Quebec Goes Full Racist And I Flip My Lid

[alahmnat]

I don’t see any oppressed Muslim women subjugated under the thumbs of their husbands and fathers in this thread either, and yet here we are.

[Nightflyer]

@AndreStmaur

My answer to this, and I would not defend the law otherwise, is that it actually helps the women who do not want to wear the most extreme forms of religious attire to escape the pressure of their family and neighbours.

So it’s perfectly acceptable for men to dictate what a woman should or shouldn’t wear, for the women’s own good of course, as long as it’s the men you approve of who are doing it? It’s perfectly acceptable to deny women their agency as long as it’s for an “acceptable reason”?

How about the women make their own choices on what to wear, for themselves, and if the men don’t approve, they can look somewhere else and mind their own [expletive] business.

[AndreStmaur]

@Missy_Pants

“extreme and debilitating” - how is a face covering extreme and debilitating?

Try to wear a burqa for a few days. According to what I read, it hinders your vision, the way you experience your surroundings, your ability to walk and move around.

@Nightflyer

So it’s perfectly acceptable for men to dictate what a woman should or shouldn’t wear

It is not only men. There are women who vote that law.

@Brainspore

I don’t think women should HAVE to cover their chests. I think they should be ALLOWED to cover their chests. Same goes for burqas and other face coverings. You can’t liberate women by writing laws dictating what they are and aren’t allowed to wear.

The intent, in my mind, is to write laws restricting what their families will require them to wear.

Now, if you excuse me the BBS software complained that I post too much in this thread and indeed the discussion is running in circles. I think I have made my point clearly enough, you may be convinced or not and we will see what happens in Quebec in a few years. It is late here, good night.

[Brainspore]

@AndreStmaur

The intent, in my mind, is to write laws restricting what their families will require them to wear.

The law doesn’t target families who oppress women. It targets the women themselves, whether they want to wear the garment or not.

The women who wear the garment out of choice have just had the choice taken away. The women who were wearing the garments due to coercion from family members will now likely just be told not to ride public transportation at all.

A real feminist doesn’t go around burning other people’s bras.

[anon50609448]

@AndreStmaur

Quite on the contrary, I see that these laws in France seemed to decrease the tension between the non-muslim European population and the muslim one.

I’m not going to ignore your experience of living in France. I also can’t ignore articles show a strong divide over the issue, Muslim groups that reported increases in violence against Muslims by non-Muslims after the ban came into effect, or reports that a small group of women are effectively living under house arrest because of the ban.

Whether the law is helping the extremist groups in the middle east recruit and fundraise doesn’t even have much to do with the extent of the effect of the law in France (which is a law that only affects a thirtieth of a percent of the population anyway). It has more to do with whether it is an example of western nations targeting people of Muslim faith with restrictions based on their faith. But I think arguing about whether a face covering is religious or not instead of considering how a law affects the women it targets is definitely playing into the hands of extremists who want a religious war.

@AndreStmaur

What I said is that these women are already used as a playing piece in an international game by salafist organisations. The law is trying to avoid that, while balancing the interest of the public at large with religious practice. They can still wear a head scarf and they can still ride the bus.

The law will affect different people differently. There will be women who are openly defiant of the law, women who decide not to wear a veil because of the law, and women who simply don’t leave the house. Among those who choose to stop wearing the veil some will feel it’s nice to have an excuse, others will feel they’re being treated unfairly. So basically among women the law targets, it will most benefit the ones who are probably in the best position to represent themselves and make choices for themselves, and most harm those who are already the most marginalized. That sounds like a bad law to me.

@AndreStmaur

What I said is that these women are already used as a playing piece in an international game by salafist organisations.

That’s precisely my point. Extremists are using them as game pieces. The solution you are proposing is to make a counter move with the same pieces. I say stop playing the game.

@Espresso

in an online discussion, someone claimed there are approximately 90 fully veiled women living in Quebec (population: 8.2 million), presumably the vast majority in Montreal.

Back when a discussion about giving the oath of citizenship helped to sway the last election, it was literally over two women.

@AndreStmaur

should bus passengers need to cover their face because of the extreme cold, no-one in Canada would require them to not do so.

I think this is the typical Internet syndrome of having your buttons pushed. We have a law, which may or may not be a good idea. Then, people on Internet forums go and seek the most absurd situation to demonstrate that other people whom they never met and know nothing about are unjustly repressed.

You apparently have not read the law, because it says precisely that covering your face as a public servant or when receiving a public serivce is illegal. You have got the complement of the internet syndrome you are describing. You are so sure that people who disagree with you are being unreasonable that you haven’t checked if they are correct. Even if you agree that banning niqabs is good public policy, the law as written is stupid, and passing it without providing guidance to civil servants on how it should be implemented is stupid as well.

From section 9 of the law:

Personnel members of bodies must exercise their functions with their face
uncovered, unless they have to cover their face, in particular because of their
working conditions or because of occupational or task-related requirements.

Similarly, persons receiving services from such personnel members must
have their face uncovered.

While it mentions that “accommodations” are possible, it suggests that they are case-by-case, and it does not exclude safety equipment or warm clothing for winter conditions. It also doesn’t spell out any mechanism for receiving such accommodations or say who is responsible for adjudicating them. The people who wrote the law were in such a rich to create a political wedge issue that they didn’t think through what they were writing for two seconds.

@anon89609066

I hope they would just go meh, get on, show me your card, ok. Seems likely. What skin in the game do bus drivers have? None. Laws like this that shift responsibility onto workers are completely off-base, not to mention the blatant racism.

