Filthy girls
I first learned about Valley Park Middle School via Tarek Fatah at Facebook. Tarek Fatah is a great fella. He posted pictures of himself at the Gay Pride march the other day – in his wheelchair, beaming, in front of a decorative crowd of marchers.
So what is a Toronto public school doing providing a prayer service in the cafeteria? Where
girls are placed in the back, behind the boys, separated by benches used as shields.
And menstruating girls are segregated, off in their own little group, like this paragraph.
Sitting all the way at the back, yards from the other girls and more yards from the all-conquering boys. Separated out because they’re so dirty and filthy. Ewwwwww endometrium. Ewwwwwwwwww it might come off on me. Ewwwwwwwwww pollution.
Robyn Urback asks a salient question.
How is it that the TDSB can call for instruction on sexism and gender inequality in its Social Studies classes, yet look the other way when girls are facing active discrimination within its walls?
Allow me to answer that question: it can’t.
Despicable behaviour.
It can’t. But it will.
See, when I was in school it was only the kids who thought that girls had cooties.
I do not understand the parents. Are they happy that their daughters are embarrassed, humiliated? do they believe that the simple facts of human life are shameful, sordid? Have they no pride in their little girls? No love for them? No care for who they are? Are they completely off their heads? I do not understand the school governors, the teachers, the head teacher. Is this the shining vision of life ahead for which they are educating the future citizens of a democracy? Surely they are insane.
All good, salient questions.
Do thry provide non-prayer service in the cafeteria?
No they’re not insane, the answer is obvious, for the school board, the doctrine of Multiculturalism is the sacred cow, not liberty, equality or democracy. Multiculturalism usually ‘accommodates’ the least tolerant of cultures by compromising secular democracy.
Didn’t the Canadians invent multiculturalism as a social engineering project?
OK, this may sound stupid, but: how do they know which girls have their periods? Do they check their underwear every morning?
Well, that’s the worst thing – they’ve probably admitted to it. And think what internalising that bogus pathologisation could do to a kid.
Tea, I’m sure they rely on self-reporting. The girls all know that Allah is ogling their naughty bits, and He will smite them if they don’t segregate themselves just as He wants them to.
And you don’t think that’s insane? And by what right do they undermine all their society’s established liberties and humanitarian principles?
So,
1) Allah doesn’t know what menstruation is;
2) The reason why men should avoid menstruating women is so that they won’t get blood on their precious penises.
And that’s why the girls have to sit at the back.
And one more thing – “you” are men/a man; women are “they/them”. Men are subjects, women are things that men have to manage.
Tea, that’s what I was assuming – the the filthy girls are supposed to remove themselves and it’s just a “religious obligation.”
Though come to think of it, if anyone did want to “cheat” it wouldn’t work because eventually someone would notice that she never sat out. Plus if she wanted to cheat maybe she wouldn’t be there in the first place.
That’s another thought – how hard is it for any kid to refuse to join in? That would be worth knowing more about. Is it possible for any kid who is considered “Muslim” to ignore the whole thing?
And that of course raises Richard Dawkins’s point that there are no Muslim/Socialist Realist children.
I understand the reasoning behind why they are letting them pray in school, Friday is a big deal to Muslims like Saturday is to Jewish people and and Sunday to Christians. Obviously we are not going to rearrange western society around a new culture to suit them so we make an accommodation. I would have no problem with this if the religion they belonged to were not so evil. Would they allow me to sacrifice chickens, if it were part of my service, or have sex on the alte?r Are Wiccans allowed to have a room to all get naked in and dance around a fire?
I would have less of a problem with them if they were getting naked and dancing around a fire or sacrificing animals than the stuff they actually do teach. If I were to bring neo-nazi propaganda books to the school I would promptly be thrown off school property and probably be arrested (and rightly so) because some things should not be taught to children. Yet we allow things like the bible and the koran, which are actually worse to be brought in and we actually pay for it.
Accommodation is one thing, setting up a temporary mosque in a public school cafeteria is quite another.
