France Bans The Burqa

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http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/9174251 ... the-burqa/

I think: yay. Im all for modest clothing and a headscarf if a woman chooses that, but it a woman cannot show her face in public then that is stupid. And sexist, men arent made to wear mickey mouse masks to hide their faces. Good on you, France!

Why were people stupid enough to even care about this? Any kind of law regarding clothing is beyond stupidity.

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Last edited by zen_mistress on 11 Apr 2011, 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The face covering thing bothers me, because a womans face is not a disgusting sinful thing to look at, it is a face.

Also I dont like the double standard, a man is free to dress how he wants, even wear a mankini in public, but a woman has to be swathed from head to foot in black... it is not right to have one law for one gender and one law for another. I like islam but I think they need a serious injection of gender equality.

I dont have a problem with people dressing modestly but I dont like seeing women brainwashed into thinking they have to be covered from head to foot to be considered decent.

I understand that but it's a complete misuse of legislation to legally ban any such thing. It's their choice and religious freedom. Maybe make a protection law that people cannot be forced to wear such things against their will...but not an outright ban.

That is what people dont get. These women arent allowed to choose, they have to dress as their husbands and other family members wish them to dress.

Also, it isnt even in the Koran that a woman has to wear a cloak, or a face covering. The Prophet Mohammed says for women to dress modestly, cover hair and wear long sleeves and skirts. He doesnt say that women have to go to huge lengths to cover up every inch of flesh, and he doesnt say they should cover their faces. I dont think he would be happy at all if he saw what some poor women have to wear.

I can put myself in the shoes of these women, being a woman, and I would hate to have to put a piece of cloth over my face. I would never support a law which allowed family members to physically or psychologically pressure or force any other member to wear it.

Actually, men in Islam do have a requirement to wear at least shorts that come down to the knees (unless they're doing some activity that requires them not to)...and to not wear bling.

Burqa isn't Islamic, but jilbab/hijab is. Burqa is more of a cultural thing. Some of the clients at work wear it and I see women wearing it in the supermarket all the time. It doesn't annoy me, I just think it makes them look like ninja. Some of them choose it, some of them don't. It's none of my business if they choose it. I've known a couple of Pakistani-British women who wore it because they wanted to show their faith, even though they really don't have to wear it, and it makes them stand out quite a lot in their own community. I think sometimes it's worn out of misplaced piety. Arab women have more cultural pressure to wear it, their national dress is the burqa-like niqab, but not so much other Muslims.

In Pakistan it's worn in a few communities not as religious thing, just to show status (believe it or not), by British Muslims it's usually misplaced piety. In Afghanistan it's more because of the Taliban. In Iran and Arab countries, it's more part of a tradition of veiling women going back to pagan times - but it's also because Wahhabis in Saudi interpet the hadiths as it being required. They don't do it in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, West Africa, etc.

I have much bigger problems with Islam than just the requirement for modest clothing (which doesn't include burqa as a requirement, except as a minority interpretation of hadiths).

Last edited by puddingmouse on 11 Apr 2011, 6:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Protection and Choice topic

I agree here with Ska. In Canada, there are safe havens set up for women who want to escape family oppression, which would include being forced to behave against their will, so this is inclusive for all women, not just Muslims.

I am against banning the Burqa.

At what point did we decide that it was appropriate for government to dictate people's dress?

Unless someone can demonstrate to me that all incidences of a woman wearing a chador or a burqa constitutes a demonstrable risk to public health or public safety, then I fail to see that government is pursuing a legitimate public interest.

A woman should be free to throw off the imposition of a chador by her husband, her father or her brothers, but that same woman should be free to adopt the chador of her own volition. I see no place for the government to intervene in her freedom.

Yeah, the government has no right to dictate how a woman chooses to dress. If she were forced by her husband, family, or people around her, then thats a different story. But if she chooses out of her own free will to dress like this, she should be free to. She isn't hurting anyone and any bad consequences that come out of this (such as people isolating her for the way she dresses), well, she chose this path. She is free to stop anytime and uncover her face.

So, it is ok for a woman to have to obey the will of her husband and family, but not ok it is the government?

If you look at liberal muslim countries, very few women choose to veil their faces. In fact in countries like Turkey, many women wear western clothing. Those women in France are unlikely to be able to choose what they wear. I will not be an enabler of control of women.

Because of the way conservative muslim societies are set up, women who dont want to veil will still have to, just so women who believe it is wrong to show their faces can have the right to cover their face. How is that women choosing what they want to wear?

Also, what if you are wearing a veil or face covering and you sneezed , it was a hot day and your face gets all sweaty, you have a nosebleed... those veils are Stupid, wake up people. These are real human beings, not just museum exhibits.

Or, in other words: it's not okay and there are ways to protect them without completely banning a type of clothing that some people may actually wear.

Yes, but this kind of liberalism can only happen in a Muslim country. It cannot happen in a country like France, where muslims are a minority group.

And not all women want to divorce their husbands or be shunned by the families they were brought up in, in order to have the right to not veil.

I just imagine the little girls living in Paris now who will be able to still feel the sunlight on their faces when they grow up, or look at a beautiful painting in great detail, because of this law. And it makes me happy.

Isn't it more important that it happens in France than in a Muslim country? Ostracizing your minority population is never a plan for success.

I dont know if they really are ostracizing their community. I think a number of muslims will be pleased with the idea.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... hijab.html

And before you reply, look at the woman in the photograph and answer honestly, Would you really want to wear that? Could you imagine wearing that? What if you lived in a society which deemed it appropriate you wear that?

Its ok to comment from the comfort of Western society where we have already won the right to freely dress as we please, but others are not so lucky.