Persecuting headgear

[ddstory]

What's a burqa, and does it have a place in our place? That's the question that a number of European societies have been pondering about for some time. In Germany for example, some province ministers of the interior have decided to ban the controversial headgear as part of the measures to counter Islamic radicalization. Other countries already have

Comments

[dreamville_bg]

This is just not fair. Kids and men can bathe in the sea freely, while women have to be dressed up like ninjas? WTF!? And this is done voluntarily? What sort of twisted people would raise a woman to believe she's free this way?

[luzribeiro]

Poor oppressed Muslim men. They just cannot control their urges whenever they see a square inch of female flesh. But they are not to blame - Allah made them this way! So how about punishing women for the failures of a pervert god.

[mahnmut]

Religious ones.

[ddstory]

'Cept, ninjas had those awesome sabres, and those deadly shuriken that they could throw at anyone who messed with them.

[wight1984]

The key issue here is that people often want things that are different to what we might expect, whether that's people who want to be covered head-to-toe or people who don't want to wear anything. The fact that their choices seem unusual to us doesn't mean that those choices haven't been freely made.

That's not to say that there isn't a sexist double standard when it female modesty... but there are also plenty of western double standards surrounding both make-up and hair removal, yet only some feminists would describe make-up and hair removal as inherently patriarchal and oppressive.... yes, the double-standard is bad but that doesn't mean that we should ban shaving your legs just because men aren't pressured to do it.

[dreamville_bg]

Reminds me of the issue with that kid who almost died in intensive care in a hospital because his parents had imposed a strict vegan diet on him, depriving him of vital nutrients. "My kid? He chose this diet by his own volition!" Yeah sure he did - except, that's the only lifestyle he had been exposed to, what else do you expect him to have chosen? Same with ultra-conservative religious women. I'm sure they genuinely believe they're free, making free choices on their own. Except, they really aren't. Because the choices they're being presented with, are rather limited.

For the record, it feels kind of weird that me, a man, would have to defend this position to you, a woman. But I suppose that's a topic of another sort of debate.

[wight1984]

Women are not children.

Paternalism makes sense with children... because they're children.

[dreamville_bg]

Then why attempt to find excuses for perpetuating social mores that have been imposed upon young women from day one by dominant fathers?

[wight1984]

There are a few different strands to my reply to that:

When and why do Muslim women choose to wear hijab

It's not a universal truth that women wearing hijab, a burkini, niqaab or a burkha have been doing it from day one or that it is something universally imposed on young children rather than something chosen.

There's no shortage of Muslim women talking about their fashion choices on youtube, which I've found invaluable as a window into people's lives that I would not normally get to see.

For example, these two women talk about why they started wearing hijab. To all appearances, they did not start wearing it as children and instead made the choice of adults... and they seem to have done it in the absence of any pressure from anyone male.

Okay, but what about the ones who are...

For obvious reasons, women who have grown up in those kinds of family situations are less likely to appear on youtube, so I've not heard a lot from them talking about their experiences.

I am definitely the kind of lefty liberal that has a fair deal of discomfort with parents forcing identities on children. As can be imagined, this means that I am uncomfortable with a whole host of parenting practices that are considered acceptable.

I don't like parents attempting to raise their children to mirror their own political views. I don't like raising children as a member of your religion (let's not even mention religious circumcision). I don't like parents who inflict their hobbies and interests in their children (sports seems a popular one). I don't like it when parents colour code their babies by gender and teach their girls 'to be girls'. There is a whole load of things that I am critical of when it comes to parenting and teaching a child that you shouldn't let your hair be seen in public fits in this list.

Most parenting does not happen this way. Most people are not raised in some lefty liberal household based on the liberal philosophies of someone on the Internet who has never had children. Most people don't care about my opinions on how they should raise their children.

How then do I react when I meet a woman who has no interest in a career and wants to become a housewife with a breadwinner husband?

It certainly sounds like the sort of thing that might be the result of early socialisation into gender norms, which I am opposed to... do I tell the woman that she's brainwashed and she only wants what she wants because she's been programmed that way?

