[1925 vs 2016. 90 years later and we’re still policing women on what they wear to the beach.]
So, in 1925 women had to cover up and perhaps didn’t have a choice there. 2015 we have people trying to control a violent religion that oppresses women and forces them to completely cover themselves. If you think that these are the same thing then youre wrong. These are extreme measures to try to control an ideology incompatible with western values. Incompatible with the ideas that even would have inspired this post to begin with.
Im not sure whether or not I agree with the measures. One one hand I think that it genuinely does deter Islam and on the other I would want people to be able to make the choice. I do not however think that we need to be tolerant of extreme ideas that hurt others.
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I'm assuming this is in relation to the stupid burkini ban controversy in France. (By the way, haven't the French courts overturned those bans and declared them unconstitutional?)
"we have people trying to control a violent religion"
Because a lone woman sitting on a beach minding her own business counts as violence, apparently.
"a violent religion that oppresses women and forces them to completely cover themselves."
So your solution is to oppress them by forcing them to be mostly naked? How is that any different in principle? In both cases, you have conceited douchebags telling women what they are or are not allowed to wear for no other reason than to control them and be able to tell them what to do.
"These are extreme measures to try to control an ideology"
No they're not; they're racist measures that serve no other purpose than to pick on a highly visible minority. If you think that telling Muslim women what they have to wear to the beach will reduce the impact of Islamist extremism in any way, then you're an imbecile. If anything, it'd do the opposite by marginalizing moderates and making them more open to extremism.
"I think that it genuinely does deter Islam"
Then you have a very childishly stupid and infantile understanding of what Islam is.
Even the most bigoted moron should be able to see that there is neither legal nor practical reason for such a restriction. It's a needless, petty, and vindictive idea. The more you try to force Muslims to adopt some imagined, unifying code of "western values", the less likely they are to change.
Ah! A Tumblr blog with a very non-indicative name!
Also; If you antagonize Muslims, you're only going to make them feel even more unwelcome and therefore turn to Wahhabi terrorist stupidity.
The best weapon against IslamoFrum terrorism & extremism is to treat Muslims as the human beings THEY ARE and welcome them with open arms. That way, they WON'T see "Western" values and a free, open, democratic society as "Anti-Muslim".
The heads of Wahhabi morons like Daesh or The Taliban are counting on disaffected Muslims being trashed by the West. It's easier to manipulate them and convert them to their perverted cause.
If the West can be fine with Christianity and Judaism (two ancient Middle-Eastern religions with the same moral values as Islam), it can be fine with Islam. They're all part of the same Religious Family.....worshiping the exact same Hebrew Monotheistic Deity (albeit in somewhat different ways)!
I'm glad that France came to it's senses and put the kibosh on those stupid restrictions. You can still be a secular society with a secular government and still allow personal religious expression and worship. If a woman wants to wear a hijab, let her!
Let me guess, not letting them force women to cover up is the true oppression.
"I do not however think that we need to be tolerant of extreme ideas that hurt others. "
The burqini ban is insane, for sure. But I'd have to know what you think are those "extreme ideas" before I'd agree with you. Because to some on the Christian lunatic fringe, anything that doesn't follow their particular rules, any tiny little thing at all, is considered to be an extreme idea, and so far they have utterly failed to convince me that, for example, a sales clerk saying "Happy Holidays" is a dangerous insult to all Christians everywhere and the death of civilization as we know it.
Sounds like you just want to see what they look like nearly naked.
Trust me; they have the same equipment as the beer-swillin', Marlboro red-huffin', single-wide dwellin', Trump-votin' skanks your unemployed ass lusts after.
His arguments are wrong, but if you look at french law, public display of religious symbols is banned already and quite frankly, the burkini is nothing but such(after all nobody is going to argue here, as I hope that it`s being worn for religious reasons).
With the general ban and shunning of all religions I am very much all right, as long as we treat all equally shitty, as they deserve. I`d be happy if some country(and France is certainly going in the good direction) would state plainly: We don`t want you here as christians, we don`t want you here as muslims, as hindu, etc. We want you as secular citizens embracing humanity and science instead of diffrent slavemasters and if these are more important to you than being our citizen and a rational being, then sadly you will feel persecuted for your tribalistic behaviours and traditions.
But again, this view does hinge on fighting all the versions of the slavers in the skies equally, picking on one specificaly does no good to anyone.
@#1974056
As far as I've seen, all Abrahamic religions are violent and oppressive of women. But just because we might want religion to die out, you can't legislate that freedom of religion away. It's a human right.
Also, bringing up terrorism when discussing Islam. The most overused and predictable thing to do. It must be so sad living in such a black and white world. I can't help but pity you.
I've given the burkini some thought and listened to a woman who grew up as a conservative Muslim and her thoughts on it on a podcast.
Paraphrasing, she said that it's possible that a woman is covering up on her own free will with a burkini, but that modesty is so compulsory in that community that she thinks that would be rare.
Ultimately, I think the ban is a bad idea because it targets an already highly vulnerable group of people in a negative fashion, essentially making going to the beach and swimming impossible. We may be able to see the burkini for what it really is, a tool of oppression, but we can do better.
If people think banning a Burkini will make muslim women wear western swimwear instead they are naiive. They just won't go to the beach, will see the radicals' view of "the West" as being closer to the truth and so on.
Catholic nuns of course won't get policed for covering up. This just shows what a giant clusterfuck this ban has been. It has rightfully been overturned but damage has probably been done already.
