[A Muslim spokesman] accused [Boris] Johnson of “dehumanising Muslim women.” That was a step too far. What could be more dehumanising than the niqab and the burqa? Hiding a woman dehumanises her completely, turning a person into an anonymous thing.
On visits to Afghanistan I have been shocked to see how contemptuously women in burqas are treated in the street, often shoved aside by men as obstacles in the way. The burqa doesn’t give women more respect, but less.
… Religions have always branded their identities by restrictions on women. Christianity, Judaism, Islam and others all set out with extreme rules proclaiming a disgust of unclean women’s bodies, with ritualised baths, head-shaving, denying abortion and contraception, arranged marriages, purdah, churching of new mothers, and barring women from priesthoods. Inside extreme cults and sects, abuse of women is almost inevitable.
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I do not think hijabs and niqabs should hereafter be proscribed or inadmissible subjects in conversations. Some reactionary Muslim organisations are using Borisgate to expand and strengthen their influence. They say outlandish stuff and are not challenged.
[S]carves, cloaks and masks symbolise the negation of the female form, female inferiority and menace, and most troublingly, a wilful distancing from other humans in the public space.
… [We Muslims need to] abandon regressive customs and integrate for the greater good and our survival. With the hard right marching again across Europe, Muslims face an existential threat. This is no time for cultural and religious obstinacy.
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Maladroitly, offensively, Boris Johnson has opened a door. Honest people are now speaking honestly about the appalling burqa.
August 14th, 2018 at 8:29PM
so there is evidence that giving women education,legal-standing/full-citizenship,economic rights and opportunities, all give them better standing in the world to live as they would, any evidence that taking choices away from them provides such benefits?
August 14th, 2018 at 9:04PM
dmf: I tend to agree with those who argue that the burqa doesn’t look like a choice for most of the women who wear it. Any consideration of the larger social/familial/ideological reality in which many burqa wearers live would tend to substantiate this.
I also agree with those who argue (this includes – unanimously and repeatedly – the European Court of Human Rights) that total anonymity is toxic to civil life. And I indeed think that taking away the possibility that you will be forced to wear a burqa by your husband, or that you will choose to wear a burqa, will give you a better standing in the world. I mean – how could it not? A woman in a burqa will have a terrible time getting a job, interacting and taking part in the public realm, etc. By definition she will be unable to have much “standing” in the world at all.