Oh comrades come rally for the niqab
The Guardian is pathetic.
Kenza Drider stood defiantly outside Notre Dame, adjusting her niqab to reveal only a glimpse of her eyes. Scores of police with a riot van and several lorries stood by as she and another woman in a niqab staged a peaceful protest for the right “to dress as they please”. On the first day of France’s ban on full Islamic face-coverings, this was the first test.
Blah blah blah, for 14 paragraphs – the heroic defiant brave rad rebellious women passionately standing up for their right to wear bags over their slutty heads, with the heroic brave left-wing Guardian cheering them on. Yah baby you fight for that niqab covering your mouth and nose so that it’s hard to breathe and talk; solidarity forever!
Not one stinking word about the women who loathe the niqab and what it stands for and approve of the ban, or about the women who don’t like the ban but also detest the niqab and what it stands for. No, it’s all about women defending the disgusting reactionary woman-erasing hot speech-inhibiting theocratic medieval relic. Look at that idiotic photo, with the faceless woman heroically silhouetted against the sky.
Note the item at the end, too.
- This article was amended on 12 April 2011 to remove the phrase ‘normal headscarf’ in the sixth paragraph
Oops! Got shouted at, did you? Well see if you can’t learn something – the niqab is not a liberal cause. The ban is arguably illiberal too, but don’t go pretending that therefore the niqab is right-on.
The protesters might as well be fighting for the right to wear a bridle and reins. Or a yoke. Or a muzzle.
In some way I’m reminded of Emily Bissell, the anti-suffragist.
She wrote: “”The vote is part of man’s work. Ballot-box, cartridge box, jury box, sentry box all go together in his part of life. Women cannot step in and take the responsibilities and duties of voting with assuming his place very largely.”
It looks like she’s not the only woman who will be on the wrong side of the history of women’s liberation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Bissell
The entire justification for the full-on veil is that no man can look at a woman’s face without having an erection. That’s the main reason. That’s what’s being drummed into their heads day in and day out. They won’t admit it. And we won’t say it. Coz that would be Islamophobic.
What? This bit of hyperbolic ad hominem seems unnecessary.
Anyway, I’m torn on the issue of the French ban. I’m offended by what Burkas represent. They are the most blatant form of gender discrimination and objectification of women (who become not people, but ambulatory sacks of cloth) that I can think of. I also think people should be allowed to wear what they want. But, then, I also think that to a large degree the pro-burka crowd suffers from the same issues as prisoners with Stockholm sysndrome or women who support their abusers. Grr… Either way, the Guardian should never have posted such an uncritical, pro-burka article.
Part of the issue for me is that I only object to burkas based on context. For a costume party? Possibly offensive, but what the heck. But to force over the wife who can’t leave the house without a male relative? Really, really offensive.
Scote, I think that phrase was meant to capture what the niqab implies about the women, not what Ophelia thinks.
This is all so very frustrating. This ban never should have happened. Do we really think that a single woman who was being forced (or unwittingly induced via cultural conditioning) to wear the niqab is now going to suddenly be liberated by this ban? All this does is make martyrs of people who really shouldn’t be martyrs. Blargh.
Er, kinky.
Anyway, this is actually one of the reasons why I wasn’t in favor of the ban (at least, not in the specific way it was written). Now this is a big stink about whether women can wear what they want in public, as opposed to keeping the focus on the principle that no one should be pressured into wearing ridiculous sacks all the time as some sort of demented anti-rape or anti-adultery measure.
Still, that article was quite ridiculous. Not one word about why the niqab is so confining and alienating in the first place? Nuance is dead.
Yeah, because fundamentalist Muslim men just can’t keep themselves from raping any woman so slutty as to show their nose or chin. Funny how the men don’t see that as a problem with their character. And in that context I guess I see the point of Ophelia’s sarcasm about the pro-burka women’s “slutty faces.”
I feel very divided.
