The Niqab, a sign of devotion or oppression?

[Dinorah]

I have to say, I am in favour of anti-niqab laws at least in countries, which already had laws against entirely covering one's face (as many in Europe do, usually as a legacy of anti-terrorist laws of the 70s). I strongly believe in the secular state so I don't see why exceptions to the laws should be made on the grounds of religion.

I don't put niqabs at all in the same category as hair/head coverings of any religion. Covering your face really seems to me blotting a token of your identity.

As to whether it's a "sign of devotion or oppression", I suppose the question could be asked of any type of religious -dictated modesty.

[Renting with Raggles]

Maybe these women don't talk to you because they can pick up on your obvious disdain for the choices they have made.

They don't talk to any of their children's teachers. They obviously aren't allowed to. They don't talk to the female teachers, or the male teachers, or the atheist teachers, or the Muslim teachers. I don't know how they'd engage with teachers from fundamentalist Muslim cultures, because I've never worked with any. They appear to do the same thing in both Britain and Australia on PTN - go along with husband, deliberately draw chairs away from us and refuse to engage. No other group of parents does this at a parent-teacher conference; it's impossible not to notice.

Maybe they don't want to engage with society - that also sends off alarm bells, because every other parent wants to know about their children's progress, even going so far as to drag interpreters over themselves. But I doubt it. I don't disdain these women, because I don't think they've made an informed choice.

So a woman making an informed choice about her own preferences when it comes to living by her religion are worth negative judgment because they don't go along with what you think she should be doing? You know there is this thing called oppression right?

Why do you oppress Michelle Duggar by posting on a Quiverfull snark board? Won't someone please think of her? It's oppression, you know, to make a negative judgement of anyone's choices, however stupid or harmful. :roll:

[JesusFightClub]

I have to say, I am in favour of anti-niqab laws at least in countries, which already had laws against entirely covering one's face (as many in Europe do, usually as a legacy of anti-terrorist laws of the 70s). I strongly believe in the secular state so I don't see why exceptions to the laws should be made on the grounds of religion.

I don't put niqabs at all in the same category as hair/head coverings of any religion. Covering your face really seems to me blotting a token of your identity.

As to whether it's a "sign of devotion or oppression", I suppose the question could be asked of any type of religious -dictated modesty.

Entirely covering your face would make it a bit difficult to see where you were going ;)

The UK does not have such laws but at least in Scotland the police can apply for a Section 60 order which prevents you from obscuring your face. This is only valid for a limited time and place (usually for a protest, demo or other event where the coppers have "reasonable grounds" to think there may be public order offences.) If I am, say, feeling a bit cold and I pull up my scarf to cover the lower part of my face and pull my hood on, I am not committing an offence. Even if there is a Section 60 order in place, the police must inform me of this and give me a chance to comply.

I mention this because I recall being, a few years or so back, on a pro Palestinian demo. It was very peaceful, relaxed, no Black Bloc, nobody covering. Oh yeah, apart from the niqab wearing women on the demo. And there was a Section 60 in place.

This confused the police no end. Looking small and innocent as I am, I wandered around freely (ADD makes listening to rally speakers tough) and heard a lot of the outlying police asking each other what to do. "Section 60, though. And I can only see her eyes..."

Realising perhaps that forcing women to remove their face veils in public would be a Bad Idea in a crowd like this, they eventually did nothing and the niqabi women got on with their thing. A sensible decision.

[Alecto]

They don't talk to any of their children's teachers. They obviously aren't allowed to. They don't talk to the female teachers, or the male teachers, or the atheist teachers, or the Muslim teachers.

Maybe their English isn't up to par and they feel uncomfortable speaking with native English speakers... It might have less to do with niqab and more to do with being a non-English speaker.

[Sinister Rouge]

The past few years this has been a pretty big issue in my neck of the woods, with various laws and regulations being passed regarding when/where it is appropriate for a woman to wear niqab. It's pretty polarizing.

Exhibit A: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/12/12 ... 43101.html

Tahir Gora, secretary general of the Muslim Canadian Congress, described Monday's news as “wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.â€

“I think this is really one step in the right direction of our call,†Gora told The Huffington Post. The Muslim Canadian Congress has been lobbying Ottawa for a total ban on niqabs in Canada.

“Only a very tiny percentage of women put the niqab on their face – which is a very extremist element of our community,†Gora said.

“It should be completely banned in Canada … We feel that this is a marginalization of Muslim women. When you put a niqab on a woman, they are unable to fulfill their duties, they are unable to intermingle in the society,†he said.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and prominent critic of Islam, went even further. "Niqab donning women should not get citizenship at all. It is crystal clear that they reject Canadian values and that their allegiance is first to a foreign legal system (Shariah) over the Canadian constitution, country and people," Hirsi Ali told HuffPost. "Giving citizenship has become such a routine practice in liberal democracies that people have forgotten its original meaning of loyalty and commitment to the community you want to belong to."

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced in Montreal Monday that from now on veiled women would not be allowed to take the oath of citizenship without showing their faces.

