Yeah, that's the main argument I've hard too - which is bullshit, and it really pisses me of when I hear feminists use it: first of all it removes the Muslim woman's ability to act and think for herself and it plays on this orienalistic trope about the Muslim/middle eastern women being a passive, receiving, well, blank canvas (and often in this argument I've seen a description of the Muslim man, which plays on the stereotype of the Muslim man being (sexually) aggressive and queer (not in the homosexual way, but as in having a sexuality which differ from "the norm", "the good, Western way to be sexual")). Second of all, if they really believed in women being unable to make this choice freely, then removing the possibility to cover their face in the public won't remove the course, but just the symptom of something being "wrong". It's like saying to women, with bruises after abuse, that they need to cover the bruises with make-up. It'll make the abuse more invisible, but it won't make it go away. How feminists can support this I don't understand. It might be a "women's rights"-argument, but it can hardly be considered feministic as it's based on the assumption that women can't act.
But this is one of the argument I'll probably deal with in b1, and not a theory I can use on b2, sadly :(
But this is one of the argument I'll probably deal with in b1, and not a theory I can use on b2, sadly :(
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