So banning the Burka - freeing women from opression or taking away free choice...?

[Portoeufino]

I read that in Belgium there is a draft bill to ban burkas and also the niqab.

As they put it " There is nothing in Islam or the Koran about the burka. It has become an institution of intimidation and is a sign of submission of women. A civilized society cannot accept the imprisonment of women."

They then talk of "matters of public safety" - is that implying that if you wear a burka is it therefore likely you might have it stuffed with explosives? Or if you cover your face, then there are security issues connected with that?

I have to admit I am very ignorant about all this. DO women only wear this clothing because they are opressed? Do they choose to? What happens if it is banned? Are women freed, or will they end up forbidden from leaving the house?

I am very interested to learn and understand more about this.

Of course morals are opinions. But some opinions are more informed than others, which is why we have international research, the UN, and international laws, conventions and human rights.

Non-religious people build a rational framework of moral sensitivity based on analogical reasoning, deliberation and particularism. Humans are good at that because it is the way that we build decision making in areas that are not particularly morally fraught as well.

It is very worrying if religious people think that atheists operate on gut feeling!

A moral belief that is held because it is absolute in religious terms or because it is right because an individual's culture says it is is always going to be damaging in some situations.

I totally get where you're coming from Riven and agree with your points about objectification intensifying: all part of the backlash against feminism though, isn't it? It just shows how far we still have to go. But I don't buy the argument certain 'new wave feminists' make that, as long as it's the woman's 'choice', it can be 'empowering' to conform to male ideals of what women should look like or how women should conduct themselves. That's just pure shite.

I totally understand how rejecting the male gaze could feel good.

This reminds me of a thread I posted on mn absolutely years ago about Della Grace's "drag king workshops". There was a documentary on TV about it. The workshops involve a bunch of women not only dressing up as men but learning how to move like men and occupy space like men. At the end of the workshop they all go out to a bar in their male guise. All of them remarked on how incredible it felt to be freed from the male gaze. That always stuck with me. (Not saying we should all start dressing up as men, btw )

oops, correction, it was Diane Torr who did the drag king workshops

There are too many issues to reply to them all on the thread. Women who cover up are misguided and wrong and I'm glad I live in a country where I am free to say that but also in a country where if they want to and if men want to take bulking up agents as plenty of young men do so they look better or think they will or women want to inject poisons on to their forehead so they look better that they can.

The British tend not to ban things and we accept a range of eccentricity into our country which is why everyeone wants to live here because our culuture and life is the best on the planet. I don't think there is any wide movement in the UK to control letting women dress in silly ways but thankfully we are free to say they do.

If muslim women are worried about men eyeing them up they could just as easily wear very baggy dungarees but then the trouser thing gets them going too - in Yemen you'll be whipped if you wear trousers whereas in Pakistan they're absolutely fine, baggy trousers all the way.

If I am tolerant enough to say I wouldn't ban women who want to wear clothes which stop them running in parks and catching burglars in streets or easily jogging, can I have a few muslim women lobbying for my right to be naked please or at least topless. What a lot of women in the UK want is more liberal laws. Why can't I walk down the street with my top off? It's ridiculous that I can't. Let's have some nudist marches to no 10. We certainly don't need more hangups about bodies than we already have.

I agree with Xenia. I think wearing the Burka is stupid but the impact it has on the rest of society is minimal. There is no reason to ban it and it would be contrary to the British way of life to do so.

But it's OK for men or a religion to do so?

We all seem to be pretty much in agreement. The only issue I have is there are a good few muslim girls more westernised than their families who find going to school quite liberating as their school bans certain clothing their parents would otherwise impose. There is no obligaton to send children to school in the UK and some parents do pay for Muslim private schools and there are a few muslim state schools but on the whole most Muslim girls in state schools benefit from school clothing rules which enable them to be Westernised and I think that's a good thing.

The best way to make a teenager want to do something is to ban it. Same with those living according to male rules of the middle ages. Ban them and they'll all love it. Bomb them and they'll bomb you etc etc. Ignore them like the behaviour of a naughty child and they'll soon give it up and adopt normal sensible dress which is what most good Muslims adopt because they know for sure their God has no requirement for long robe things.

I think the following perfectly sums up what would happen on a burkha/niqab ban!

I've known women and girls who had to do certain things, including wearing the niqab, because their husband or father demanded it. Nobody cared about their "choice". Aren't we told over and over to be obedient?

However in cases like that, if the sister has to deal with both a ban on the niqab outdoors AND with the rigid demands of her husband or father who she is required to obey, what is the result?

The wife or daughter ends up having to leave work or school and spend most of her time in the home. If it's a daughter, her education is cut short and she may have no options other than to be shipped off to Back Homelandia to marry at age 15.

Who benefits from niqab bans? Not the women or girls who where it (by choice or not) and are forced to curtail their lives. The only benefits are to the "do gooders" and Islamophobes who will feel happy to see no veils in public. (The fact that some women will stop going out at all probably isn't an issue to the "do gooders". Out of sight, out of mind.)