"This is really a matter of pure principle which is at the very heart of our identity and our values with respect to openness and equality," Kenney said. "The oath of citizenship is basically a public gesture, a public declaration that shows that you are joining the Canadian family and this has to be done freely and openly, not secretly. Isolating and separating a group of Canadians or allowing that group to hide their faces while they are becoming members of our community is completely counter to Canada's commitment to openness and social cohesion."

The Canadian Islamic Congress, however, judged the move an attack on religious freedoms.

“Those women have the same rights as other Canadian citizens. The laws apply to us equally,†Whida Valiante, the Congress’ national president told HuffPost. “If the Minister thinks that these women are not living by the very heart of our values, and just by taking the niqab off they will join the heart of our values, they already have. They went through the process of learning and making sure that they passed the (citizenship) exams. If their heart and soul was not there, why would they do all that?â€

“Mr. Kenney, really, he is not consulting the community. I mean he ask one person and comes up with this. If he had consulted a large community, we are Shia and Sunni and the largest group of Muslims and we have a lot of scholars in our midst who can understand and explain and even draw negotiations around these issues, and he should do that. Then that would be a Canadian value,†Valiante said. “We hold that dear to us, we want our freedoms and we want to be able to do it openly.â€

Exhibit B: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/08 ... on-lawyer/

N.S. — whose identity is protected by a publication ban — was ordered during a preliminary hearing in Ontario court to remove her niqab, a Muslim head and face covering which leaves only a slit for her eyes. She refused and, after making its way through the Ontario court system, her precedent-setting case is now at this country’s top court.

And finally: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opi ... le2270014/

Personally, I'm not sure where I stand. I'm not uncomfortable around women who wear the niqab, having been close friends in high school with the only Muslim girl in our school (very small town Ontario - she only wore a burqa, but still got a lot of shit for it). She wears the niqab now, and I don't see her as oppressed - she's divorced from the guy she had been arranged to marry since high school because he wanted to take multiple wives, and now she busts her butt as a single mom supporting their 5 year old son and getting an education. She's funny, clever, and very devout, and as her beliefs have evolved so has her garb. That said, I know it does pose some practical difficulties within our Canadian culture, so I guess I'm sympathetic to both arguments.

That said, there are total idiots on both sides too. The crap people say to either attack or defend boggles my mind - from the guy who said he considers the niqab/hijab good because "it helps me spot potential terrorists" to the father of several niqab-wearing daughters who claimed that he saved sooo much money on hair products and hair cuts by making them cover up, and that he put it all in to education funds for his girls :roll:

[CanadianHippie]

They don't talk to any of their children's teachers. They obviously aren't allowed to. They don't talk to the female teachers, or the male teachers, or the atheist teachers, or the Muslim teachers. I don't know how they'd engage with teachers from fundamentalist Muslim cultures, because I've never worked with any. They appear to do the same thing in both Britain and Australia on PTN - go along with husband, deliberately draw chairs away from us and refuse to engage. No other group of parents does this at a parent-teacher conference; it's impossible not to notice.

Maybe they don't want to engage with society - that also sends off alarm bells, because every other parent wants to know about their children's progress, even going so far as to drag interpreters over themselves. But I doubt it. I don't disdain these women, because I don't think they've made an informed choice.

Why do you oppress Michelle Duggar by posting on a Quiverfull snark board? Won't someone please think of her? It's oppression, you know, to make a negative judgement of anyone's choices, however stupid or harmful. :roll:

I don't give a shit what Michelle Duggar wears, I do care what she forces on her children. Like SOTDRT, J'slaves doing her work, and teaching her children to hate people who don't conform to her perfect ideals of what people should be/do.

[valsa]

They don't talk to any of their children's teachers. They obviously aren't allowed to. They don't talk to the female teachers, or the male teachers, or the atheist teachers, or the Muslim teachers. I don't know how they'd engage with teachers from fundamentalist Muslim cultures, because I've never worked with any. They appear to do the same thing in both Britain and Australia on PTN - go along with husband, deliberately draw chairs away from us and refuse to engage. No other group of parents does this at a parent-teacher conference; it's impossible not to notice.

Maybe they don't want to engage with society - that also sends off alarm bells, because every other parent wants to know about their children's progress, even going so far as to drag interpreters over themselves. But I doubt it. I don't disdain these women, because I don't think they've made an informed choice.

I guess I should count myself lucky I'm not a Muslim. I hate to drive. I always have someone drive me if it's possible and, if I were marry, I'd always have my spouse drive when we're together.

I count myself lucky I'm not a part of a group where people would feel free to make the assumption that I'm obviously not making an informed decision about (not) driving and that I must be being oppressed.

[Doomed Harlottt]

I think the niqab is a sign of devotion AND a sign of oppression. And I think this issue illustrates the double-bind in which patriarchy places women.