I agree, but I probably would not care if the actual teachings were not so abhorrent. As silly as I find many beliefs people hold if they are harmless I don’t care. But teaching children things that are inherently against basic human rights in a public school is just beyond the pale.
#11 GordonWillis,
No I don’t, I’ll be more explicit. Members of the school board are no more insane than those people who dispute climate change with professional scientists, even though they usually don’t have any relevant qualifications whatsoever and the climatologists are much smarter. Why? Because they think that the climate change hypothesis threatens free market ideology, their sacred cow. Secularism and atheism are seen as threats to Multiculturalism by the multi-culti lobby, whose mantra is ‘inclusion’, even if our liberty is undermined in the process.
I’m not making any references to the school administration in question, however I’m sure we’ve all encountered many people who, even though intelligent, have remarkably limited intellectual horizons. Obvious examples are religious people and the loopier class of greenie and, in my opinion, Multiculturalism is just another religion, with all its dyfunctions.
To avoid misunderstanding, I have nothing against multicultural societies, after all, cultural diversity is a natural outcome of the liberal democratic state. My objection is to multicultural social engineering by arrogant, ignorant people who assume the moral high ground.
This reminds me of an guest entry that Sarah Braasch wrote for Adam Lee’s Daylight Atheism, Gender Desegregation Wednesdays. (http://www.daylightatheism.org/2010/09/gender-desegregation-wednesdays.html)
I feel really bad for these girls. When I used to go to an Islamic Sunday School, I always found the different treatment for boys and girls infuriating. When my grandmother died a few years ago, and we went to the funeral service in a mosque, it was my “time of the month” and there’s apparently a rule saying that women who are menstruating can’t be too close to the dead body. The coffin was up front where the men were, anyway, so I was able to sit with the women, but then when they brought it to the back, and the other women were stepping closer, I had to step away. (Also, apparently, women aren’t allowed to go to the graveyard for the actual burial. I had not known this before, but found out on that day. However, my parents, brothers, and I went to the graveyard later.) I really loved my grandmother, and it bothered me that, even in this sad, horrible time, people would still have the heart to enforce such ridiculous rules.
Since starting college, I’ve noticed something interesting. I have several friends who are Muslim and female (as well as some whose families are members of other religions that have discriminatory ideas about women), and the group of us would usually sit at the front of the classroom. Some of these Muslims girls who I know work really hard and are among the best students in the class. Other students know that they can ask them if they don’t understand a certain topic. They are so intelligent, so eager to learn, so hardworking, so generous–and yet when they go to the mosque, they are likely forced to sit in the back and not able to contribute or have any authority.
@GordonWillis, Comment #4:
I can’t speak for the girls’ parents, obviously, but just to share my own experience, I’ve found that a lot of the time, adults didn’t bother to even give any kind of reason for why they were making me follow a religious rule. Peer pressure was basically used to enforce it, because as embarrassing as it it to be singled out, if you didn’t follow what you were told to do, it would be even more embarrassing
@Ophelia Benson, Comment #13:
I noticed that as well, while reading the Qur’an. There are lots of parts that are addressed (and I’m basing this on the translations, of course) to men, even when talking about women. It’s basically telling men, “These are the rules, and you get to enforce them on the women in your family.”
RJW @ #19 Try this “… are no more insane than those people who dispute Christianity with professional thelogians, even though they usually don’t have any relevant qualifications whatsoever and the theologians are much smarter. Why? Because they think that Christianity threatens their ideology.”
Never accept a professional’s/expert’s opinion unless they have demonstrated that they should be trusted. Journalists, politicians, bankers, investment advisers, car salesmen, the list seems endless. Just having the required qualifications and being “smart” doesn’t make one right all the time.
Regarding your last para, the term “multicultural society” means different things to different people. Some parts of some cultures need to be jettisoned to allow adherents of that culture to live in a liberal democratic society.
Re: Multiculturalism
It really all depends, to me, by what the word is used for. There are plenty of ways in which we’re all different from each other which are completely fine. There are other ways in which we’re different where one group is actually right and other are wrong (whether about scientific theories like evolution or ideas about equal rights).
