The niqab is a misogynist monstrosity

Notting Hill Carnival? Curry? Music?

Some culture certainly does travel.

However physical abuse is wrong anywhere.

Off subject a bit, I know, but a teacher (I think) was talking about female mutilation on the radio today. He summed it all up in one phrase:
Culture doesn't travel. That said it all, for me.

Indeed V'queen! I will make informed choices as to what I choose to wear. For years I did not wear a skirt or make up..it was against 'feminism'. Then I thought further and decided that I was being as oppressed by militant feminism as I was by male chauvinism. I felt that feminism should mean people were free to make choices based on information and free will, about what people wanted to wear, how they live their lives(e.g.working /unwaged parent) etc.

I agree that being made to wear anything either forcibly or by heavy society /community pressure is not right. Informed decisions and choice is the way to go.

When I see some young people, usually girls, dressed in outfits specifically to emphasise their sexual attractiveness/avaiability I wonder how much of that is truly through informed freedom of choice.

If a woman chooses to wear a niqab....not forced, not because it's expected but because she has made a conscious, considered decision to wear one as an aspect and sign of her faith...would we not be oppressing her by denying her the right to do so?

Stansgran I'm very surprised at your friend's story of her experience with the niqab.

In Saudi Western women are not required to cover their faces, or hair. You always carried a scarf with you in case you needed it - in 6 months I wore a scarf only once.

In my experience, in Riyadh, an extremely conservative city compared to Jeddah, non-Muslim nurses wore scrubs, no hijab and certainly no niqab.

Female managers, IT staff, etc., wore trousers with a lab coat, again no head or face covering if they were Western.

I can't imagine how your friend working as a secretary ended up in a niqab!

that might be a compromise for the nurses..wear a medical mask..could be regularly changed to reduce issues re contamination etc.

We could substitute Muslim for Jew in theis famous speech

^I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge.^

I lived opposite a Muslim family for many years. It was traditional as all the generations lived in one home (it was actually two semis adapted to one unit.) Some of the women wore hijabs, some wore western dress, occasionally they had visitors wearing niqabs. In my house some of the women(me and my daughters) always wore trousers, some wore full make up and others did not, some wore short skirts and tight tops. The women were educated and all worked in professional jobs. They liked a laugh and a joke, they were just like us! We were friends.

I am not sure if the women wore hijabs/niqabs /make up/ trousers/ short skirts etc purely knew if they were wearing them to please themselves, express their culture or to please men.

Of course it might work like wearing a medical mask.....

I'm not sure about the hygiene in a hijab/ niqab. A friend who was a medical secretary in Saudia Arabia had to borrow the full outfit from someone until she had her own to go around in. She said the shocking part was that people didn't bother to root around for a tissue to blow noses but used the niqab from the outside as a handkerchief . She borrowed it from a nurse.she said the inside was stiff with snot. She may just have been unlucky.

Dunno.

I fear any religion which states that anybody who gives it up should be put to death. Does that make me Islamophobic?

So, that is a school in Britain, insisting that eleven year old girls wear full covering? That's child abuse. No less. The local authority needs to step in.

Oh look! Here's something from the front page of mumsnet. If eleven year old girls have to wear a burka, why not boys too?

For me, that question says it all really.

Good one.

I believe in fairness.

So, in short answer to riverwalk's question, no, my concern is universal rather than selfish or personal.

Here is a rather shocking article illustrating the ridiculous sort of things that can happen when there are different rules for different sets of people in the same country.

So I agree with mishap and others who says no-one should be exempt from rules which apply to everyone else because that kind of exception means there isn't one law for all but that some people have a privileged position in front of the law where most people don't. It's a simple idea of equal justice whoever you are.

river, no, it isn't their impact on me personally that makes me want to speak out against face-coverings. I just believe in one law for all and I detest oppression of women.

There are many situations where it is essential that people can be identified properly - in court, in an exam, at immigration control etc. No-one should be exempt from this on any grounds.

Within the health service it should also be banned on several grounds, not least those of infection control. A study some years ago showed that a lot of infection was transferred between patients via male doctors' ties. How much worse a full face covering.

In any professional situation where proper communication is required in order to function, the face covering should be banned - e.g. lawyer to client etc.

However much we might wish to be tolerant of others' views and beliefs, fully covering the face negates one of the basic aspects of human communication and has no place in a civilised society.

I do think that it is important that people make an attempt to fit in with the society in which they live. When in Europe I drive on the right.

Thanks to flickety who pointed out to me that there was already this thread running re burkas. as I had tried to start my own.
My point was security, be it in hospital, bank, anywhere where employees have to wear security badges- how on earth can you tell the difference between 2 burka wearers?
Also, as demonstrated by the man in a burka mentioned at Heathrow, and the jewellry raid mentioned by another poster, the anonymity given by the burka is extremely dangerous.
And as for the nurse (or was it doctor) who made the remark about "giving out tablets" to a patient etc . etc, she is definitely in the wrong job.

Bags you seem to be particularly irritated by hijabs/niqabs - do you have many where you live and do they have an impact on your daily life?

It was definitely a doctor I heard being interviewed.

Why is face covering anti-social behaviour? Are you against the wearing of the niqab because it makes you feel uncomfortable? I feel uncomfortable in summer when men walk around the town with no tops on. Shall we put a law in place to stop that too?

Surely if a woman shows her face in certain official circumstances and at work (if they have an occupation where someone needs to see your face) why can't they wear what they like the rest of the time.

Hijab, the illusion of choice, created to mask the oppression Muslim women suffer. Another article from Pakistan.

That seems reasonable.