No... I respect her choice as an individual because respecting women's choices seems to be a key part of creating a society where women can make free choices without being pressured by others (which includes me).

The macro problem does not go away... and we shouldn't stop talking about how society and culture shapes women's choices... but that conversation shouldn't be used as an excuse to disrespect and dismiss women's choices... let alone criminalise those choices (as seen in France)

Okay, but what if they being actually forced to wear it against their will

That should be illegal.

Forcing any person to wear clothes that s/he doesn't want to wear should be illegal in general.

I'd think the same about forcing a woman to bleach her hair.

[dreamville_bg]

No they aren't doing it from day one. There's a certain age from which they're required to wear it. I think you should acquaint yourself a bit more closely with those norms before you venture into analyzing them. No one has argued that it's a universal truth that they wear it as children. That awfully sounds like strawman.

"That should be illegal."

And it isn't.

No one is forcing anybody to bleach their hair, or remove body hair.

[wight1984]

" I think you should acquaint yourself a bit more closely with those norms"

Right back at you.

You claimed it was imposed at day one.

I responded to give examples of teenager and adult women who made the choice for themselves.

And it isn't.

It is certainly true that all the high profile examples of French Law regarding religious expression has focused on blanket bans rather than targeting coercion directly.

The French laws that have gained attention are a public ban on Burqas in general and do not consider consent to be an issue. The French bans on Burkinis are similarly indiscriminate. In addition, any 'visible sign of religious affiliation in public schools' is banned (including Muslim veils, Jewish Kippers and any large Christian crosses).

These are the laws that are generating controversy.

Meanwhile, any law prohibiting the use of emotional or physical abuse to enforce a dress code on a spouse would not generate the same kind of controversy.

No one is forcing anybody to bleach their hair, or remove body hair.

Right, when people internalise western fashion norms we don't normally perceive it as a form of coercion.

[dreamville_bg]

The norm is inbred from day one. It is enforced from the age of maturity. You're able to make the difference, right?

So if any visible sign of ANY religious affiliation is banned, where's the discrimination against Muslims that's being claimed here?

For the umpteenth time. How are you going to establish that emotional and physical abuse is being done, if the victim has not been taught to detect it as such?

No one is forcing you to internalize Western fashion. You can live and dress like a hippie all you like, and no one is going to persecute you for that. You just try not going out with your face covered when you're a young woman from a fundie Muslim family, and report back to me how that went.

[wight1984]

"The norm is inbred from day one. It is enforced from the age of maturity. You're able to make the difference, right?"

There's a point of disagreement here that I thought was fairly obvious.

I believe that there are Muslim women who choose to wear the veil freely because of their own beliefs, convictions and values.

I have no hard stats on exactly what the breakdown of 'women forced into viels' against 'women who choose to wear the veil' is, but I've tried to provide eveidnece that the latter at least exists.

You seem to want me to believe that all (or something close to all?) Muslim women are either forced into it or so brainwashed from childbirth that their choices can't be considered free.

I'm clearly not just going to accept that on your say-so, so what's the evidence for this claim? We're going to need to step this up a notch or call it a day.

[dreamville_bg]

First you present the sort of evidence that you demand from me.

[wight1984]

I have the easier job; my claim was "there are Muslim women who choose to wear the veil freely because of their own beliefs, convictions and values"

Throughout this discussion, I have tried to evidence this by linking to Muslim women's self-reported experiences.

The opposite claim would be similarly easy (given access to the Internet, there are bound to be stories from women who did not choose to wear the veil).

However, your whole argument seems to rest on the idea that the former are either very rare or non-existent and that the latter is the norm, which is not such a modest claim and requires a higher burden of evidence.

[wight1984]

"So if any visible sign of ANY religious affiliation is banned, where's the discrimination against Muslims that's being claimed here?"

To be clear, I do not think that the state should take an actively anti-religious stance at all... I'm a secularist but I take that to mean that the state should stick to purely secular concerns rather than try to impose a secular culture.

The anti-religious attitude of French secularism is further exacerbated by anti-Islam and anti-immigrant sentiment, which is why all the fuss is specifically about Muslims (with splash damage to other religions)