Personally, I place more blame on the people who take a concept like equal rights and redefine it to mean that, if they don’t get to discriminate, then they’re being discriminated against. I don’t think that’s a result of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism gets used to justify or excuse discriminatory actions by many different religious groups, instead of only letting the majority religion get away with discriminatory actions. In other words, I don’t think it causes the problem of people getting away with discrimination but can be used/misused in such a way that it lets more people get away with it.
I wonder how this works. Do menstrual fluids emit some kind of radiation that contaminates the rotting corpse and makes it unclean in the eyes of Allah? Does the intensity of this radiation vary inversely with the square of distance, or does it follow a hitherto unknown law? If the latter, there could be a Nobel Prize in the offing for some enterprising Muslim scientist.
Accommodation is one thing, setting up a temporary mosque in a public school cafeteria is quite another.
Quite. I live in a very muslim part of the world and here, muslim boys have always been allowed to leave school to go for friday prayers (from about 1230 pm) and some will return to school after prayers if they have school activities. No make up lessons are usually involved as the school day usually ends by 2 pm for all kids anyway and the muslim boys are often not missing much. A lot of the boys dont actually go to the mosque but that’s another story. Muslim girls never have gotten this dispensation as it is NOT necessary for them to attend the congregational prayer and it is something that is pretty standard all in all muslim cultures.
This whole canadian school thing is pretty stupid and the school board could have avoided the mess by just letting the muslim kids go off early on fridays.
BTW, I grew up in a hindu household with a prayer room that was off limits to menstruating females. I frequently broke the taboo (the room had storage cabinets which contained stuff I occassionally needed) and my mother punished me for it whenever she found out. I got my revenge back by defiling the whole lot of deities on display with a soiled sanitary napkin. Part of my teenage histrionics but it showed my mother that I would never play by her rules. I still braek the taboo when I have to go to the temple for functions like weddings and funeral prayers.
I understand that in Canada, there may not be a mosque around the corner for the boys to pop into and that is probably one reason why the school premises are used with an invited imam. But providing for the location and the imam is still the muslim parents’ responsibility, not the school authorities’. It is incredibly stupid of the authorities to get themselves into this situation as it is could have been so easily sidestepped. Over-accomodation or what!
eb,#21,
I don’t think your comparison is appropriate. In reference to theology, no theologian, as far as I know, has demonstated that the object of study(God) even exists, so it doesn’t have any validity, as a discipline. So there are no “Theologists” in the scientific sense, I also have to say that, so far, I’m rather skeptical about “exobiology” for much the same reasons.
As to what weight to give expert opinion, I hope that the professional standards of scientists are superior to those of the occupations in the list you provided. I presume few people who make comments on this site would care to dispute a quantum physicist’s findings, why not? Probably because quantum mechanics, unlike Darwinism and the climate change hypothesis, doesn’t appear to threaten people’s pet ideologies or their prospects of capital accumulation.
I certainly agree with your last paragraph, my point is that the multiculturalist doctrine(or perhaps cultural relativism) subverts the process of ‘jettisoning’ some anti-democratic cultural aspects.
#22 Ani Sharmin,
I generally agree with your summary. The parameters of ‘multiculturalism’ seem to be very ill-defined, it’s difficult to get a definition from the professional multiculturalists or a justification as to why such a policy is indeed necessary in a liberal democracy.
Well, from what I read on this it was at least about a third of the school’s population that would leave to attend these services, and in Canada you do need to make reasonable accommodations to religious beliefs, so they had to let them go. Considering distribution of students, you might have half or more of a class missing, making any kind of teaching impossible. It also meant that a large number of students all had to leave or go off-campus at the same time. So, for safety and practical reasons, they allowed the services to be performed on campus. There is no notion that they officially support these teachings in any way; they see it as a practical way to accomplish their mandated accommodation of required religious rituals.
