Well. if you are born into a muslim family, that makes you muslim. You have no choice. And if you decide to leave the faith that requires you to wear a full body covering - that makes you an apostate. Please look up what the “punishment” for the “crime” of apostasy is in Muslim countries. In some it’s death.
So. no. I don’t think that most muslim women wear the garment because the want to. To do otherwise subjects them to beatings and worse.
Frankly, I disagree.
Precedent in public accomodations law exists. There will be a resolution between the parties involved, because the store manager failed at America.
While I think people ought to be able to dress however they wish and not have any negative consequences, this isn’t a case of religious freedom. While very few women who are not Muslim wear these garments, so it’s associated with Islam, it’s not called for explicitly in the Koran. It is, however, traditional in Arabic societies, and may have been so before Mohammed. So it is not the equivalent of the Sikh turban, for instance, or the tzitzit or the Mormon temple garment. A person may feel that they want to cover their face in public for any number of reasons - modesty, germs, shame, or paranoia.
Of course, just as there are dress codes forbidding, say, bare feet or shirtlessness, or compelling ties and jackets, there can, I suppose be a dress code forbidding the covering of the face. It may be bad business, but I don’t see why it would be against the law - a woman wearing a headscarf would be perfectly welcome, and a Japanese tourist with a dust mask would also, of course, be politely requested to remove it.
Maybe. I get so tired of blaming Ohio and Florida.
And I agree entirely that anyone who does not want to wear the niqab should not have to. I also think, though, that they shouldn’t be prevented from wearing it if they want to.
From all accounts I’ve seen, the story in question is a case of a woman who is wearing it of her own free will. If you have other information, I’d love to see it.
No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that a woman choosing to wear something that makes her feel comfortable around men is not an insult directed at men any more than choosing to wear something other than a bikini to a beach is.
It’s about what makes her feel comfortable. Why should what another person wears be dictated by how it makes you feel?
That’s what I mean by “making it about you.” Not that an insult against all men generally isn’t also an insult against you specifically, but that you shouldn’t take “this is what I feel comfortable wearing” as an insult at all.
I agree, but it isn’t really a bright line issue for me until we get to full face veils and burkas, as in the case in the OP.
I think one issue we see fairly frequently is a liberal disconnect about women’s rights when they conflict with Islam, where liberals toss women’s rights under the bus to give privilege and deference to Islamic misogyny because Islam is perceived as a minority religion, in both senses of the word. And I say that as a liberal.
This is a tricky issue, because I think people should be able to wear what they want to. But it is also the case that shapeless full face and body coverings are a way of removing women from society as humans and as individuals.
I think it is more complicated than that. We do what we are acculturated to do, and what we are forced to do against our will. Our free will, to the extent we have it, is tempered by external forces. So I think it is a mix of both. Many, perhaps most, perhaps not, would get rid of their coverings if they could. Just look at the difference between what women used to wear in Iran before the Islamic Revolution to what they wear now. But it is really hard in a rigid culture to tell what people would do if they could because culture, including misogyny, becomes ingrained, and their mindset is that they can’t do anything. Being raised in the misogyny of certain religions creates its own version of Stockholm syndrome.
You can believe what you like, but “being against” confronts others with your beliefs.
Another reason why I am not interested in it as a religious issue is that people can have a religion - but clothes do not. Personally, I would love to wear a niqab, but the reason I don’t is because people would assume that I am Muslim which would (sad to say) cause me only more problems in life. As an article of clothing, I like it for practical reasons, which are not affected by me not being Muslim. I simply don’t like to be stared at. And if people were able to mind their own business, they would not even notice whether I was wearing a niqab or not.
Those are valid observations in some areas, but they don’t seem to apply in the US, which is the region in discussion here. If in a country such as Syria, women may be attacked for not being covered, and in the US they are discouraged from being covered, then it seems reasonable to assume that most of those who go covered in the US genuinely choose to do this. Duress is not transferable across the globe from a person who does not want to do a thing, to someone who does. “Since some other people hate being made to do this, you are not allowed to do it yourself” seems to be a poor rationalization.
What obligation do Muslim women (or anybody else) have to adopt living according to a philosophy of individualism? That seems like an ethnocentric gloss which simply normalizes and gives primacy to the traditions of individualism.
Oh, I agree that’s reprehensible. If the West hadn’t already screwed up the Middle East more than enough with our well-intentioned (and less so) attempts to fix things over there, I’d suggest going right over there and putting an end to that.