Well, aggressively racist bus drivers will use it as an excuse to be racist and hostile. Most bus drivers just won’t want to suddenly be placed in the position of being the religion cops and will do what they can to ignore it, especially since the government enacted the law without providing any guidance to civil servants. The women who are affected by this simply won’t know what to expect.

[Nightflyer]

@AndreStmaur

It is not only men. There are women who vote that law.

You are still saying that it is acceptable for someone other than the woman wearing the clothes to force their idea of “acceptable” dress upon her, by force of law. You are saying that it’s okay to take away a woman’s autonomy because golly gee, she’s not capable for deciding for herself, she can’t possibly stand up to the pressure of her relatives. She needs some big, strong lawmaker who knows what’s best for her to make her choices for her. That’s supposed to give her “freedom”?

[GulliverFoyle]

@AndreStmaur

The choice of the word “crusade” is entirely yours.

If the shoe fits…

@AndreStmaur

As to the fight against fundamentalists, I don’t think we are doing too bad. At least we managed to not elect a fanatic, right-wing populist with a toupee.

Tu quoque and genetic fallacies in two sentences. Are you going for bad argument bingo?

I know, I know, you believe people who disagree with you are all as brainwashed as you think any Muslim woman wearing a burqa is. Here’s a tip, leveling false consciousness arguments against the people with whom you’re debating is not a tactic likely to sway them or any discerning observer to your point of view.

[popobawa4u]

@AndreStmaur

You can’t change the requirements of a religion because it suits your particular political agenda, which is exactly what the salafists did with the face cover. Or if you can, then my religion requires that you shut up, please respect my beliefs. Do you see the problem?

Or - people are pressed to excuse their cultural practices when they need no such excuse. IMO wearing a face cover is a perfectly effective and legitimate secular strategy for dealing with meddlesome populations of people who appear unable to mind their own business.

It is, frankly, nobody else’s business why any given person chooses to wear what they wear. I am not even arguing for any particular norm, I am arguing that shared cultural norms have no place in such matters.

[anon50609448]

@Espresso

approximately 90 fully veiled women living in Quebec

I was just thinking about this some more this morning. There’s over 100 murders in quebec a year. With a 75% closure rate, that almost certainly means there are more murderers walking around than women with veils. The provincial government taking it’s take to legislate this issue is just insane. It’s sort of like Ontario’s frozen sushi law (except a hideous violation of human rights against a very small marginalize minority instead of a problem for restaurants).

[tinoesroho]

Stay out of Canada in winter, then. I bet you wouldn’t like how pretty much everyone on the prairies wears balaclavas and scarves.

[tinoesroho]

Like Orthodox Judaism, then. Huh.

[Espresso]

I haven’t read the law yet, but I think it’s safe to assume there’s an exception for these public servants’ face coverings:

Can’t find the story now for some reason, but saw something saying transit workers will not be doing any kind of enforcement until they receive clear guidance.

Good thing, too, it would have been chaos on Halloween with thousands of people out with covered/disguised faces, breaking the new law by riding public transit or going to the ER with a painted face. I’m sure there will be some creative anti-62 demonstrations on the 31st regardless…

[anon61221983]

Isn’t Quebec where the French speaking minority primarily lives? So wouldn’t this be more likely also influence from France, since they passed the same thing a few years back?

[anon61221983]

Muslim women everywhere thank you for clearing that up for them. Good thing they have you to help them better understand how to practice their faith. They’d be lost without you, for sure. /s

[anon61221983]

Yet you still believe you should speak for them and tell them how they should practice their faith?

[anon61221983]

Should we ban high heels?

[kwhitefoot]

Did you miss the bit where I pointed out how I dislike such laws and how I live in Norway where we also wear scarves and ski masks?

[Espresso]

There’s definitely inspiration coming from France here. And more generally, the legal system here is founded on a Civil Code.

But in o so many other ways, this place is really not very much like France at all.

[anon61221983]

Cool. Good to know, thanks. I’m afraid I don’t know nearly as much about our lovely neighbors to the north as I should.

[anon50609448]

@Espresso

Can’t find the story now for some reason, but saw something saying transit workers will not be doing any kind of enforcement until they receive clear guidance.

I heard that’s what the Montreal transit workers union said. Not direction from the province, “You don’t have to do this” but the union saying, “Hey, we aren’t expanding our job specs to law enforcement unless you give us something in writing.”

@Espresso

I haven’t read the law yet, but I think it’s safe to assume there’s an exception for these public servants’ face coverings:

This is what is crazy, there isn’t. Now clearly they won’t actually enforce it on police in riot gear, on people who need to do welding, on outdoor forestry workers in the north who need to protect their skin from dangerous temperatures, etc. I can stand this kind of sloppy, stupid law. Laws that are made as political favours or wedges are usually developed by political insiders and not given proper consideration by the public service.

If you let the civil service do their jobs, you’d have people point things out like there needs to be an exception for face coverings that are required for jobs or for safety. You’d have someone point out that public servants aren’t going to know what is expected of them, that the law says accommodations can be made but doesn’t say who gets to make final decisions about accommodations, etc.

That kind of thing drives me nuts. (Of course that’s far more of a personal beef and a pet peeve. The fact that the law singles out a small number of people to stomp on their fundamental freedoms is obviously the bigger issue, and I’m actually glad that if they are going to enact such an awful policy that they are trying to do it with a terribly written law).

Of course I also can’t rule out the possibility that someone did consider this and chose not to mention it in the law. The problem is that the number of exemptions would probably outnumber of the number of cases to actually enforce by at least 100 times. It would save them time to simply write: “Look, this law is just about niqabs and burkas, okay?”