France bans the Burqa

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Post by FABlux »

I don't have any objection to women wearing the burkha in e.g. the street, but I do feel there should be restrictions at work, especially if the wearers are interacting with others, e.g. teachers, nurses or even shop assistants.


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Post by Horus »

And there you have the nub of the argument :) it is all about eye contact. We as a species need eye contact to read the other persons intentions and emotions, we can judge sincerity, amusement, dislike, affection, disdain, distress and any other number of emotional indicators just by looking at someones face. To conceal that from someone else is not normal, if you consider what that person is actually doing, it is very one sided. Whilst they are prepared to read your emotions by having eye contact, they are in fact denying you the same courtesy.
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Post by PRchick »

JOJO wrote:I don't think women should be permitted, expected or allowed to wear a Burqa in Western countries
Wow. "permitted, expected or allowed"? And who gets to make the "allowed" and "not allowed" lists for women's attire in the UK? Let's add mini skirts and ripped jeans to that list. ;)
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Post by PRchick »

Glyphdoctor wrote:If the male accompanying the two women in niqab was staring at her too, it definitely was a case of no manners. If he was really respectable and not just dressed that way for show, he would definitely have acted like he was on a London subway and lowered his eyes rather than stare at Ebikatsu. Like I said, I've seen a lot of hostile and rude behavior on the metro that is religiously motivated. That's another reason I prefer buses over the metro. People mind their own business and treat eachother with respect more on the bus than they do on the metro.
Well, that's true. Her husband should have decked the jerk.
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Post by Ebikatsu »

PR Chick

when you've been amongst it on a regular basis you get to know the different kinds of stares. On another tram there was a really lovely old lady staring at me and it didn't bother me a bit, she would look then when I made eye contact she would smile and turn away only to look again curiously after a minute or so. That's quite normal because of course I am different and a curiosity. I have plenty of that in Sinai
:mrgreen:


These 3 were staring and smiling because you can see their eyes creasing at the sides and they refused to look away when I made eye contact.. It's just plain bad manners to stare boldly without looking away. The man who's face was uncovered was staring right into my face, then looking at the women, then back to me.

Maybe some men would have decked the man. There is no way my husband would in that situation. He would never have confronted the women in public. It's a culture thing. If it were 3 men then that would have been different.

In this culture it is more dignified to walk away in disgust at them than confront a woman, and in his eyes it would be lowering himself to the other man's level to be so disrespectful to his wives, as he was to me.

The man wearing as Glyph said the traditional modest Islamic dress was NOT behaving traditionally. These men usually will lower their gaze in front of a woman and do not make eye contact. That was my proof that all of his clothing and his wives clothing and perceived modesty was a show.

The hijab thing is a joke here though Horus.

The whole idea supposedly is to be modest and not attract attention.
How can that be then when they buy the most colourful, spangly scarves and team it with Co Co the clown make up, and low rise jeans, and porn star black patent leather knee boots, with huge belt buckles on the crotch and wearing the tight frilly lingerie on top of the thin nylon polo necks?

It doesn't bother me at all what folk wear but don't say you are a modest moslem in that 'get up', then look at Westerners in their shorts and think of them as any less modest.

It's the hypocrisy that's the maddening thing.

On another note I watched a a little toddler in the street, about 18 months old was running around screaming and pulling at a crowd of about 8-10 black niqab'd women who were all standing chatting as he was desperately trying to find his mother under the yards and yards of black flowing nylon.
That for a child must be really frightening in the middle of a busy street :(

Quicker it is banned the better I say.
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Post by Horus »

Ebikatsu wrote:
How can that be then when they buy the most colourful, spangly scarves and team it with Co Co the clown make up, and low rise jeans, and porn star black patent leather knee boots, with huge belt buckles on the crotch and wearing the tight frilly lingerie on top of the thin nylon polo necks?
Having seen similar dress myself I also wonder where the modesty aspect comes into it. That surely makes the hijab just another fashion accessory rather than a religious thing? imagine the reaction if Western women took to wearing Nuns habits in a similar way with mini skirts and thigh boots as a fashion style 8)
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Post by Ebikatsu »

Horus wrote:Ebikatsu wrote:
How can that be then when they buy the most colourful, spangly scarves and team it with Co Co the clown make up, and low rise jeans, and porn star black patent leather knee boots, with huge belt buckles on the crotch and wearing the tight frilly lingerie on top of the thin nylon polo necks?
Having seen similar dress myself I also wonder where the modesty aspect comes into it. That surely makes the hijab just another fashion accessory rather than a religious thing? imagine the reaction if Western women took to wearing Nuns habits in a similar way with mini skirts and thigh boots as a fashion style 8)
:lol:
Now that would be a funny sight!

