An interesting slant on the wearing of a burqa.

And enjoying differences doesn’t mean applauding women dressed in burqas, you can’t get to know anyone who is entirely covered from head to toe.

Wyllow3

It is complicated. So much time on the burka, and not seeing "the mote in our own eyes" - features of our own culture which are wholly undesirable.

I know other people have muslim friends, we've talked about it before -those of us who do, don't generalise about a whole group of people, because we know them as human beings -with all the religious or non religious features, with different family lives, and so much more.

And enjoy difference, when we find it, not castigate it. The Dooley videos we saw posted earlier reminded me of the worst of footie hooligans, or certain types of male locker room behaviour....

Oh please! We all know some Muslims, either colleagues or neighbours or hairdressers or people at the gym or friends or relatives….you aren’t the only one!

Thanks Allira. I now understand your comment.

No one should be ashamed of their hair and face and be covered up from head to toe as if an object.. The men don't, they are in western dress. It's oppression and control. About time Burqua was banned. We must be mad allowing it.

Maremia

Confused by your comment Allira. Can someone be a Muslim, but not be Muslim? Thought Muslim was the religion.

What do you mean? Was it the hairdresser comment in response to Wyllow?

I really am not interested who someone's hairdresser is or who they might meet at the gym, quite frankly. It is irrelevant.

Apologies for the typos. Machine acting up, and playing games.

Yes Wyllow, it is all about the burka. The concept of being against coercion seems to gave been dropped.

Confused by your comment Allira. Can someone be a Muslim, but not be Muslim? Thought Muslim was the religion.

Burka!

I agree with you MOnica about practicality, but don't understand your comment about respecting other cultures, with respect to the wearing of a burial.
Do you feel that a woman wearing a burial is disrespecting you?

I know other people have muslim friends, we've talked about it before -those of us who do, don't generalise about a whole group of people, because we know them as human beings -with all the religious or non religious features, with different family lives, and so much more.

No we don't generalise.

It is complicated. So much time on the burka, and not seeing "the mote in our own eyes" - features of our own culture which are wholly undesirable.

I know other people have muslim friends, we've talked about it before -those of us who do, don't generalise about a whole group of people, because we know them as human beings -with all the religious or non religious features, with different family lives, and so much more.

And enjoy difference, when we find it, not castigate it. The Dooley videos we saw posted earlier reminded me of the worst of footie hooligans, or certain types of male locker room behaviour....

My older grandson’s wife was brought up as a Muslim. She no longer practices her religion. She loves her family, it’s complicated, just as is the case for many

You are not the only poster who has Muslim friends- or in fact family, Wyllow.

I have a hairdresser already, thank you. She is Welsh and I have no idea of her religion.

GrannySomerset

Accurate as always, Monica, but we are being coerced into feeling that our hard-won female freedoms are less important than a culture which is not part of our history. And even suggesting that this is a problem is castigated as somehow racist.

And how are my hard fought freedoms threatened by a relatively small number of women choosing to wear the burka in the UK? I just don't get it.

Post after post assuming it's an attack on our culture, by generalising from burka wearing - either directly or subtly - to Muslims as a whole group, yes, is racist.

Because those who do are "othering" Muslims into "us" and "them". not seeing us all as human beings with very different lives and choices. This is racism.

May I introduce you to my Muslim hairdresser who does follow her faith but wears western dress at work by choice and whatever she chooses out of work? She is third generation Pakistani, like many others, educated here, wide range of friends (and a lovely Dad, btw)

Of course, it does exclude women being able to work in many areas of work, but thats part of a complex number of choices.

Well MOnica, I suspect you’ve hit the nail on the head there.
* …… i can see no reason why they should get special treatment because they wear it and it must be clear where health and safety or other requirements make it necessary, they should not to be permitted to wear it *

I’m not in the totally anti burka group. I find the suggestion that women only wearing the burka at home as a starting point a strange one.

I worked with children and families. I couldn’t have done my work if I chose to wear a burka. It would have offended many people I was paid to serve. How could I attempt to build a relationship with a vulnerable, frightened, child or adult if they couldn’t see my body language, my face, my eyes?
Women can choose to wear a burka but must accept that choice dominates and excludes others.

Accurate as always, Monica, but we are being coerced into feeling that our hard-won female freedoms are less important than a culture which is not part of our history. And even suggesting that this is a problem is castigated as somehow racist.

Maremia

Many Posters on this Thread are opposed to the sartorial coercion of Muslim women in places like Afghanistan and Iran
but

appear to propose the legislation of sartorial coercion of Muslim women in the UK.

Intriguing

I have always opposed the sartorial coercion of Muslim women in places like Iran and Afghanistan.

