cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/1476531
Archived version: https://archive.ph/r4ZKz
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230815100118/https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/08/14/muslim-women-harassed-at-northern-italian-beach-for-wearing-modest-clothing
I know it’s just an anecdote, but I’ve know quite a few Muslim women that prefer to wear it. I’ve also met many who don’t like to wear them. Is it really fair to ban it for the ones that actually choose to wear it?
Women choosing to dress conservatively isn’t exactly something foreign to Italians. Let’s not forget that nuns also wear very similar clothing and cover their hair. That’s not so different from a hijab.
Banning the burqa is limiting agency just as much as mandating it. Yeah, I think veiling etc. is honestly a stupid and ridiculously misogynistic custom, but I don’t think the fix is just another rule to limit women’s autonomy, but in a different way than before.
But we should ban leopard print clothing.
And mandate overalls. Just overalls. Nothing underneath.
hijabs are cute ngl, people are dumb
plus it gives you a great excuse to avoid washing your hair for a day or two while still looking snazzy
I’m happy to ban religious veils like nun hats (whatever they are called) and burkas/burqas as problematic religious symbols of misogyny. These religious relics are embedded deep into a culture and that part of the culture is misogynistic and discriminatory.
I don’t know, but I would bet many of the women that “prefer” wearing them prefer it because they believe they would be shunned otherwise from their support system. They “prefer” it in part because they don’t know anything different, and their own community has enforced it as soon as they went through puberty. What does it even mean to prefer something when you haven’t ever experienced not wearing it for an extended time without all your local support group shunning you? Is that really a preference?
But you can’t tell me these things are always comfortable. They look miserably uncomfortable in many situations and must cause a lot of undue heat and such. But the culture that forced these women to wear them runs deep. That part of culture needs to be eradicated.
We should also ban long hair.
I’m sure plenty of women only prefer to have long hair because they think they would be shunned or stan out if they cut it short.
I’m all for people getting to wear their hair like they want, but I’m confident that many women would actually prefer to wear their hair short, and so can’t be trusted to make that choice for themselves or express an honest opinion about it.
The first step in women’s liberation is making it clear that they lack agency and that other people know what’s best for them.
We’re all subject the cultural norms of the society that we live in. Particularly with religious norms, maintaining them can be coercive.
But that doesn’t mean that burkas, in and of themselves, are regressive.
Shouldn’t the goal be to create a space that is free of coercion so people can actually choose to wear it if they want to? Outright banning them is just enforcing a different cultural norm.