Does anyone like or support face-covering (hijab or burka)??

It is interesting that the same 'frightening for children and the elderly' argument is used against burka wearers and the Naked Rambler but not in respect of the witches, glowing skeletons and ghosts who will soon be haunting our streets.

This is a very complex subject. From my point of view I have no problem with burka wearers but really dislike people wearing masks. I had nightmares after watching the film about Ned Kelly and also 'The man in the iron mask', am OK with the Batman and Robin type, but would have the screaming ad dabs if I encountered someone wearing a 'Plague Doctor' one.

60 years ago, in this country, almost all brides arrived for their wedding, in high necked, long sleeved, full length gowns, their faces covered by veils, Widows, and other female relatives, remained veiled during the period of mourning. What was that all about?

Why do school children have to wear uniforms? Why in the woolen mills did machinists have pink overalls, while supervisors had blue and the mechanics had none? Why do lady bowlers still wear knee length GREY skirts? Why was I required to wear skirts and a blue overall as a bank teller (seen only from the waist up) while my new 17 yr old trainee wore his own suit and tie? Is it to do with control? Is it to 'keep them in their place'?

Also a propos of absolutely nothing - what about the custom of the wife walking 10 or more paces behind her husband? I understand that when an otherwise modern-minded and liberal Iraqi woman was asked why she tolerated having to walk behind her husband, she simply replied "Land mines"

Way off the point here, but I was impressed - moved even - when DH was in the Lymphoma ward of the Royal Free and the patient opposite him (an ultra-Orthodox jew)who was very gravely ill was being treated by a young female Muslim doctor in the full scarf thingy and I realised that these religious differences which seem so deep under different circumstances, are quite irrelevant when it comes to saving lives.It is a memory which has stayed with me.

I think anyone who voluntarily wants to walk around as a black blob is either horrendously insecure or extremely ugly. Our culture is for a man to be proud of his woman, not ashamed and want to hide her under a black sheet, and for the woman to want to look good for her man (and vice versa of course). In Britain today we have the freedom to be ourselves, we don't have to skulk indoors until a male relation condescends to take us out. Surely that's one reason Muslims come here?

Covering one's face in our culture has been, from highwaymen to bank robbers, a sign of hiding your identity and being up to no good. Don't like it.

(When Muslim kids come out of school how do they know which black blob is their's?)

I hate seeing burkas and niquabs I think they are hateful and and I see the wearing of them a retrograde step for women Many years ago when I worked in London Saudi women would come over to our capital to visit Harley Street, and when they were shopping in the West End they would be stared at as an oddity as they would be wearing these strange black niquab things that seemed to have a nose beak, it made them look like crows and frankly they were figures of fun. Now sadly there are more and more women walking about our high streets with their face covered. I understand peripheral vision is affected in the wearing of the burka. I know that some Muslim women over here say they choose to wear them, well they wouldn't have the luxury of choosing anything about their lives if they lived in Saudi or Afghanistan and yet many can be so critical of their host country. For some wearing this hideous medieval get up is any anti western statement. I don't agree with France's stance, I don't think you can arrest people if they choose to go around wearing these clothes, but I wouldn't let them in banks and shops, after all bikers have to remove their visors and you can't have one rule for one and not for others. Similarly a terrorist was able to escape arrest and fled the country in a burqa. I understand conservative Muslims abhorrence to some of the worst excesses that they would see on our streets, especially at night. I think most ordinary people don't want to see drunken girls lying on the pavement showing their knickers. However, I think you can still dress modestly without going to the lengths of looking like a mobile tent. I notice that women who walk about in my local town in this grotesque garb are often accompanied by their men who are always dressed in western clothes, they being men, have of course the option to wear whatever they choose another example of the deeply ingrained misogyny that seems to be endemic in that religion. I have to say I also don't like to see small girls wearing head scarves, why for heaven's sake? Is it because they deem hair sexually alluring? Well shame on them because some of the little girls I have seen wearing head scarves have been as young as 4 or 5. Being brought up a Roman Catholic I can remember as a child being told to cover my head in church and I always thought why don't men have to do the same. My mother used to wear this back lace thing in church called a mantilla, as did most of the other women. Happily, covering the head in church doesn't seem to matter any more, which is good because it's all about women being submissive which is the usual stance dished out by patriarchal religions. Although many young Muslim women in my local town wear predominantly western clothes they still often have the headscarf on in fact I remember a while back being at my health club when I party of girls from a local senior school came in to get dressed after a swimming lesson, the two things I noticed was that the three Muslim girls amongst them separated themselves off from their white counterparts and spent ages after getting dressed faffing around with their head scarves, it's quite apparent that many of these girls do not mix with their peer group and wish to remain separate. Yasmin Allibah Brown is a prominent Muslim journalist and is vehemently opposed to women covering themselves in this manner and adopts the "when in Rome" approach and I applaud her for it.

