Letters to the Editor
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Weird
Never expected broadsheet to defend discrimination against Muslim women. Then again they're Muslim, so liberals let them get away with acting weird toward their women.
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Did I mention Spain?
Seems to me I mentioned Turkey, ya know the place that T said took a giant leap towards repealing their ban when their Islamic party government voted to repeal the ban.
When I mention Spain, I'll send you a text message.
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More TCF headscarf naïveté
"In other words, the Popular Party's solution to the discrimination experienced by some hijab-wearing Muslim women is to discriminate against all Muslim women by eliminating their choice to wear the hijab." - TCF
You mean in the manner that Europe and America unilaterally ban polygamy despite many women be willing to voluntarily enter into such a marriage for religious reasons?
The head scarf under taken for religious reasons is never voluntary. It is a superstition adopted under the fear that some patriarchal god will cast her into hell on judgment day. In non-converts, that fear is indoctrinated through years of relentless religious badgering. This is no less true with Orthodox Jews, Amish or other religious fundamentalist.
It is grotesque that the Anglophone left routinely shows more concern about the 'rights' of a religion than actually creating an egalitarian civil sphere (see the circumcision debate). France reiterated a century-old ban with the support of the Teacher's Union and near majority support by Muslim women. Few problems have resulted.
I feel post-Modern feminists like TCF are disturbingly naïve about just how important the headscarf is to Islamic fundamentalists. Fighting the headscarf IS fighting religious sexism in a wider context.
Case in point from Egypt:
http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_1601_1650/self_appointed.htm
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@Leeandra Revolting
"A headscarf on a schoolgirl can be just a headscarf on a schoolgirl."
Sure if it is windy or raining outside, but not if the wearer thinks it a commandment of god.
"Muslim women aren't the only women who wear headgear for religious reasons...many married Orthodox Jews and members of some Christian sects do as well."
Oh well, the stunning 'diversity' of the Abrahamic religions really stands as a strong argument to ignore gender egalitariansim in favor of sexist superstitions.
"It seems the Muslim girls at minority Muslim schools would be the ones who MOST needed their right to practice their religion protected."
Your naïve picture of children being free to follow a faith of their own volition is truly sad. The good little submitters who fear Allah and the Last Day are not the ones in need of protection.
What about girls who don't want to wear the headscarf? A ban makes the tremendous social and religious pressure from fellow Muslims moot in the school environment because a girl can just claim to be following the rules.
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wow, I usually get it changed to "Leeandra Nothing"...
...but I kinda like "Leeandra Revolting!"
I think Sikh boys have to wear turbans, and Rastafarians dreadlocks...if you want to get away from the "females in Abrahamic religions" argument about religious headgear.
My point was that if a girl is being horribly oppressed and abused by her religious fundamentalist family (of whatever religion), banning her from wearing her headscarf to public school isn't going to stop the abuse. All that's going to do is create even more of a "stay away from the evil secular world" mentality in her family.
There were a fair number of Pentecostal girls in my high school who, for their own or their families' religious reasons, did not cut their hair or wear pants. A few of them were in the high school marching band, which had pants as part of its uniform for both boys and girls. The Pentecostal girls had a seamstress make up long skirts to "match" the uniform. If the band director had insisted that they wear pants, they would not allow themselves/be allowed by their parents to march in the band.
Look, I don't agree with those religious dress and hairstyle restrictions any more than you do, but they really weren't hurting anyone by following them. Pick your battles.
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and as for the girls at minority muslim schools being the ones in MOST need...
...of having their religious freedom protected, I was referring to discrimination and bullying by teachers/students against kids of different faiths.
You have to protect kids' civil rights, that's for sure. But in and of itself, having your daughter wear a headscarf to school does NOT legally constitute child abuse. Parents still retain the right to dress their children as they see fit (provided they aren't sending them out in the freezing cold without proper coats or commonsense stuff like that).
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"Odious Rag"
That's what the first president of Tunisia called the Islamic headgear. Part of me hates to see the state interfering in people's lives like this, but then I think that it's the duty of various institutions to drag people into modernity, for everyone else's sake if not theirs. Remember, children growing up in superstitious environments don't have the autonomy to decide whether or not to wear the bedsheets.
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Poor, defenceless Muslims, eh?
"I was referring to discrimination and bullying by teachers/students against kids of different faiths."
That is just a false premise with respect to Western Europe (the East is another matter). The lesson of the Holocaust & Nazism have largely eliminated such crude sentiments past a right-wing fringe. People are simply not religious the way Americans are. Criticism of Islam comes primarily from disgust at the affront to the Leitkultur, secularism and Enlightenment values, not, as it appears with many American conservatives, because it represents a threat to Christian supremacism.
In fact the most prominent religious bullying is ironically directed against Jews by...drum roll please...Muslims! The 'defenceless' minority you are so concerned have among other things been seen to disrupt lessons on the Holocaust and make the term 'Jew' a slur once again in schoolyards.
Here is one of many such examples:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E3D71E31F931A15750C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
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Trying To Figure It Out
Symbol-man, in this post, Tracy did not say she approved or disapproved of what was done in Turkey, or what might be done in Spain. She merely reported on it and mentioned several different points of view.
What are you so outraged about?