I told myself that sometimes, even for an Afghan woman, such things can happen — even though her life is filled with hardship, and she is a victim of agreements made behind closed doors. A woman who does not incite war but suffers because of it. A woman who is not allowed to enter the world of politics yet is always burnt by the political decisions made by men.
Yes, it happens — even for an Afghan woman — that someone from afar expresses a willingness to listen to her. So, I choose to believe it and open my heart to you.
I was born into a society deeply afflicted by gender stereotypes. I am in my early forties and married, with no children. In the eyes of the people, I am not a “good woman” or a “proper homemaker” because I work and am not financially dependent on a man in my family. I write because my thoughts are free from any chains and I refuse to live under oppression.
As for how I started out, well initially I was unemployed and hopeless. For two years I searched every government office for work, only to return empty-handed. Eventually I participated in an exam for a scriptwriting position and was selected. Since then I have written scripts for radio dramas, plays and theatre.
That was eight years ago, when the foreigners were here and things were very different. I was allowed to go to the office for one year after the Taliban took over, but then a command was issued that banned women from working in offices for non-governmental organisations. After that I worked from home. Now I receive my yearly contract on the street for signing.
For my literary work, I use a pen name.
Thank you for listening to me.

Who is “we” and why do you assume I am not part of that “we”. I’m not trying to shut down your voice but to be frank it does seem like you are trying to do that to me? Speaking about concerns with Islamophobia is not saying dont speak, I said I was wary as everyone should be because weather you personally recognise it or not it is harder to be a non white, or non Christian or atheist in the uk and gets harder every year.