That's fine. I don't think the British tend to ban very much but the intense sexism involved in controlling what women wear but not man when the Koran also says men should cover up should always be pointed out so that eventually just like Victorian women gave up their restrictive clothing, the few Muslim women who wear it in the UK will do too. And it's not just themn. Their are some adorable looking families locally in the Brethern - the women wear a head scarves and long skirts and never cut their hair which always seems to be blonde and have 14 children as indeed so do the Orthodox jews.

It's always the women being controlled though isn't it because the religions were devised in the middle ages. That's why this is of course very much a feminist thread.

Yet if you look at what the God or Gods actually said Jesus etc and indeed in the Koran - the heart of it was be gone inequality, all people of whatever sex are equal but controlling men never let it stay at that. They have to interfere but thankfully nowadays most know how much against the will of God inequality really is.

Would I get 72 virgins?No, I'm female.
Will I only get to heaven if I have three husbands - no I'm female.

I like long robe things too, very elegant I think.
A thought occurred to me as I was typing that a lot of "goths" wear long robey medieval type dresses and I have yet to see anyone objecting to those kinds of apparel.

Plenty of people do and got offended by sex pistols type people too. Clothing is fascinating.

The long skirts the Brethern wear are not as restricting as the full muslim burka, nor a wig and long skirt and orthodox Jewish woman might wear nor even a simple head covering which some muslim women wear. It goes further than those.

Anyway much more appropriate for a feminism thread what about feminism within religions - there is plenty. So we can start with requiring all the men to wear a burka. Let's not allow them to leave the home unless accompanied by a woman and of course they must do 100% of the domestic jobs at home. That would be a good start and in court we would need two men to testify to make their word as good as that of a woman.

But where in the Koran does it specifically set out that women must wear the burka? Afaik it specifies modest dress, but no mention of this specific covering.

I agree wholeheartedly with Xenia's last post.

"if the sister has to deal with both a ban on the niqab outdoors AND with the rigid demands of her husband or father who she is required to obey, what is the result?

The wife or daughter ends up having to leave work or school and spend most of her time in the home. If it's a daughter, her education is cut short and she may have no options other than to be shipped off to Back Homelandia to marry at age 15."

What a spectacularly crap argument. Your solution is to pander to extemist, sexist nutjobs!? And what happened to the argument that women were adopting this dress voluntarily? I thought it was done to please their god, not 'the rigid demands of her husband or father'.
Is it true that women are 'required to obey' men? So all this talk of equality is rubbish then.

They often are in plenty of cultures sadly. I get continuously amazed by white christian working class mumsnetters who don't work and are housewives. We have a huge way to go before it is as likely a man is cleaning the bathrooms at home as a man.

But banning particularly clothing which is not a serious proposal here although is in France is not at all likely and would be fairly counter productive.

Nothing wrong with being a housewife - if it's your choice - although I'm not sure what class has to do with it, as I know plenty of middle class women who are content to stay at home. However, I believe that anything which holds women back, or puts them at a disadvantage to men, should be done away with. If it means that the state has to intervene, then I fully support that.

But I question whether the woman truly decides to wear such a constrictive garment, with all the connotations that go along with it, in a culture which doesn't set women aside in this manner. If she chooses to wear a garment which is a symbol of oppression against women and girls in other Islamic states, then I am incredibly puzzled and disappointed.

You can't stop domestic oppression in all cultures, but you can, as a country and in law, set out very clear guidelines (through legislation, if necessary) as to what is acceptable and what is not.

If you don't wear this kind of covering in some parts of the Middle East, you get routinely flashed at. Male gaze? They are not used to seeing women and they can't control themselves, and also don't feel they have to as it is 'the women's fault'. Try that on a rape jury in this country. It is all crap, and yes women do wear them with pride and think it is to do with religion, but it just isn't. They also put them on their very little girls, which makes me want to scream. It is the same as the ancient Jews chaining their women's feet together, and the Chinese binding their women's feet. It is tight corsets and long skirts, and veils over the hair. Just one in a long line of oppressive clothing imposed on one sex by the other to imply ownership and control and separation - the implication being that we are great moving mountains of temptation, not fellow equal human beings at all. Nothing to do with religion, simply very retrogressive culture. Thank goodness we no longer have to go out in hats and gloves, but that stopped within my lifetime and is exactly the same thing. Trousers were frowned upon in my mother's lifetime. For goodness sake, all you lovely ladies, what would you think if your husband/partner/father dictated what you wore?

Of course you can't free women, but you can send a very clear message that it is a symbol of oppression, and as a free woman in a free society with equal status as men in law, you do not, under any circumstances, accept the burkha. You are not 'half naked' by not wearing the burkha, and I would like to stop it's use just as I'd like to stop anything which puts women at a disadvantage to men.

I agree with Mumarch - it is foot binding, and corsets, and veils and ankle-covering. It took society many, many years to change attitudes to these, but it came.