I hate the thought of women being pressured into wearing these oppressive sacks but I also dislike a government setting dress codes in law. I find the penalty of a “reeducation” to be disturbingly reminiscent of 1984 yet based on Hirsi-Ali’s books, I think that some form of education into western values and western laws is essential.
I wish that liberals and feminists had latched onto this cause years ago and sought to provide education on its own and to reduce the use of the niqab through argument, expression or even public peer pressure/shaming (eg: ads mocking the men who pressure their wives into a niqab). It seems like “multiculturalism” has infected liberals and festered into a disgusting cultural relativism and I fear that this strong-arm tactic may backfire and paint people who want to liberate women as authoritarian thugs. Normally I appreciate irony but not here.
OB: how do you sort out these conflicts? Where do you stand on the question of legally banning the burqa and niqab?
No, we don’t. Liberation of these women isn’t the stated goal of the ban. More than anything else, the very sight of the niqab is a public nuisance as well as a security hazard. These woman can cover themselves with anything they want in the privacy of their home. But any free society is well within it’s rights to demand that citizens show their face when communicating with others.
Another one here who loathes the veil but is really uneasy about legally banning it. How do you liberate someone by passing a law that forbids them to do a specific thing? I can’t work my way past that contradiction.
Scote – James was right, that was what I meant. I don’t think women’s naked heads are slutty!
I’m for the ban. But a number of liberals out there seem somewhat confused between dress and freedom of speech, as well as among other less than reasonable arguments for why a woman in a tent must be defended in the name of freedom, especially since such liberals will never wear a bloody niqab in their life.
Pat Condells rant on the subject a few years ago still applies today. And the BBC Newsnight programme, featuring Sam Harris (he’s for the ban), makes a good case for why the ban is a pro-liberal one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdmyiVlwEDU&feature=player_embedded
Enjoy.
I imagine a muslim woman in France thinking: “Great. My husband forces me to wear a niqab. The government forces me not to wear a niqab. If I don’t wear it, my husband will beat me. If I wear it, the government will fine me, which will cause my husband to beat me.”
This ban is like fighting domestic violence by outlawing bruises.
What Jose said. Many times over. How could they not have foreseen that?
I also imagine her thinking this: “And the only way my scumbag husband will stop beating me is if the authorities just let him continue treating me like dirt.”
Spectacularly poor analogy. Actually, utterly incomprehensible!! Bruises=niqab ?!!!
The analogy is valid because it punishes the putative victim for the crime. It is like making rape illegal by punishing the rape victim (which, as it happens, is something that Sharia law often does.) So I can’t fully get behind the law, but I’m also against the marginalization of women–and I’m not sure the best way to balance freedom of religion with freedom to be a complete, non-marginalized person.
The whole situation in France is a like a double negative, they have banned a restrictive dress code. It feels like it shouldn’t work, but it could go either way. Frankly, I still think they would be better served by making sure women are protected in their homes and educated in their rights as French citizens. Its quite possible that the men who shroud their women in these robes would just force them to stay at home from now on. Like spousal and child abuse, its the sort of thing you have to combat from a variety of different angles, and I hope that the French aren’t just going to consider this ‘Mission Accomplished’ and ignore the problem.
Great video Egbert. Niqab-supporters always harp on how it’s the woman’s right to choose how she covers her face. And yet not one of them will stand up for those who actually do choose to dress themselves as they want and end up being objects of derision, hatred and bullying. Of course women are free to dress however they want. Just as long as they don’t stray too much.
It’s punishment to show your face to the person you’re talking to?
@17 I agree. This is a necessary but clearly not a sufficient step. Patriarchy has deep roots in most religions. You cannot uproot it overnight, but the strike has to be strong.
I’m also amazed at how even some of the supporters of the ban invoke it’s incompatibility with Islam. How does that matter? Would they be less supportive of the ban if it were compatible? This is exactly the kind of soft appeasement of religious sensibilities that is so frustrating.
That is wrong on so many levels. Laws (like Sharia) that punish rape victims do not even pretend to make rape illegal. The entire focus is mostly on the victim and act itself gets a free pass. And making it illegal for any woman to cover up her face in order to facilitate normal human communication is simply not comparable in any legitimate way to punishing a rape victim in order to validate misogyny as well as the inferior status of women.
