French approve ban on burqas...

The T wrote: BaldFriede wrote: Chris S wrote: I know your persuasion and totally respect it and also I beleive this conversation is going nowhere-now here. Because you won't accept that men still keep oppressing women. Have you ever seen a man dressed in sexy clothes comparable to what women wear? If he does he is being considered to be gay. Is that not so? So you think the way the Islamic religion treats women is one that doesn't discriminate? Can I infer that from your vehement defense of the burqa and condemnation of western civilization (not only in the quoted post but in several ones before)?   I never knew women wanted to be second-class beings, walking behind men, dressed with a sheet covering all her features including her face, not being able to work, study, etc. Oh wait Saudi Arabia is not a big enough example probably, just a minor exception?

It is rather the men who become second class beings when a woman  wears a burka, not the women. It is a supreme irony that your  very act of "liberation" you try to impose on Islamic women is just another act of suppression: They are being robbed of their choice.
Also I would like you to point out to me where I condemn Western culture in other posts. You would be hard-pressed to find one. On the contrary, I defend the values of Western culture. In case you have forgotten: One of these values is tolerance.

harmonium.ro wrote: Epignosis wrote: Epignosis wrote: Now the burqa can be used oppressively (as many innocuous things can), and I think the big one is how the Taliban enforced the burqa on women in Afghanistan for a period of time.  But that's just as wrong as what France has done, I think: It isn't liberating women.  It's telling them what they can and cannot wear. This is a reasonable way to put it, and I agree that neither banning the burqa nor allowing it in the liberal French society and hoping the liberation will come by itself are a perfect solution to liberate women. I just think that one is much better than the other, though.

But you're still running into this problem:  What does it mean to liberate women?  You speaking for them belies your own position, I think.

I believe Moris said it best:

clarke2001 wrote: This is an issue way bigger then the burqa ban. Are women in (western) societies oppressed nowadays? If so, to what degree? Do they want change? What kind of change? Perhaps some Muslim women might feel uncomfortable and indecently exposed without burqa in the same way Western women might feel if walking naked. Or to use milder comparison, if walking topless.

Epignosis wrote: The T wrote: Baldfriede, it would appear that there's no in-between wearing a burka and wearing a miniskirt and a brassiere and nothing else... Do you know people can look modest and restrained WITHOUT having to cover themselves with a big sheet?  T, did you read what I said about Islamic purity? Epignosis wrote: I've known Muslims, and some of them take extreme measures for maintaining purity (tahara).  For example, they do not drink alcohol.  Beyond this, they won't eat in any establishment where alcohol is served if possible. Yes, modest dress is required, but many Muslims go above and beyond the letter of their law to avoid even accidentally trespassing the code. Muslims are not the only religion to do this.  Strict Orthodox Jews do this as well.

Epignosis wrote: Epignosis wrote: Now the burqa can be used oppressively (as many innocuous things can), and I think the big one is how the Taliban enforced the burqa on women in Afghanistan for a period of time.  But that's just as wrong as what France has done, I think: It isn't liberating women.  It's telling them what they can and cannot wear.

This is a reasonable way to put it, and I agree that neither banning the burqa nor allowing it in the liberal French society and hoping the liberation will come by itself are a perfect solution to liberate women. I just think that one is much better than the other, though.

The T wrote: BaldFriede wrote: Chris S wrote: I know your persuasion and totally respect it and also I beleive this conversation is going nowhere-now here. Because you won't accept that men still keep oppressing women. Have you ever seen a man dressed in sexy clothes comparable to what women wear? If he does he is being considered to be gay. Is that not so? So you think the way the Islamic religion treats women is one that doesn't discriminate? Can I infer that from your vehement defense of the burqa and condemnation of western civilization (not only in the quoted post but in several ones before)?   I never knew women wanted to be second-class beings, walking behind men, dressed with a sheet covering all her features including her face, not being able to work, study, etc. Oh wait Saudi Arabia is not a big enough example probably, just a minor exception?

Of course Islam treats women horribly. No one's defending that. But the solution is not to deny those women freedoms, it's to give them more freedoms.

Baldfriede, it would appear that there's no in-between wearing a burka and wearing a miniskirt and a brassiere and nothing else... Do you know people can look modest and restrained WITHOUT having to cover themselves with a big sheet? 