I am already on record as saying that I don't like face coverings (for all the reasons that other posters have mentioned). However, if you ban them, where does that leave the woman who has been coerced/forced into wearing them? Can she no longer go out of her house?

Thank you Bags. Think I'm getting a little too exercised by this subject. Off to lie down in a darkened room. Or in other words, have my tea

On a lighter note, earlier this year a friend and I were in Ireland and went to visit some nuns who had taught us at school in England. We were invited to lunch and expected to eat in the community dining room, but no, the three of them, average age 80+, all in modern clothes, bundled us into their car drove off to the very good restaurant at the local golf club where all the staff knew them, gave us an excellent lunch and then insisted on paying using one of their credit cards.

We hear a lot about respecting other cultures beliefs and norms, but no one talks of our cultural norms. In Europe we have a cult of the face. Go back in time, to literature and law. The Celts cut off an enemies head and displayed it. Medieval Kings displayed the decapitated heads of their enemies on city gates. Someone who covers their face has always been assumed to be up to some evil. Our distrust of the hoodie arises because we cannot see the wearer's face.

Our culture is deeply suspicious of people who cover their faces, See how character is judged by looking at someone's face. We decide from those imperceptible changes in a face that make expression whether we trust someone, suspect them and even love them. From the time it was possible to do so we have used photographs of the face to indentify people.

I feel that while I would always try to respect other people's beliefs and I have no problems with head or body coverings or the wearing of religious tokens. I feel very strongly that the cult of the face so underlies our culture that this is something we should expect people who live here to respect.

You're still a step ahead of me though, nightowl . Well said, again.

Sorry Bags crossed posts

What nationality? Most of them are British for goodness sake! and a bit . The veil has nothing to do with religion or nationality and everything to do with culture, and that is man made. And I mean man and not mankind.

Is that young British Moslem women? If so, how does a veil express their Britishness? The religion bit I can understand.

Mona Siddiqui was the guest on Desert Island Discs this morning. Although she wears Western clothes herself she commented that many young Muslim women are currently chosing to return to the veil in order to express commitment to their religion and nationality.

Thinks of all those ads that want you to wear this or that in order to "turn heads".

I suppose it could be irritation sometimes. Wolf whistles and so on.... But stuff like that isn't usually irritating enough for one to want to hide. Is it?

Replace "on how they look" with "by how..."

If women feel "released from the pressure of being judged on how they look" by covering themselves up, we should be ashamed of our society. However, I don't think it's that bad. I think those who cover up for that reason do so because of low self esteem. And what causes them to have such low self esteem is the real problem.

nightowl, another spot on comment.

They would have to uncover their faces to get a UK passport, of course. Hats not allowed either, so not sure how that works with headscarves and turbans.
I did agree with the school that said no long flowing cover-ups allowed. I do not think you can be safe in a school environment (stairs, science lessons etc) dressed like that, or participate fully in the curriculum.
I guess if you happened to work in an office with a few covered up women it would not be a major problem would it.

I prefer to see someone's face when I am conversing with them "face to face" (or not!). What happens with passport photos I wonder?

Ideal on bad hair days, bad skin days, got nothing to wear days, I feel fat days....and so on...

I accept your argument vampirequeen but I absolutely cannot agree that the only way a woman can be taken on her own merits is by covering her face. Women are not the problem here.

Do the women who were the different coverings feel repressed or do they feel released from the pressure of being judged by how they look?

If we argue that someone should have the right not to wear something then equally we must allow that others will want to wear something that we maybe don't approve of.

I have ^some* sympathy for it too and I have mixed feelings about the French ban. On the one had I agree with the "let people wear what they like" argument but on the other hand I accept that, in fact, we can very rarely wear just what we like. We do actually have to conform to certain usually unwritten 'rules'. A bikini is allright in some places or circumstances but certainly not all. Similarly, a burka-type garment may be OK in some circumstances, but not all. One of those "not alls" is Western 'making-some-attempt-to-be-gender-equal' Society. There's no hiding from the fact that most of the time, the burka is a symbol of female repression. It's also a religious repression. Neither of those repressions is welcome, nor should be, in a civilised society. And no, I don't think all cultures are equal.