Really, that is the purpose of Burkas? To facilitate normal human communication? Your idea of “normal human communication” is different than mine.
Your posts are a bit scattered, so I’m not sure what, exactly, your overall position is on this issue.
No. It’s very simple. It is like making rape illegal by punishing rape.
What I find really annoying are the cooing liberals (I am a liberal, modulo the Atlantic) pointing out that bikinis are also a fashion choice and they are not banned so oh the hypocrisy hahaha.
1) It’s not fashion. It’s an implement of oppression. We are talking ethics and effect, not aesthetics and affect.
2) It’s only a choice within a liberal society, to choose it is to choose not having a choice. And we happily oppose corporate oppression as a choice within a liberal society, so why not oppose religious oppression?
3) Let’s agree to oppose all misogyny equally rather than privileging religion or fashion as excuses for it, eh comrades? And we could show solidarity with people promoting progressive causes rather than siding with the reactionaries just this once, surely?
No it’s not. What I meant to say was that that is what the ban is for. To facilitate normal communication. Something that is clearly hindered by niqabs. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
@Saikat Biswas,
in both cases (niqab and bruises), you are outlawing the effect of a wrongdoing, not its cause (sexism). You can only make things better if you confront the cause of the problem.
The outlawing of the niqab won’t help muslim women, because the cause of the problem is not the niqab itself, but religious sexism. Banning the niqab was not, as you apparently think, a necessary step, and the proof is in ourselves. 40 years ago, wearing a knee length skirt was scandalous here where I live; now, topless beaches are common. No ban was required.
Only two things are necessary: legal protection and primary school. The first one will take all the power away from the husband, so husband and wife are equal before the law, something that does not happen right now. In fact, the law is moving in the opposite direction: instead of passing laws that punish honor killings, rape, domestic violence or harassment with prison (these must be explicitly addressed in laws of their own, since they are different in nature from other types of killings and violence in general), or that makes easier to divorce without consent, they are doing the legal equivalent of the saying “Out of sight, out of mind”. The easiest way to deal with a problem is to ignore it. But you can’t ignore it if you see it everyday on the streets. So you just make sure you don’t see it anymore by banning the visible effects of the problem (niqab, or bruises), so you can continue ignoring its causes.
The second one is aimed at the next generation. Sadly, some kids will have to unlearn what they learnt at home: that raping women is good; that killing them for a matter of honor is also good; even that the man is the one in charge of the house. And obviously, those incorrect ideas won’t get fixed by themselves.
I’ve wondered for quite a while about this issue. Niqabs are not a fashion choice. They are, whether the woman wearing one has it in her head that it is voluntarily or involuntarily worn, an endorsement of the idea that a woman is a sexual object that must be covered at all times except when in the exclusive presence of the man who owns her uterus.
Nevertheless the ban is badly misconceived and clumsily executed: You do not strike blows for women’s freedom by replacing one set of male-approved dress-codes for women with another male-approved set of dress-codes for women.
That said, the women proudly parading their shapeless bags in defiance of the new law have managed to miss the point by a more than a country mile and should not be fondly endorsed as bravely fighting for the self-determination of women. I only hope they grow up to look back on their actions with no small amount of rueful (& unveiled) mortification.
They should do what the saudis do when a woman breaks the law – prosecute the husband!
Yes, so? The wrongdoings (niqabs, bruises) are, in fact, the effects of the underlying cause (sexism, misogyny) and it is precisely those that should be targetted by the law. How do you propose to outlaw sexism, or racism, or bigotry purely as an attitude? Doesn’t work that way. The law cannot intervene just because someone is a sexist (or a racist) merely in thoughts but desists from acting on it somehow.
No, it’s not the only way. Just one of many ways, albeit an important one. The problem is at once social, cultural, psychological as well as religious in dimension. And it must be dealt with accordingly. But the law cannot simply sit and wait when the problem manifests itself in a way (talking to someone who won’t let you see her face because she believes you cannot control your urges) that goes against everything a liberal and democratic society stands for.
