Burka prohibition

[noracharles]

It's horrible that it even got that far in the Spanish parliament, but I'm glad that respect for women narrowly edged out the islamophobia, and wearing the burka was not prohibited by law in Spain.

If you think islamist men are forcing their female family members to wear the burka, and that that is wrong - how can you defend the state mandating how women can dress?

I'm not a fan of any sort of socially mandated "modest clothing" or religiously symbolic gender-specific clothing. But you know, Spain: You have an awful lot of nuns wearing restrictive habits to be starting with the Muslim women. Just saying.

Comments

[annmarieri]

Issues like this have always made me incredibly angry, because it's just as you said: I'm not a fan of any sort of socially mandated "modest clothing" or religiously symbolic gender-specific clothing. But you know, Spain: You have an awful lot of nuns wearing restrictive habits to be starting with the Muslim women. Just saying.

I guess I know too many women who choose to wear the burka and are proud of it, but my anger at the state for trying to step in and tell women what they can and cannot wear pretty much robs me of coherency. So thank you for putting a bit of it into words for me. :)

[noracharles]

I'm glad I wrote it, then :-)

It's a difficult subject, because who's to say any of us freely chooses what to wear. We're all influenced by social mores and the opinions of people close to us. The state should definitely stay out of it, though, that much I know.

[annmarieri]

Well, and then there arises the question of whether or not societal pressure is always a bad thing, which I believe depends on whether the people enjoy or don't enjoy the things society expects them to do. But I just spent eight hours straight standing and painting a little girl's name on her wall, so I don't really want to write up an essay on the subject. -_-