Reading this thread at Feministe made several highly salient points magically appear in my head about the Veiling Debate that’s been going on:
1) Why am I the only white person in the world it seems who knows that muslim women are not actually commanded by their religion to veil in front of children – which means she’s veiling to avoid the male gaze of her colleagues not the children – according to the Quran? I’m pretty sure I read a english translation of the Quran at some point unless I secretly learned arabic without me realising, so I’m kinda shocked to see so many people who are so utterly unclear about that point, I’d assume it’d be like having at least a passing knowledge of the bible – sort of fundamental to commenting about islam and most of the geo-political hoo-haa surrounding the various islamophobic pogroms really.
2) Last I checked it was illegal for a woman to wander around without a top on in most american states, where are the legions of anti-mandatory-chest-covering protestors? It’s the same principle and I really could have done with out the mandatory bra + shirt combo I had no choice about wearing back in the summer – covered breasts do also seem to send crazies (like ann althouse or John “The Pedobear” Derbyshire) into a complete tizzy so it would save everyone a lot of trouble really because so many people freak out at covered chests and just can’t stop staring for some reason.
Oh, and it’s fucked up to ingringe on people’s personal liberty to wear whatever the hell they like or not just because some crazy white asshole finds something offensive – like that’s anyone’s problem but their own.
3) If a class of 6 – 12 year olds needs to see the teachers lips to understand her (which I’m sure has nothing to do with a presumption by anyone about her ability to speak english – because I’m sure everyone knows that like all most (innit!) british muslims she speaks english better and more eloquently than pretty much any and all canadians ever will), then I assume she has the training to deal with a special ed class and when she say “the kids can understand me fine” (as she has done) we can pretty much take her word on it – and if she’s teaching deaf kids she should need to be able to sign anyway and that she wears a niqab is an incidental side note that isn’t really relevent.
But having said all that, I really do have to agree with all the rest of the knee jerk white reationaries that it’s about time Britain and America both started to deal with the scandal that is muslims wearing hoods on their head. (more…)
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