I don’t know where you live, but what makes you think such examples are replicable among people steeped in Islamic injunctions?
I agree. It is indeed misguided if that’s what they are doing. I just don’t see how banning the niqab (as I understand, women are still free to don the hijab) is a reflection on the apathy towards honor killings or domestic violence.
@22: Why is it the law’s job to facilitate “normal communication”? If someone wants to make it difficult for me to communicate with them, I’ll either persevere or ignore them, depending on circumstances, but it’s not obvious to me that it’s the law’s job to help me out. Yes, there are occasions on which facial appearance is necessary for identification purposes, but that doesn’t justify a universal ban.
BTW: How do you feel about people wearing masks to political protests?
@30 : Why not? If someone wants to not only make it difficult for me to communicate with them, but tacitly assume that I simply cannot look at a woman without being overcome by lust, and make it even more difficult for me to ignore them when dealing with them directly (banks, grocery checkouts, interviews) without being accused of bigotry and racism, I absolutely want the law to put an end to this nonsense.
Supremely irrelevant. I’m yet to hear of a masked protester who complained of human rights violation because someone (anyone) asked him/her to take it off. How many of them have you seen who wear their masks not just to protests but to schools, colleges, offices, banks, grocery stores or meetings?
@Jose
Uhh how are you going to ban sexism? Do you want the government to rewrite the religious texts to make them less sexist?
Too early to say that. perhaps young muslim women will consider what is being said or why a ban is needed. Perhaps adult women who have to work will give up the burkha and find that the world actually goes on the same way.
But yeah i can’t get fully on board with the ban either
@Saikat Biswas, I’m glad we agree on some things. You’re right in that there are more ways to fight this fight, especially through bottom-up solutions, like awareness campaigns, free help line phone numbers, guests invited to high schools, etc.
@Deepak Shetty, sexism can be fought through law. No doubt people won’t cease to be sexist because a law says it, but a number of people will think twice before doing something that is explicitly typified as a crime (a lot of them won’t anyway; those will get their bums put in front of a very unfriendly judge.) It would be helpful if the law in general explicitly rejected religion or “cultural background” as a mitigating factor. But this ban won’t stop the husband from forcing his wife to wear a niqab. The state will fine her for wearing it, not him. There will be cases where dad will teach their sons and daughters that mom is a slut because she doesn’t dress decently; if she tells the police his husband has raped her or beaten her, some forms will be filled and she will be sent back at home, where he’s waiting for her, because there’s nothing in the law to prevent it (this applies to all kinds of sexist abuse, not only religious sexism). In a lot of cases, women’s life will get worse, not better. I’m not against the ban on principle. If we eased the way before by giving women appropiate legal protection and support, so they can throw the niqab to the trash can with a reasonable hope that their lives won’t get worse because of it, the ban could be an effective final blow.
I do hate the burka and niqab, and everything they stand for, but I am among those who are uneasy with clothing restrictions for any reason other than health and safety. Often when I say this, some people respond by saying that “of course society should be able to control what people wear – we don’t just let people go around naked, do we?” Personally, I think we should let people go around naked, if they so choose.
@31: I’m sorry, I’m too lazy to try to sort that first paragraph out. Did you read what I actually wrote?
No, you’re being irrelevant. What, exactly, does (or should) the law say? If it bans face-concealment in public places (which is your stated concern), then it applies universally. If there are specific occasions when we need to see someone’s face for a specific (especially legally significant) purpose, there should be no exception made for religion or anything else. But that’s not the same thing as requiring facial visibility at all times in public.
@35 : Are you really going to argue that masked protesters are no different from a woman covered head-to-toe in burqa? Facial concealment is certainly a big concern but by no means the only one. Forget masked protesters, people regularly hide their faces (or parts of it) behind large sunglasses, surgical face masks and even fire-retardant hoods. Do you seriously believe that any of these accoutrements are even remotely comparable to burqas or niqabs? Do they routinely present security challenges? Do they obstruct communication? Do they dehumanize women by turning them into faceless zombies and seriously undermine the rights of everyone to live with dignity and decency? No. These hideous garments are atrocities that don’t deserve any legal protection at all.