I have never supported legislation to ban it anywhere.. I believe that since the burqa is not a garment endorsed and enforced across a religion and demanded specifically by the relevant scriptures, as a garment it is no more religiously required than those all enveloping robes that nuns used to wear. It is over 50 years since almost every congregation of nuns adopted a habit more akin to what modern women wear.

Under those circumstances I can see no reason why they should get special treatment because they wear it and it must be clear that where health and safety or other requirements make it necessary, they should not be permitted to wear it.

Multiculturalism is a two way street, we need to be respectful to other peoples cultures but they need to be respectful to ours.

Except Terribull sometimes these women have not independently chosen to come to Europe. They arrive in Europe with their male family members. Who sometimes don’t want their females to be ‘Westernised’. At All.

They are kept at home. They don’t go out to work, they don’t speak any English. They need an interpreter for medical appointments.

Recently in the Trafford Centre here in the NW I watched a Muslim family in Clark’s shoe shop.

Father was in traditional dress, a long cream tunic (I’ve forgotten what they are called, no matter) , black trousers and open toe leather sandals.

His wife was dressed in a burka and was sat beside him.

They had two children. A young boy in jeans (lucky him) and a tee. His older sister (age difficult to assess but by height? maybe 12/13).

She too was in a burka.

The assistant came over to attend to them, bringing a foot measure.

The father indicated. ‘No’,
He crouched down in front of his daughter and measured her feet himself.

I stopped watching.

I felt so very sad and kept thinking “it’s all about control” here. The freedom the males have! Nope, sorry I just don’t buy into this “choice” argument.

Maybe at age 18 when that girl can decide for herself.
Until then - just no.

Mind you, religion per se.
Catholic little 9 year old girls in confirmation dresses … Brides of Christ?

I don’t get it.

Allira

Welll said!

Women and even young girls wear various head coverings for various reasons - what we need to be discussing is whether or not this is through choice or are they being controlled and coerced. without accusations of racism being made which impede discussion.

Agreed!

Mentioned by me up thread, the sight of seeing small girls, so young 4 or 5, at a children's theatre production with their heads wrapped in scarves, an age when they could not possibly make an informed choice, outwardly very much a preordained expectation of how they as a girl child should be covered up from the earliest age. Although reflecting on that further at the time I could see comparisons of how I was inculcated along with my peers in all aspects of catholicism throughout childhood, possibly not so different. One of my sons went through his Richard Dawkins phase around late teens reading The God Delusion. RD has no time for organised religion per se, my son would often let me know RD's thoughts on "Muslims and Catholics "their children amongst the most brainwashed" was how he couched it. My son went on to say he was glad he wasn't brought up Catholic for that very reason. You have to live that life a bit to understand it. Of course, it's fair to say in the religion I grew up in you eventually make your mind up, most do in my experience, parents may not be too pleased when you lapse but it was ok I could front it out, without the worry they might actually kill me for throwing off the rituals of regular religious worship. I'm sure those freedoms would also apply to many Muslims who are amongst the less orthodox, Possibly like many Christians it's how they may loosely define themselves, but don't go along with the more draconian aspects. It's the ones that don't have those choices and are forced into a life between narrow patriarchal parameters. With that in mind the sight of the burka appears incongruous in a western society and reinforces the notion that women live a restricted life, even if they don't, the garment is an outward display of the more regressive strands of that faith. Many European nations see it as a barrier for women, women who they would want for them to embrace the culture of the country, they have chosen to live in.

Many Posters on this Thread are opposed to the sartorial coercion of Muslim women in places like Afghanistan and Iran
but

appear to propose the legislation of sartorial coercion of Muslim women in the UK.

Intriguing

I’ve changed my opinion a few times on threads when someone has posted a well researched, well argued opinion and I’ve thought yes they have a point.

But when people start labelling others or making sneering remarks or dismissing experiences you know they’ve run out of logical discussion and aren’t prepared to consider any viewpoint except their own.

Babs03

That is not what I meant I was talking about racist comments about Muslims being all over Leicester and in London and spreading.
But if you want to be disingenuous about something so horrid that’s up to you. I even sent a post so you could see for yourself.
As with all racists the discussion about the burka was just a platform for them to then sue their odious opinions.
Anyone who thinks this is just about liberating women in burkas must be on another planet.

Babs03
Perhaps you would like to read the figures from the Arab News

www.arabnews.com/node/2208151/world

FGT - true dat. What on earth would be the point of an "echo chamber"? - and it is hampering to think "I know there are a couple of people who obviously want me thrown off and I have figured out who they are - and there may be 'lurkers' as well that don't wish to hear any viewpoint other than their own and so maybe they stir it too and also try and get people of different views to their own personal one chucked off".

I agree Cariad it’s such a shame as it completely ruins some threads and hampers robust discussion. Which ought to be interesting.

None of us are likely to change anyone’s opinions by positing our views. However it’s good to be able to voice them!