BaldFriede wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: BaldJean wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Chris S wrote: Sorry but Burqas need to be banned, hopefully other nations will follow suit. Looking at Dubai and commercialism hitting the muslim areas be it westernized or M.East areas, it is time to get WISE for that religion and move with the times. If one suicide bomber is disguised then the method needs to be removed. Wear the burqa as much as they want at their home or in their place of worship. Good one France   As a lawyer I have to disagree with the ban it's anti Constitutuional a woman can wear what she wants:   PREAMBLE The French people solemnly proclaim their attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789, confirmed and complemented by the Preamble to the Constitution of 1946, and to the rights and duties as defined in the Charter for the Environment of 2004. DECLARATION OF 1789   4.  Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.       The use of a Burqa, even when western societies don't use them don't harm anybody, as a fact it's the right of a woman to dress how she wants being harmless for anybody else and the enjoyment of anybody's rights..   And the disguise of a bomber is just a foolish excuse, wigs, beards, mustaches, etc can be used to disguise, lets band them also in that case.   A mustache or a beard can be used also to disguise a person...lets ban them...Hey wigs also, lets send people who use them to prison.   Lets prohibit people to change the color of their hair and use cosmetic contact lens.   The limit of a liberty is the decline of society.   Iván Good thing you quoted the Constitution Ivan, because it shows exactly the reasons. Freedoms are guaranteed not in absolute, but with the condition  they don't harm anyone else. And as full veil is a tool of women's oppression (expressing the interdiction for women to fully and freely interact with other people, and especially other men, alongside with the interdiction for women to have full legal rights, to have any decision power in the family, to have decision power for her own, and alongside horrific punishments going up to stoning and decapitation in some places, if she disobeys), it comes in strong disagreement with the constitution. The fact that many women got used to it doesn't change its nature. you overlook something though. ff the person concerned wants it you have no right to deny it to her You also overlook something, in France (and in most Western countries) liberties are not supported for 100%, every liberty has a limit (just like it's written in the Constitution fragment we're quoting with this post). In this case, this is where the French people (through their legislators) want to limit the right to dress however you want. The legislators have the right to deny anything, as long as it's a legitimate act. And as immigrant, I can say that France is a f**king great play to express yourself. That is an interesting argument indeed, to say the least. So the reason the burka is being banned is "because we can"? Let's just hope for you they will never force it upon men to wear mini skirts.

No, that's just a ........ way to play with logic. Anything that is denied because it's possible to deny it, so that's not a reason, that's just a condition (in order to be to deny something you need to be able to). The reasons, I already explained. RE the miniskirts, I agree, but I don't think that in the coming future women will oppress men by forcing them into wearing miniskirts

clarke2001 wrote: Epignosis wrote: No one here proves that the burqa is a tool of women's oppression.  They just say so, as though it's a given.  It isn't.  Every article I've read calling it that is written by a Westerner. Reading a few books by Khaled Hosseini and Yasmina Khadra is a good starting point.

I have read the former author.  Very good writer, but please note what I said:

Epignosis wrote: Now the burqa can be used oppressively (as many innocuous things can), and I think the big one is how the Taliban enforced the burqa on women in Afghanistan for a period of time.  But that's just as wrong as what France has done, I think: It isn't liberating women.  It's telling them what they can and cannot wear.

Edited by Epignosis - July 16 2010 at 10:21

Padraic wrote: BaldFriede wrote: What about a nun's habit, by the way? I'm sure France would ban that too if they could - they've banned children from wearing any and all religious symbols in school.

I agree religious symbols should be banned from the public places such are schools and universities (unless owned by a religious organization).

BaldFriede wrote: How dare you say that? A woman who wears a burka might as well reply that having to wear what in her opinion are indecent clothes is suppressing women by turning them into sex objects. Knowing how I have been looked at when wearing a miniskirt  I would fully understand what she means. No, wearing a burka does no-one harm if the person wearing it wants to wear it. You can't even say it is indecent, as you can say in the case of someone who wants to go naked, We claim to be a permissive society, but when we are faced with something only few people understand we are just as restrictive as we claim other societies are.. The problem is the same as usual: One culture thinks its own values are superior to the values of another and force theirs upon it. This is just what the colonialists did. The Red Indians had to go through this too; our lifestyle was forced upon them. Have you ever tried to talk to a woman who wants to wear a burka? I have, and though she could not convince me to wear one I clearly saw her point. And I respected it.. Oh, and as for your analogy of the guy who wants to run around naked: Kurt Tucholsky would have pulled your ears for that. Analogies have no place in law. Any judge would tell you that. Strangely no-one objects to a nun wearing a full habit (some even wear facial veils), but when an Islamic woman does something similar people take offense.