@36: I don’t see anyone here who is trying to support or defend the practice of wearing the burka or niqab. However, I cannot support a law that restricts what a person wears on the basis of its religious significance, absent any objective criteria.
@37 : Full-body concealment isn’t objective enough for you?
When France banned the hijab for schoolgirls, it was the liberals (the anglo-saxon ones in particular) who were wringing their hands and crying out that muslim girls would be kept back at home and deprived of an education in addition to their religious rights. That separatist muslim schools would be springing up to cater to these girls and thus would further exacerbate the isolation of such muslims. Well, that didnt happen. Not in France anyway. The Uk is another matter. It has state funded muslim schools that have the hijab as compulsory uniform. Oh that and several independent schools that mandate the niqab as compulsory when on the way to and from school. France seems to have won that round hands down.
So everyone here agrees that there’s nothing positive to be said for the burka/niqab and only disagrees with the ban for these reasons :
1. It victimises burka’d women who have been coerced into the garment and may lead to them being imprisoned at home
2. It erodes the choice and religious freedom of women who willingly choose the garment.
3. It is impractical to enforce and counterproductive in that it will aggaravate muslim sensibilities
4. It may have racist, anti-muslim overtones, given the nature of the present French government and in the context of other rather ridiculous bans like the minaret one in Switzerland.
I have a lot of sympathy for bold, even authoritarian gestures that reverse the millenia long oppression of women like that of Ataturk’s ban of the veil and the Indian government’s effective abolishment of Hindu Personal Law in the 1950’s. The niqab is a despicable garment and I have no respect for those who freely choose it – I primarily see them as damaged individuals who mock and endanger the hardwon freedoms of millions of other women. Women who supposedly freely don such garb should suffer employment and social restrictions. No sympathy or compromise.
For women who are forced into the niqab, the ban will work in the long run if it is coupled with other sustained measures to help them and their daughters. There is an oftquoted number of 2000 niqabis in France. Well, it is not a huge number of homes for social workers to visit – to talk to the women, to ascertain their welbeing, to make sure that their kids are well and in school etc. The ban sends a clear signal for the future and future generations of French-muslim women may well look back on this with gratitude. Sexism is going to be with us for a long time but getting rid of one outright manifestation is surely a step in the right direction?
I am not completely comfortable with the ban for reasons 3 and 4. It is going to be very messy to enforce , particularly if it is deliberately challenged by activist street action. Many muslims, even those who decry the burka, do see the ban as anti-muslim and after Sarkozy’s actions against the gypsies, who is reassured by his anti-racist credentials? There are issues with other (non-muslim) face-coverers who may also get caught up in this mess.
A modified ban on the niqab is what is needed. Wear anything you like on the streets but enforce the ban in public buildings and for public services. Leave it to the discretion of the owners of private businesses how they want their clientele dressed. Dont prosecute them if they decline to hire or serve niqabi’s.
As a very minor sidenote to the bruises versus burka discussion, Yasmin alibhai Brown wrote some time ago that women suffering from domestic violence often wear the burka to hide their injuries. She claims to have known such women.
@39 : Niqabi? Purdah-Nasheen Khatun sounds so much better, don’t you think?
As a lefty liberal type I was originally a little apprehensive about this particular law – specifically the idea that it seems to be targeting one particular religion. It turns out that the wording of the law does not mention burqas of niqabs – it just mentions face covering in public. Apart from some specific exceptions (motorcycle helmets, sports protection gear and health associated face-masks – the sort you see all the time in public in Japan as a way to prevent transmission of colds and flu) face covering is now illegal.
Technically if a woman (or man – although I guess we won’t see too much highlighting of transvestite muslims!) wants to cover her face then the japanese facemask option is still legal.