I think the hijab's are beautiful on some of the girls. It's really just a fashion accessory as you say. Nothing at all to do with modesty.

The funniest thing here in Cairo is the new Gulf trend taking to the streets! :mrgreen:
The Cone Head Hijab.

These girls use a Pringle tub, or a Coke can at the back of the hijab to make it look to the men like they have a huge mane of hair, it's a real turn on for the women to have guys thinking they have beautiful hair underneath the scarf.
A bit like Tefal man!! :?
Again nothing at all modest about that idea. Purely to attract the opposite sex ;)

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A lot of them need to book into Hijab Rehab I think :mrgreen:
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Post by Horus »

I think that you may have explained it very well to those of us not really familiar with what it is all about. It would certainly appear to be used mainly as a fashion statement rather than a religious one, the fact that they are attempting to draw attention to their hair rather than the usual reason of hiding their hair from the lustful gazes of men, really falls apart with this style of hijab.

In reality they are no different than say the Victorian ladies who would act prim and proper and conceal themselves in full length dresses that covered their arms to the wrist, their legs down to the ankles and up to their necks. However they still emphasised their charms by forcing themselves into tight corsets to narrow their waists and give themselves an hour glass figure, they then attached large bustles on the back to attract the eyes of admiring males to their bums and boobs. :lol: So the bottom line (no pun intended) is that these young ladies are behaving just the same as their immodest Western equivalents.
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Post by PRchick »

Hi Ebikatsu. I did not mean to insinuate that your husband should have confronted the women. That is not acceptable in any society I think. It was an attempt at a bad joke. Sorry.

I guess the pringles can in the hijab is like socks down a man's pants. :lol: In my day, women stuffed tissue into bras. The things people do to attract the opposite sex. :oops:
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Post by Glyphdoctor »

I've read about the Pringles thing on another site, but to be perfectly honest, I've never ever seen it done, even once. I have to wonder whether it is an urban legend. Have you actually seen it, Ebikatsu?
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Post by PRchick »

PRchick wrote:
JOJO wrote:I don't think women should be permitted, expected or allowed to wear a Burqa in Western countries
Wow. "permitted, expected or allowed"? And who gets to make the "allowed" and "not allowed" lists for women's attire in the UK? Let's add mini skirts and ripped jeans to that list. ;)
I also want to add face piercings and visible tattoos to that list. Who do I write?
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Post by Ebikatsu »

PRchick wrote:Hi Ebikatsu. I did not mean to insinuate that your husband should have confronted the women. That is not acceptable in any society I think. It was an attempt at a bad joke. Sorry.

I guess the pringles can in the hijab is like socks down a man's pants. :lol: In my day, women stuffed tissue into bras. The things people do to attract the opposite sex. :oops:
no worries PR Chick :mrgreen:


Glyph

It was in magazine where Saudi girls were explaining what they used and why they used them. Mostly they now use purpose designed in China, huge flower hair clips instead of the cans, although I saw 2 Gulfies recently in the hospital in white coats with hijabs reaching a good 14-16 inches out from the back of their heads, so one flower clip couldnt have done that.
They were also talking about dropping phone numbers on paper in laps in coffee shops or into windows of cars to make dates .
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Post by Ebikatsu »

Hey Horus!! :?

here's the Gulf Arab - Warren Jeff hybrid look


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Post by Hurghadapat »

Princess Anne hairstyle me thinks :roll:
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Post by Horus »

:lol: Yes I can see the similarities in more ways than one ;)
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Post by Ebikatsu »

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/opini ... ref=global



Ban the Burqa

By MONA ELTAHAWY
Published: July 2, 2009


NEW YORK — I am a Muslim, I am a feminist and I detest the full-body veil, known as a niqab or burqa. It erases women from society and has nothing to do with Islam but everything to do with the hatred for women at the heart of the extremist ideology that preaches it.