Of course, the last 15 (25? 70? 100?) years are a pretty good indication that that wouldn’t end well, for anyone.
And, where this is happening in our countries, I think we should do all we can to stop and punish the beatings and the death threats and any other abuse that is coercing women into wearing anything that they don’t choose to. The first step, however, to achieving that is to build trust enough between the Muslim women and the legal institutions, and showing the Muslim women that we hold no regard for their cultural and religious cultures (nor for our own laws which guarantee freedom of religion) is not a good way to start building trust.
We’re talking past each other. I’m speaking about the hijab/niqab and the general cultural and/or religious attitude related to it. You are speaking about Ms Ishaq specifically.
We aren’t disagreeing. Perhaps Ms Ishaq is the rare case of an empowered Muslim women choosing her veil for her own reasons and free will. Good for her. But I’m concerned about the other women without a choice.
a priori you expect people to mind their own business? When has that ever happened?
And excuse the wordplay, but in a practical sense the manager was minding her own business in the commercial enterprise sense, (and mismanaging it in the legal and practical sense).
As am I.
As I said, I think that anyone coercing a woman into wearing a religious garment against her will should be punished for it.
But I don’t think that banning the garment, or discriminating against those wearing it, are good options either.
You’re concerned about the women without a choice, but a woman without the choice to wear something has had her freedom to choose removed just as effectively as a woman without the choice not to wear it.
(And to be clear, I’m speaking of the specific example of Ms. Safi; Ms. Ishaq is a different case, but one who more explicitly illustrates that some women wear niqab of their own choice.)
I’d say that shapeless full face and body coverings just for women are pretty much the sine qua non for religious/cultural misogyny. Some may be empowered by wearing them, but in the aggregate I find the full face and body coverings to embodiment of treating women as inferior, and the property of men.
At what point is intervention necessary? And would a court agree with you?
It’s basically the same concept as free speech.
I can choose to wear a KKK hat and gown or a tshirt with “I want to be Hitlers gay husband” on it. I should be allowed to wear it if I want to but I can’t expect to make many new friends…
When did I specify “intervention”?
What I have said is that I think that in the aggregate full face and body coverings like the burqa and niqab are the sine qua non for religious/cultural misogyny. I don’t see you actually disagreeing with that characterization in your post to me. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can or should be generally banned, just as don’t think that Westboro Baptist Church can or should be generally banned. But that doesn’t give them universal license to do whatever they want.
What I do think is that we must not privilege religion. Religious beliefs and practices should have no more or fewer rights than secular ones. And full face masks can and should be regulated on an equal basis whether they are balaclavas or religious full face masks. (I’d add that full face veils are even more concealing than a form fitting balaclava, so they certainly deserve the same treatment, not less.)
When you described a state of affairs and then the desire to see them changed. Use whatever word you like for that moment when someone does something.
You’re mixing freedom of worship with freedom of speech I think?
Wearing a niqab is freedom of speech. It’s not Jonestown.
I’d like to see religion turned into puppies and rainbows, or something equally benign. But that doesn’t imply that I think the government should “intervene.”
No, I’m not mixing them. When I say we should not privilege religion I mean just that. You shouldn’t be exempt from the rules that apply to all of us by saying “Religion!”. If I can legally be prohibited from wearing a full face mask such a balaclava in a store, you should be legally be subject to the exact same prohibition, even if you say your balaclava is “religious”.
You can say “religion” or “freedom of speech” but both are rights that compete with other rights and are subject to limitations. If your religion says you should wear sunglasses, and only sunglasses, you don’t get to ignore the no shoes, no shirt no service sign on a business and say that your religious right to nudity requires the business owner to serve you. Likewise, there are legitimate secular reasons for prohibiting full face masks. Let me emphasize this again a headscarf is not a full face mask. The details matter in determining the balance of rights.
Question for you:
In the aggregate, do you feel that full face and body coverings such as a niqab or burka are a positive symbol of women’s freedom? Yes or no?
Banks routinely say “do not come into our establishment on Halloween wearing a mask” because of concerns over robbery, this is the basis for my comment. If banks are OK with niqab, then I stand corrected.
Or, is it basically the opposite? The KKK and Nazis are reviled by many because they were oppressors and murderers. But instead of having a problem with the uniform of the oppressor, what people seem to be doing here is persecuting the would-be uniform of who they say is the victim. Because the victim inspires associations you to feel uncomfortable about.
There is pretty much no way to rationalize criticising their appearance on a cultural basis without drawing them into your own ideological symbols and polarities which they may want no part of.