It is natural for people to want to express pride in their culture and religion. The problem for women is that most cultures and religions are patriarchal, or even misogynist, to one degree or another. The niqab is a gendered thing, obviously, and I think it is telling that only women are expected to express their devotion to God by covering in such an identity-erasing way. So if you are a woman from a niqab-promoting culture, you have to either choose between your culture and your feminism (if you are feminist) or find some way to rationalize both. I can totally understand why someone might choose the latter. Women who take their husband's surnames do it all the time. And while I do identify the idea of the niqab as fundamentally anti-woman, I don't view women who wear the niqab as necessarily being oppressed victims who have no agency of their own. I respect women who choose the niqab even if I don't respect the niqab itself.

I am totally opposed to laws preventing the wearing the niqab (unless there is some necessary practical restriction on doing so, like the inability to drive). I think it is ridiculous to punish a woman for the patriarchal norms of her culture.

[Renting with Raggles]

Maybe their English isn't up to par and they feel uncomfortable speaking with native English speakers... It might have less to do with niqab and more to do with being a non-English speaker.

There are always interpreters at these events. All the other non-English speaking parents take advantage of them, including their husbands. It's not that I think it right or wrong, it is just striking because it's unlike any other group I encounter.

I guess I should count myself lucky I'm not a Muslim. I hate to drive. I always have someone drive me if it's possible and, if I were marry, I'd always have my spouse drive when we're together.

I count myself lucky I'm not a part of a group where people would feel free to make the assumption that I'm obviously not making an informed decision about (not) driving and that I must be being oppressed.

And if I had noticed this behaviour from only one or a few of the mothers wearing the niqab, I'd chalk it up to personal preference. When we see an entire nation like Saudi Arabia where women don't drive, are we to assume that all the women in that country simply dislike driving as much as you do?

I'm not certain why it is wrong to draw conclusions about this culture based on observations in the same way we do when we see a Quiverful mother at a Walmart. I don't think that every woman who covers her face is oppressed, just like I don't think that every woman who submits to her husband Debi Pearl-style is oppressed. I just think both practises are extremely effective means of oppression.

I am totally opposed to laws preventing the wearing the niqab (unless there is some necessary practical restriction on doing so, like the inability to drive). I think it is ridiculous to punish a woman for the patriarchal norms of her culture.

Pretty much how I feel.

[ladyamylynn]

As a feminist, my gut reaction is to be opposed to restrictive clothing requirements/expectations for women, whether that be hajib/niqab, frumpers, stiletto heels, etc. However, it's always interesting and enlightening to get the perspective of the actual woman wearing the clothes, be it a stripper, a fundamentalist Christian, or a Muslim woman. I follow this blog fairly regularly, written by a Malaysian Muslim woman who dressed extremely conservatively, even by her country's standards. She's also really into fashion and puts together all kinds of interesting outfits, topped with an abaya, hajib, and niqab.

kakchik.com

Anyway, like I said, I'm not a huge fan of sex-based clothing requirements but it's an interesting read none the less.

[FaustianSlip]

I would add a caveat to my original statement on this issue, which someone quoted upthread. In situations where there are security concerns (and I'm not talking about the random paranoia being used to try and justify nationwide niqab bans here, but specific places/situations), I think it's appropriate to say that people need to have their faces uncovered. For instance, I work at a U.S. government facility. Clearly, people wearing niqab isn't a big issue here in China, but in other countries, it probably is. If the U.S. Embassy in, say, Riyadh were to put in place a policy saying that people entering the Embassy for services, visa interviews, et cetera must have their faces unobscured, that wouldn't give me any heartburn (incidentally, I don't know whether or not the Embassy has such a policy, but I'm going to get in touch with a friend in a Middle Eastern country and ask, because now I'm curious). That's a secure facility in a place with a very real threat of terrorist attacks, and you need to be able to verify people's identity in order to issue reports of birth abroad, passports and visas. It's rational to have a policy wherein they have to show you their face, similar to the driver's license thing (perhaps allowing for a visa applicant, for instance, to interview with a female in a private room, to preserve her modesty). Beyond that, though, whatever I might think of the niqab personally, I would have a really hard time feeling okay with just banning it in the name of "liberating" women who are, at least theoretically, choosing to wear it (I'll leave the debate about whether it's really a choice if there's external pressure from your family or community for another time).

[Maul the Koala]

Update:

I asked a couple of my Muslim friends today and they agreed with Alecto's friend that tight clothes with the hijab is not in line with the prophet's teachings. One said most of the time it's younger girls who want to be as stylish as their peers but feel that they have to wear the hijab too.

[daisyjane1234]

Like several others have posted, I too live in a city where both the niqab and hijab are quite common. I think of the hijab as just another hairstyle these days, like others have said, I don't really notice it.

There is a woman in my immediate neighbourhood who wears niqab. In conversation with this woman she is very clear that the choice is hers and this is a way for her to honour her Creator.

Like most others, I don't have a problem with the niqab as long as the wearer is comfortable removing it for reasons of security, which I think is reasonable. I do admit that in conversation with a niqab wearer I do feel awkward not being able to see her face. I appreciate being in a same-sex environment when they feel comfortable removing their covering.

As a very liberal Christian I feel very uncomfortable with an image of God who celebrates a women who hides herself from the greater world. But that is my agenda and I feel that it is important to create a world where diversity is a good thing and conversation about different beliefs valued.