If I could convince half the school to become Wiccans could we all get naked and dance around a fire? Where is the difference?
this distinction between different forms of multiculturalism may be useful: http://www.unesco.org/most/migration/glossary_multiculturalism.htm
#30 windy,
Informative. My concern is in regard to the ideological-normative interpretation and its misuse by vested interests. In my opinion, the State has no right to promote ‘multiculturalism’, however it’s defined.
Thanks,
RJW
David,
You could if you could demonstrate that they needed to do so during school hours and that it would be a safety concern to allow them to leave to fulfill that obligation, and it would still be up to the school to determine if they wanted to allow it in that circumstance.
That’s why you can’t have Christian services in a public school; there is no religious obligation to attend services except on Sunday, when the schools are already closed.
I recall seeing (in pre-1960 years) individual women approach the altar rail after Sunday Mass in New York City Catholic churches to receive a special blessing from the priest. I was told they had just giving birth and were being “churched”.
Apparently this had its origin in the idea that they were ‘unclean’ and needed, er, cleaning.
Custom differs, but the usual date of churching was the fortieth day after confinement (or giving birth), in accordance with the Biblical date and Jewish practice. Under Mosaic law as found in the Old Testament, a mother who had given birth to a man-child was considered unclean for seven days; moreover she was to remain for thirty-three days “in the blood of her purification.” [4]. This was reflected in the Presentation of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus at theTemple being commemorated forty days after Christmas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churching_of_women
Obviously, I meant “just given” , not “just giving”.
Other than the discrimination against the girls, one of the things that bothers me about this is that the parents are basically using the school to force their kids to follow their religious beliefs. They’re basically assuming that if the kids are born to Muslim parents, then they must necessarily agree with the parents. Instead of standing up for the equal rights of each student, the school is agreeing to help the parents/religious community bully the students.
Perhaps I’m taking this personally, but for me, school was always a safe haven, to get away from stuff going on at home. If they brought prayers into the school, I’d be miserable.
@windy: Thanks for the link!
@RJW: I actually agree with some parts of multiculturalism, especially the part about people having rights regardless of culture.
As for the state, I do think that the state should have laws that protect people’s rights, and that it should do this regardless of culture. So, when for example, Christians try to claim that they are the “real” Americans, Canadians, Europeans, etc., try to take away rights from others, then I do think that the state should emphasize that they’re not going to take away people’s rights just because they don’t follow the majority religion, culture, whatever.
My problem with it is that it focuses on letting leaders (e.g. religious leaders) boss around their followers and that the government takes the views of the religious leader as the views of the community. I think it should be on a more individual level, that people should be able to change their minds, be a part of any culture they want to be a part of, etc. (even if it means leaving the beliefs they’re parents have).
The problem is that right now, I think, is that there are two ridiculous options: (1) Christians get to discriminate against whoever they want or (2) All religions get to discriminate against whoever they want.
Samei in montreal. School administrators are all leftwing cowards. Muslims girls are also excused from gym classes, art classes, music classes, and at times the curriculum is changed so that novels and even some classics that touch on themes of romantic love are no longer read.
In Ottawa, a city of only 800,000 there are now 14 secular public schools holding such prayer services.
And you know ,the same school commisioners who banned the 70 second long Lord’s Prayer ( even though students had the choice of opting out) a few years back are now permitting entire prayer services lasting 45 minutes.
To be honest, though, I kinda did expect something like this to happen because it’s been my observation that SOME so-called secular humanists seem to hate Christianity far more than they love secularism and atheism.
It’s ridiculous to defend this policy by taking the idea of “religious obligation” at face value and talking of students “needing” to do this or that to meet their “religious obligations.” It’s ridiculous to expect secular public schools to pick through such categories and obey one while ignoring the other.
RJW, you don’t think reservations about “multiculturalism” are a new or controversial idea here do you?
#37 Ophelia,
“RJW, you don’t think reservations about “multiculturalism” are a new or controversial idea here do you?”
What a loaded question. If you’re suggesting I’m OT, I disagree, for the following reasons. My point was to consider the underlying ideology behind the school board’s decision. Why does the the board allow one religious group primacy over the rights of non-believers, particularly, if, in reality, the majority of the board members don’t happen to be Moslems.