By the way why is nobody here highlighting the benefits of burqas?
I found this earlier on wikipedia – although it might not be there now as it seems to be subject to an active editing war with supporters continually putting it back after others delete it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa
Ooops – I forgot pasting something I’d saved in microsoft word tends to look weird on this site.
Jose #33
From here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39559671/ns/world_news-europe/
So the intention is to fine quite heavily anyone who forces a woman to wear a burka/niqab. Of course it’s very difficult to show any forcing when someone sincerely thinks it’s not her husband, father or brother who makes her wear it, but Allah. Should they fine Allah then?
Women will naturally claim that whatever they do is their own choice, but in a world in which demands are implicit or unconscious and extreme violence is overt it is not possible to embrace the notion of “choice” without deep scepticism. Some women are simply afraid of revealing their faces and bodies to the world. Some women feel depressed if they can’t look “sufficiently” sexy. In either case they are responding to men’s desires and demands. It is those desires and demands that have to addressed. The niqab attests the ultimate interchangeability of women, their existence as possessions, their disposability and nonentity, their ultimately unsatisfactory nature as dependable chattels, their continuing threat to male self-esteem.
The law cannot deal with all this except in a piece-meal fashion, but it can make a statement, that the eternal oppression of women by men has to end. If this measure can be backed up by reinforcing the existing laws against rape and violence, and above all by education, then it may do very well.I think that although French law has no choice but to fine women who continue to wear the niqab in public, it is in most cases their husbands and fathers who will actually have to pay the bill.
“I think that…” should have begun a new paragraph. I’m always missing this.
I think #39 has summed up the state of the argument here fairly well, and I tend to agree with her/his final two paragraphs. Not wanting to continue flogging the issue, I’ll just reply to a couple of things that came up over night and shut up:
#37 was actually posted by my wife (Theo Bromine), but for some bizarre reason something between the keyboard and the B&W server thought it was me. And for the record, I don’t entirely agree with the emphasis on “religious rights” as such (can o’ worms, won’t open just now).
Saikat’s reply @38:
OK: on that criterion, you could arrest half the people found outside in Ottawa on a windy morning in deepest February. To anticipate Saikat’s customary reply: yes, I can tell the difference between niqabi and prudent winter wear (despite their rough equivalence in terms of skin coverage), and so can you and so can anyone. But once more with feeling: how does the law draw that distinction, in an unambiguous way, so that the cops know who to arrest and who to leave alone? And such that it will reliably stand up in court, and not be dismissed on some easy technicality, or as stealth racism? In short, I want to see some sign that the pro-ban side has thought through practical details of implementation and enforcement, otherwise all the hand-wringing about oppression of women and the social offense of concealment is irrelevant.
If anyone has a pointer to discussion of what the French law says (preferably in English), I’d be happy to read it.
Eamon, the only details of the law that I have read mention that it has seven sections and nowhere does it mention ‘women’, ‘islam’, ‘burqa’, ‘niqab’ or ‘veil’ (or presumably the french equivalent). It is essentially a law about face covering in public. Presumably this would also outlaw non religious actions – such as wearing a party mask in a public place.
First, I want to say that I think it would be a much better world if no Muslim woman ever again felt obligated to wear a burqa, niqab, or even hijab. If I correctly understand the supporters of the French attempt to ban the burqa/niqab, the assertion is that it is fair and legitimate to tell everyone that they are legally obligated to continuously expose certain parts of their body when in public spaces. I will certainly agree that there are cases where it is reasonable, on balance, to restrict individual freedoms for the greater public good, but I remain unconvinced that this is one of those cases. Is the social culture (not to mention the climate) in France such that this ban is likely to be workable, and of benefit to Muslim women there? And do the boosters of the French burqa/niqab ban want to see it expanded to other countries?
Is banning the niqab like banning the results of oppression? No, definitely not. While the reason that women wear these tents is certainly due to oppression and it’s a visible symbol of that, it is also oppressive in itself. It isn’t merely a “bruise” as some have said, it is an actual slap. By banning it, France isn’t directly addressing the causes but it is at least removing this one form of oppression. Just as banning female genital mutilation doesn’t cure the misogyny which leads people to do this in the first place, it can at least stop a new generation of women from suffering.