We must not sacrifice women at the altar of political correctness or in the name of fighting a growingly powerful right wing that Muslims face in countries where they live as a minority.

As disagreeable as I often find French President Nicolas Sarkozy, he was right when he said recently, “The burqa is not a religious sign, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women. I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory.” It should not be welcome anywhere, I would add.

Yet his words have inspired attempts to defend the indefensible — the erasure of women.

Some have argued that Sarkozy’s right-leaning, anti-Muslim bias was behind his opposition to the burqa. But I would remind them of comments in 2006 by the then-British House of Commons leader Jack Straw, who said the burqa prevents communication. He was right, and he was hardly a right-winger — and yet he too was attacked for daring to speak out against the burqa.

The racism and discrimination that Muslim minorities face in many countries — such as France, which has the largest Muslim community in Europe, and Britain, where two members of the xenophobic British National Party were shamefully elected to the European Parliament — are very real.

But the best way to support Muslim women would be to say we oppose both racist Islamophobes and the burqa. We’ve been silent on too many things out of fear we’ll arm the right wing.

The best way to debunk the burqa as an expression of Muslim faith is to listen to Muslims who oppose it. At the time of Mr. Straw’s comments, a controversy erupted when a university dean in Egypt warned students they would not be able to stay at college dorms unless they removed their burqa. The dean cited security grounds, saying that men disguised as women in burqa could slip into the female dorms.

Soad Saleh, a professor of Islamic law and former dean of the women’s faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University — hardly a liberal, said the burqa had nothing to do with Islam. It was but an old Bedouin tradition.

It is sad to see a strange ambivalence toward the burqa from many of my fellow Muslims and others who claim to support us. They will take on everything — the right wing, Islamophobia, Mr. Straw, Mr. Sarkozy — rather than come out and plainly state that the burqa is an affront to Muslim women.

I blame such reluctance on the success of the ultra-conservative Salafi ideology — practiced most famously in Saudi Arabia — in leaving its imprimatur on Islam globally by persuading too many Muslims that it is the purest and highest form of our faith.

It’s one thing to argue about the burqa in a country like Saudi Arabia — where I lived for six years and where women are treated like children — but it is utterly dispiriting to have those same arguments in a country where women’s rights have long been enshrined. When I first saw a woman in a burqa in Copenhagen I was horrified.

I wore a headscarf for nine years. An argument I had on the Cairo subway with a woman who wore a burqa helped seal for good my refusal to defend it. Dressed in black from head to toe, the woman asked me why I did not wear the burqa. I pointed to my headscarf and asked her “Is this not enough?”
“If you wanted a piece of candy, would you choose an unwrapped piece or one that came in a wrapper?” she asked.

“I am not candy,” I answered. “Women are not candy.”


I have since heard arguments made for the burqa in which the woman is portrayed as a diamond ring or a precious stone that needs to be hidden to prove her “worth.” Unless we challenge it, the burqa — and by extension the erasure of women — becomes the pinnacle of piety.

It is not about comparing burqas to bikinis, as some claim. I used to compare my headscarf to a miniskirt, the two being essentially two sides to the same coin of a woman’s body. The burqa is something else altogether: A woman who wears it is erased.

A bizarre political correctness has tied the tongues of those who would normally rally to women’s rights. One blogger, a woman, lamented that “Sarkozy’s anti-burqa stance deprives women of identity.” It’s precisely the opposite: It’s the burqa that deprives a woman of identity.

Why do women in Muslim-minority communities wear the burqa? Sarkozy touched on one reason when he admitted his country’s integration model wasn’t working any more because it doesn’t give immigrants and their French-born children a fair chance.

But the Muslim community must ask itself the same question: Why the silence as some of our women fade into black either as a form of identity politics, a protest against the state or out of acquiescence to Salafism?

As a Muslim woman and a feminist I would ban the burqa.
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Post by FABlux »

A very interesting article, I wonder how many other muslim women share her feelings :?
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Post by New Gal »

FABlux wrote:A very interesting article, I wonder how many other muslim women share her feelings :?
I do, the burqa is not a requirement within Islam and has been used more as a symbol of control and fundamentalism.

Its very divisive and integration is impossible when its worn.
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