The women on the beaches are not "a violent religion that oppresses women".
Women are the ones being oppressed by that religion; why attack THEM?
@1974056not letting them force women to cover up these because 'secularism! Western values!' and threatening them with legal action if they didn't comply. Did you not do the research, or are you so obsessed that you genuinely can't tell the difference?Pure evil! They deserve whatever they get.'
I really hope this burkini ban thing gets more publicity, because it's an absolutely perfect example of the utter hypocrisy of so-called 'Islamorealists'. So you claim that you're against Muslims because they impose their culture's standards and values on other people against their will, but it's not only perfectly okay for anyone and everyone else to do the exact same thing , it's suddenly a good thing when it's French men harassing Muslim women instead of the other way round.
@Swede
You are completely right, but to attack their oppresors we would need to attack their faith without trying to get around it. Now most americans believe diffrently, but in many of our countries there are already laws in place to ban the promotion and excise of certain ideologies, nazism for example but not exclusively. With this in mind we could outright ban all religions based on the idea of any member of our species being someone elses property(be it another human or so called deity), prescribing death to those not following certain rules or even generaly trying to establish themselves as a ruleset for society, regardles of it`s citizens beliefs.
Traditional oppresive abrahamic filth would go right out the window, as would many others while some more universalist sects and probably most new age/buddhist stuff be still okay under such rule. To me it`s perfectly in accordance with the "intolerance for intolerant" belief since only those infringing upon the human and societal rights could be removed, the right to faith being a human right as long as it itself does not deny other such rights.
If you think Muslim women cover their heads because a man makes them, you are very stupid, and need to make the acquaintance of some Muslim women.
If you think dictating dress rules and criminalising individuals for bits of clothing is doing anything other than creating recruits for extremism, you are also very stupid.
Anyway, as Jesus said, ban lipstick, makeup and cosmetic surgery, then come and piously judge the social gender norms of your neighbour.
The team from Azerbaijan entering the Maracana Stadium at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Azerbaijan: the only other Muslim country, apart from Iran, which is mostly Shia Islam.
The women in that team conspicuous by the absence of any head covering, least of all anything resembling that worn by the women in the team from Saudi Arabia.
Your call, hypocrisyinallthings.
Telling a woman she can't be covered at the beach is just as bad as telling her that she can't be uncovered. I don't agree with Muslims forcing their women to be covered head to toe, but since that's so ingrained in their culture forcing them to not be covered would make them feel the same as Western women if they were forced to be totally naked on the beach.
image
There was nothing good about the burkini ban. After one too many painful sunburns, including on my cleavage, I decided to cover more at the lake and outdoor pools. I almost bought a burkini. I found something I liked at a site that caters to Orthodox women better. I'm a grouchy middle-aged agnostic feminist. Is it OK if I choose to cover up at the beach? The burkini ban was about policing women's bodies, and that is not OK.
The ban is stupid. It is a knee-jerk reaction and those are very rarely a good thing.
Stupid debate, important question, idiotic responses.
So if you moved to a land where the women don't wear tops, your mom or your sister or your wife would be OK with a law making them walk around with their breasts exposed on the grounds that the government is trying to control an ideology incompatible with their values? If you've grown up all your life in a culture where women cover themselves, forcing you to walk around in a bikini might be like the Chinese forcing you to eat fried stag beetles.
@DDD
It's (usually)not the actual garments being worn that are the problem, it's the religion that requires them or else. To use @Johns example, what if there was a religion that 1. required women to wear bras and 2. required men to burn down heathen temples. The bra is not a problem, it's the religion requiring it.
@ John:
Before Old Viking asks, where is this land of which you speak?
Edit: Tried to post earlier, but I guess the system wasn't happy with some of my photo choices. Gist of it was, I wish we could eliminate all the control-freak dress code nonsense. Like a supreme being would care one cracker what you wear on your head, etc.
That said, I didn't grow up in a culture where I would feel weird not following the rules. It's all the same to me if you want to look like this:
image
Edit-edit: @ John: you've jogged my memory. I believe there were places in Indonesia at least as late as the 1980's.
I'm kinda surprised Muslim women even go to beaches. I would think they'd be too busy trying to avoid getting raped and murdered by their parents/husbands/brothers.
But either way, I still think the ban, while misguided, was still a step in the right direction. Muslim women are largely brainwashed by men into thinking that hijab isn't simply designed to control them, so the brainwashing needs to be slowly scrubbed out of their psyches through assimilation and exposure.
@FELIX LÆTVS
Yes we can and should legislate freedom of religion away, because freedom of religion protects people like David J. Stewart, Steven Anderson, the Haredi, and all the Islamist imams in the West who somehow avoid being arrested for terrorism.
And all the people being "but, we'll make moderate Muslims turn Wahhabi!", don't make me laugh, if you turn Wahhabi because you won't fit into Western society, that means you never belonged there.
I do not however think that we need to be tolerant of extreme ideas that hurt others.
Precisely. Being intolerant to intolerance is how society should work, and since Europe tends to be intolerant to its own intolerant groups (Christian fundamentalists and neo-Nazis), it's a bit odd why everyone is tolerating Islam's own intolerance and oppression of women, homosexuals, etc by brainwashing them into hating their own bodies, gender, and sexuality from birth.
moderationinallthings: "These are extreme measures to try to control an ideology incompatible with western values."
moderationinallthings (hears of a Christian woman who wore a 1920s style bathing suit to the beach for modesty reasons and was similarly told to undress): "PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS!!!!!"
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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