This is an issue way bigger then the burqa ban.

Are women in (western) societies oppressed nowadays? If so, to what degree? Do they want change? What kind of change?

Perhaps some Muslim women might feel uncomfortable and indecently exposed without burqa in the same way Western women might feel if walking naked. Or to use milder comparison, if walking topless.

But do (Western) women want to get rid of the old taboo,saying 'why should nipples be any more sacred than elbows?' and walk freely as they see fit, or do they want to cover their body parts so every Tom, Dick and Harry on the street won't drool over her feminine attributes? Both? Something else? Something in-between?

I believe the answers, whatever they might be, are individual, and the same goes with burqa. It's necessary to measure pros and cons -simple math, if nothing else - while taking such an action.

If I show up without my shirt in a bar during the summer, it won't cause the same reaction as if a woman did the same thing. The deeper question is, why we feel embarrassment if we are exposed? We have been sexual animals, and still are. Two dogs copulating in the park won't feel guilt or shame. Why do we do, and when did it started? When we made transitions between apes to humans? Why?

Sexual taboos are deeply rooted in each of us, even in the most open-minded ones. I would not walk naked down the street.  But the other question that arise is, why we are covering our private parts? To avoid possible sexual arousal? If we ignore subtleties such are 'the entire body can provoke sexual arousal' (and let's not even start with sexual fetishism), then, yes, that's one of the reason why the body is covered. But another important body part in this story is human face, and that should be considered when talking about cultures which do not expose faces in public.

If another reason for body covering is avoiding of implicit 'visual rape' while being in non-sexual situation, then we're much more fucked up* society than I thought. (lack of censorship here is intentional)


At the end, however, I do believe (regardless of my rant above) many Muslim women don't want/need burqas:

Epignosis wrote: No one here proves that the burqa is a tool of women's oppression.  They just say so, as though it's a given.  It isn't.  Every article I've read calling it that is written by a Westerner.

Reading a few books by Khaled Hosseini and Yasmina Khadra is a good starting point.

harmonium.ro wrote: BaldJean wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Chris S wrote: Sorry but Burqas need to be banned, hopefully other nations will follow suit. Looking at Dubai and commercialism hitting the muslim areas be it westernized or M.East areas, it is time to get WISE for that religion and move with the times. If one suicide bomber is disguised then the method needs to be removed. Wear the burqa as much as they want at their home or in their place of worship. Good one France   As a lawyer I have to disagree with the ban it's anti Constitutuional a woman can wear what she wants:   PREAMBLE The French people solemnly proclaim their attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789, confirmed and complemented by the Preamble to the Constitution of 1946, and to the rights and duties as defined in the Charter for the Environment of 2004. DECLARATION OF 1789   4.  Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.       The use of a Burqa, even when western societies don't use them don't harm anybody, as a fact it's the right of a woman to dress how she wants being harmless for anybody else and the enjoyment of anybody's rights..   And the disguise of a bomber is just a foolish excuse, wigs, beards, mustaches, etc can be used to disguise, lets band them also in that case.   A mustache or a beard can be used also to disguise a person...lets ban them...Hey wigs also, lets send people who use them to prison.   Lets prohibit people to change the color of their hair and use cosmetic contact lens.   The limit of a liberty is the decline of society.   Iván Good thing you quoted the Constitution Ivan, because it shows exactly the reasons. Freedoms are guaranteed not in absolute, but with the condition  they don't harm anyone else. And as full veil is a tool of women's oppression (expressing the interdiction for women to fully and freely interact with other people, and especially other men, alongside with the interdiction for women to have full legal rights, to have any decision power in the family, to have decision power for her own, and alongside horrific punishments going up to stoning and decapitation in some places, if she disobeys), it comes in strong disagreement with the constitution. The fact that many women got used to it doesn't change its nature. you overlook something though. ff the person concerned wants it you have no right to deny it to her You also overlook something, in France (and in most Western countries) liberties are not supported for 100%, every liberty has a limit (just like it's written in the Constitution fragment we're quoting with this post). In this case, this is where the French people (through their legislators) want to limit the right to dress however you want. The legislators have the right to deny anything, as long as it's a legitimate act. And as immigrant, I can say that France is a f**king great play to express yourself.

That is an interesting argument indeed, to say the least. So the reason the burka is being banned is "because we can"? Let's just hope for you they will never force it upon men to wear mini skirts.