Some people want to ban burqas/niqabs because they think the wearers are being oppressed into wearing them, and they think banning the garments will put an end to this oppression.
What I'm wondering: if you're enough of an oppressor to bring your family to a new country but then forbid them from wearing that country's conventional standard of dress if they choose to do so, why would a ban make you shrug your shoulders and say "Oh, okay, they can expose their faces in public then" rather than just forbidding your family members from leaving the house?
It would be interesting to take a poll of parents, and ask them "If an activity your child was involved in changed its uniform to something that you consider to be far too revealing for your child to wear in public, would you allow your child to continue the activity?"
3 comments:
At the same time by banning burqas you are oppressing a religious minority. I don't think governments should dictate style or religion. This just makes some sort of reverse-oppression. I don't think women in any country should be banned from wearing them or forced to wear them.
And on top of religious issues, there's the simple fact that people's sense of modesty as it pertains to personal dignity tends to develop based on the clothing standards they grew up with. My great-grandmother was born in the 1890s, and for the first three decades of her life grown women always wore long skirts. By the time hemlines started to rise in the 1920s, she was already about our age and had lived her whole life in a world where a lady never shows her legs, so she would have felt embarrassingly overexposed doing so. She continued wearing long skirts every day of her life until she died in the 1970s. Never wore pants, never even showed her ankles, because she would have felt humiliated doing so.
On a more modern note, I was 12 when they started talking about making it legal for women to be topless in public, and I was terrified at this development because I was afraid I'd have no option but to wear topless bathing suits, which would be a humiliation. It's been legal for well over a decade and bathing suits with tops are still readily available. Even though the law declared it injust for women not to be allowed to go topless just like men, our personal standards of modesty and dignity are still the same and the majority of women around here still prefer to cover their breasts. Just as my great-grandmother wore her long skirts regardless of current fashion trends, I'll still feel the need to cover my chest even if topless becomes more common in the future.
For someone who grew up covering their face in public, their sense of modesty isn't about to change just because they're in another country. Yes, they know it isn't mandatory in the new country, but it isn't likely to occur to them going in that they might not be allowed to wear their own clothes in whatever quantities they prefer.
I am copying your comment, above, to use when needed, with credit. I have a co-worker who needs to hear it. Thanks.
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