Most comments here are addressing the symptoms, not the disease.
No, I was just suggesting you were talking about it as if you thought nobody had heard of the idea before.
Maybe so about the symptoms but that’s probably partly because we take a lot for granted. It’s not necessary to go back to first principles with every post.
To Mirax, #26, Here in Toronto there’s isn’t a mosque on every corner: but we have quite a few. We are one of the most diverse cities in the Western world. Here’s a map of the ones that are on Google maps.
I do find it riduculous that the Canadians are doing much more to accomodate muslims than even muslim majority countries like Malaysia. The state schools in Msia certainly dont go this far! They let the kids go home early as in Singapore and that’s that. What happens after that is the parents’ responsibilty. We are not talking about young kids here but teengagers (the communal prayers are only applicable to those who have attained puberty). Teenagers are expected to manage their own travel (safely) to and from school and it is not the school’s responsibility to baby them to the extent Verbose Stoic suggests.
Ani Sharma’s point about school being a refuge from home is one often missed. My best friend at school – a muslim- got to swim, become a school athhlete, socialise normally with her friends because the school locker and a secret stash of clothes allowed her to break free from the strictures of her fundamentalist parents. She got rid of the headscarf and modified school uniform (an islamic version that her parents insisted on) the moment she steppped into school in the morning. Her parents never knew about her achievements as even the trophies she collected ended up in the school locker or were kept in friends’ homes.
And yes, a lot of our muslim boys here dont go to the mosque. They go home for an afternoon nap or hang out in the malls with their mates. But it is not for the schools to act as religious policemen.
Ever think about the muslim kids who dont want to attend prayers in the school canteen- how can they opt out safely and anonymously anymore?
Ophelia, the “reasoning” behind allowing the cafeteria to be taken over for prayers stems from the fact many students were late returing to class after having gone to a nearby mosque ( only minutes on foot ) on the noon hour
Many were skipping classes and using prayer as an excuse for turency on friday afternoons. If the TDSB had any brains (not to mention guts), and had they taken their responsabilities and duties seriously, they should have slapped sanctions on those studnts skipping out, talked to their parents and warned that continued truency would lead to even more severe disciplinary measures.
The schoolboard has a established an islamist paradigm for all of Toronto’s public schools, one in which the “necessity” of islamic prayer trumps concerns for classes, teaching and learning.
IN Montreal this has taken a unique twist. For centuries Quebec Province’s education system was completely dominate by The Roman Cahtomic Church. Then following the 60s Catholicism was chased out, the schools were rendered religiously neutral and secular. Any and all signs of Christianity ( crosses, statues etc) were removed.
It wasn’t long, however, before the hijab controversy arose, but not for students but rather teaches. After almost no debate the various schoolboards in montreal capitulated to islamists the the hijab was permitted in the classroom for Muslim teachers.
When Catholic nuns show up…say to replace or supply teach for a few days… they usually wear a half veil ( which leaves about half their hair showing ) and a small cross on their lappel. Those nuns are now required to remove both the cross and the half veil before being allowed entry into the classroom.
Makes you wonder just how enthusiastic the secularists who instituted these policies actually were about their own secular principles, doesn’t it?
Sonia – words fail me. [head-desk]
With regards to the idea of letting Muslim students leave school early on Friday for prayers… Letting students leave school like that should be all or none. The non-Muslim students don’t get to leave early and (potentially) goof off at the mall, so why should the Muslim students be allowed to? Either the school just closes early on Fridays, so everyone gets the time off, or it doesn’t.
My high school district had enough Jewish students that it always gave us Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur off. Technically, those were teacher in-service days or something, but for students it meant a day off. That’s the way to do it. Or not give the day off at all, but then there’s that whole pesky issue of Christmas/winter break…
So very sorry about getting your surname wrong, Ani!
Godless Heathen,
If schools end early on Friday for everyone, the kids (and teachers) would be ecstatic and that seems to be a wonderful solution to the issue and everyone’s happy. How much work gets done on friday afternoons anyway?
Schools really should not be organising prayer sessions, period.
