I just can’t get my head around this one. I really can’t.
On Wednesday, the Belgians unanimously took another step toward banning face covering veils. Because that is all the rage in Europe.
I’ve yet to hear any justification for these laws which doesn’t sound like a rather blatant backward rationalisation.
(I’m going to be lazy and not bother with references because Wikipedia and Google should be able to hook you up.)
1. These women don’t wear it by choice and are obviously being oppressed.
Even assuming that was true, and I don’t believe it to be so, these lawmakers then think the answer is to deny a very small number of women who are considered “at risk” access to essential services such as medical care and public transport? To force them to either remain prisoners in their homes or risk the punishments their dangerously oppressive families would dish out to them? Oh yes. That sounds extraordinarily helpful.
2. They are symbolic of women’s oppression.
Oh. Now I get it. A bunch of fat old white men are doing me a favour by targeting a tiny minority of women and telling them what to wear? Oh yeah.. that is a huge step forward for women’s rights. I feel so grateful.
3. These clothes generate fear.
I’ll be honest. The full coverings do kind of creep me out. And I probably stare a bit too. But since when is it the job of legislators to pander to cultural discomfort? When I was younger and living in a town full of Italians I used to find all the widows in their heavy black clothes a bit creepy too. I got over it. Passing laws about what women can wear because clothes are scary? Attack of the Killer Textiles – In cinemas April 1st.
4. Terrorists might be hiding under there.
Oh, yes. Those helpful terrorists. An excellent reason to pass laws proscribing women’s clothing choices. You know, I heard there might be one living right next door to you. And did you see that guy buying manure? He looked shifty.
5. It is incompatible with a secular state.
Beleive me, I have issues with even our own supposedly secular state (which is an entirely different post) but this still doesn’t wash with me. If all the areas which have these kinds of rules in place for public employees were even-handed in their restrictions, I might actually believe they were sincere, if misguided. But they don’t. And even if we ignore the hypocrisy, I have never heard of a state which enforced either non-religion or a specific religion on its populace which I would like to live in.
Or some reasons from the article I did link to…
6. “Wearing the burqa in public is not compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society”?
But making laws targeting a tiny minority of women on the basis of clothing is? Oh yeah. That just reeks of tolerance.
7. “We cannot allow someone to claim the right to look at others without being seen”.
In that case, I propose a ban on wearing sunglasses and caps. Oh, and clowns. I had one at a birthday party once. Turns out it was really our next door neighbour. Her daughter screamed the whole time. Poor thing couldn’t recognise her own mother. But seeing who is looking at us is an inviolable right so this legislation must pass. Oh, except if you a motorcyclist apparently. Or Santa Claus. Oh yes, there is nothing targeted or intolerant involved at all.
And just in case my sarcasm hasn’t been very illustrative of what seems like very flawed reasoning to me, let’s just take a look at where it all began for Belgium, in 2005.
“A police inspector in Maaseik said the head-to-toe covering alarmed locals. “You cannot identify or recognise someone when they’re wearing a burqa, especially at night. It’s not normal, we don’t have that in our culture,” he said.”
Yup. You read it right. “It’s not normal.”
I have absolutely no problem with making these women remove the veils for practical purposes, like checking in at airports or having ID -photos taken. Beyond that, regardless of how much I might dislike or disagree with the reasons some women choose to wear these clothes in societies where they are legally free not to, regardless of any opinion I might have on Muslim culture, can someone please explain to me why it suddenly seems reasonable again to dictate what a women wears? And what the fuck they actually think they will achieve by doing so?
These laws target women. These laws tell women what they can and can not wear, as though women’s clothing choices are a threat to the very fabric of our society. Does this all sound eerily familiar? It isn’t that long ago women couldn’t wear pants. In fact, the engineering firm where I used to work only removed the requirement for their female staff to wear skirts in the 80s.
I am not a big fan of niqābs and burqas but I do love my jeans. And although I might have had the luxury of wearing them all my life, I haven’t forgotten that women not so very much older than me weren’t “allowed” to.
Scary social engineering. How dare they be different?
Sorry – you have to deal with people who are not like you sometimes: it’s the price of a free society. Or so I thought.
Made me think of Philip Pullman’s comments when confronted by a christian who found the title of his latest book (“The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ”) offensive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w