I’m against banning the niqab. As apparently is Libre Pensee (French freethinkers organisation), by the way. I think it is a political football being used the right to outflank the far right. The French right are not genuinely interested in secularism.
However, I understand the peculiarities of French secularism as a form of civic nationalism, agree with much of the analysis of the misogynistic origins of body-coverings, and I think the Guardian’s line is rubbish.
First of all, I don’t think a good way of combating anti-woman attitudes is fining or locking up women. This just means that the victims of sexism are also victims of legislation supposedly against sexism!
Secondly, most Muslim women in France do not wear the Niqab. Therefore those who do, do so not because they necessarily think their religion demands it (though some obviously do), but perhaps because they come from a country where it is standard practice and they are used to it, or because they have adopted it consciously as a political act or as a symbol of religiosity.
I think the latter two cases are often overlooked and under-analysed. In my experience, the women I have come across who wear complete body coverings are well-educated, articulate, and very very politically minded in their religiosity. In adopting that form of clothing, despite the false consciousness, they are making a very clear personal choice. And sometimes, and particularly where I grew up, a choice that may often be regarded with suspicion by their husbands, brothers, fathers, or others in “the community”. Clearly in some Muslim countries, the niqab or equivalent is common, but in others it definitely is not, and so for a young Muslim girl with a non-niqab heritage to adopt the niqab is to make a very very clear statement – against, I suppose, the perceived religious failings of their peers and family.
That being so, it seems obvious that making this a criminal issue could bring French secularism to crisis, because this law will bring it into disrepute.
Dan
Oh, I missed out “or because they are forced to wear it” from my list of reasons why it is worn! Doh!
A useful comparison is with foot-binding in China.
Here too there was a mix of “choice” (because bound feet were a status symbol, in a twisted kind of way) and subjugation. There were over the years intermittent attempts to ban it (just like, until France, the only countries to restrict the wearing of head coverings were majority Muslim countries – Turkey, Syria etc – at various times, and with mixed success over limited timespans).
The first serious and sustained attempt to wipe out the binding of feet was in 1912, and the punishments for women caught with bound feet by government inspectors included fines, corporal punishment, “unbinding” by force, and I’ve read in a few places (but not managed to substantiate thus far) that sometimes women were killed for having bound feet.
Footbinding took a long time to disappear. Making it illegal clearly helped, but it didn’t wipe it out overnight, and many women suffered twice over through the enforcement of the law.
I think, what would my attitude have been in 1912?
Would I have supported the enforced attack on footbinding, or would I have opposed footbinding, supported educational efforts against it, but also opposed the prohibition?
Dan
I see footbinding as more analogous to female genital mutilation, as opposed to niqab/burqa wearing. Though there are certainly potential negative health impacts from making women cover their bodies with sacks, unlike FGM or footbinding, the practice is not intended to cause physical mutilation. (Also, in the vast majority of cases, burqa wearing is completely reversible.) Particularly because both footbinding and FGM are done to children, who are not even given the appearance of choice in the matter, I would have supported laws to ban footbinding, and do support laws to ban FGM.
That’s logical. But would you support laws banning FGM which were targeted at the women who have been mutilated?
Dan
I would *not* support a law against FGM that in any way targeted the victims. And I would love to ban the practice of women being forced to wear burkas/niqabs, if only there were a way to do it that specifically targeted the oppressors.
@Jose
Not my understanding. there was a harsher punishment for forcing any woman to wear it if I remember correctly.
I am sooo holding my fire on this until my book (which does address this issue among many others) comes out. ;)
Though readers of my own blog will have a fair idea what I think…
Oh what the heck – y’all know that I don’t agree with this ban. But I do have some sympathy for what lies behind it. It’s a question of what is wise policy with the burqa, and that’s not straightforward for all the reasons that others on the thread have been raising.