You know that thiss sonis is trollin, Ophelia. She’s not the Sonia from Pickled politics.
sorry, having issues with my typing.
No, school should not be let out early to accommodate a particular ‘faith’ group. Were we to start doing so, where would it end? There are a significant number of Muslims don’t like many aspects of the school currriculum. Should Muslim girls be exempted from gym class. Should muslims be excused from music and art class? Should certain works of literature deemed “unislamic” be baned from both the classroom and school library? Should we attach aa program of creationism and teach it to those students, both Christian and Muslim, who reject the science of evolution and deem it contrary to their beliefs?
Were we to go down that road, the school system would be in a shambles in 25 or 30 years. We’d have a situation wherein religious beliefs ( ie mere superstitions ) would trump the persuit of truth, learning knowledge and science and many other educational concerns. It’d be the begining of a new Dark Age.
Note to ‘Mirax’ I do not post a piclkled politics. The people running that site are little different in their views than the jokers running the TDSB.
@Sonia – really? Do you fight against the fact that winter break happens over Christmas? Or that many schools have Good Friday off?
I disagree that having days off from school to accommodate religious groups will necessarily lead to those groups trying to control the curriculum. It might, it might not. It depends how connected politically those groups are, I think.
My point was that whatever the public school does should apply to ALL students regardless of sex, religion, or any other identifying factor. Letting Muslim students out of school early and not letting any other students out is also discriminatory and also interferes with teaching, particularly because the students that missed class will be behind. I remember what school was like the last day before any relatively major break (fall, thanksgiving, winter, spring, and summer): a quarter to a half of the students were out and the teachers planned for it, so those of us who were in class ended up not learning anything/not getting anything done. It was frustrating.
It needs to be all or none.
@mirax (#41): I’m glad your friend had that option available to her. Fortunately, my parents are not so fundamentalist, but there were still some things that I disagreed with, and school definitely gave me the opportunity to make by life better.
Re: Letting kids go home early
I remember that some kids from Catholic families used to be allowed to leave school early on particular days to attend CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) class.
@Sonia – really? Do you fight against the fact that winter break happens over Christmas? Or that many schools have Good Friday off?
As they say, Christmas only comes once a year, and not once a week. Furthermore, all students, at least in public schools, get it of.
In addition, most Christians, at least from what the press tells, rarely if, ever ask for exemptions from different course material because they complain that it insults their beliefs.
You seem to miss the problem here. The TDSB has given itself the duty and obligation to promote gender equality, and so how can they reconcile that misssion with “prayer” sessions that promote exactly the opposite?
The girls are forved to sit at the back of the bus, as it were, and those who happen to be mensturating are excluded altogether because they’re told they’re “unclean”
Why should such backward idiocy be tolerated in the 21st century in taxpayer funded public schools?
in fact it’s “under rubbish translations and lack of understanding of the halakhah (religious law), a bunch of jewish stuff was misappropriated and used to mistreat women”.
the word tumah is not, not, NOT “uncleanness” – it is a state of ritual unsuitability for certain activities. the halakhah is designed to allow WOMEN to dictate the boundaries of licit sexual relations. it is designed to give WOMEN control of their personal space. you will *not* get this from reading leviticus, only from understanding how the actual laws actually work in practice. i am quite prepared to admit that there are plenty of jews, even religiously observant jews who appear to be entirely ignorant of this, to their own disadvantage and that in many cases this is exacerbated by sexist and hidebound rabbis, so no doubt you’ll all conclude that we’d be better off without the whole system. nonetheless, i will confine myself to observing that a) if you don’t object to voluntary single-sex environments, gatherings and groupings it is hard to object to the practical effects of halakhic gender boundaries (at least when practiced by the reasonable) and that b) as far as i am aware, couples therapists nowadays suggest that a regimen which involves periodic sexual separation and then reunion is an extremely effective support for sustainable relationships.
none of this should be taken as blanket support for christian or islamic teachings on the subject. generally speaking, i find that both systems have fairly major shortcomings.
b’shalom
bananabrain
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