Burka

[Rubyretro]

That's it Claire -camouflage !

What about the itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bur-kini ?
HAS IT BEEN INVENTED YET ?

edit: can I sell you some shares ?

[caz]

Actually, many women in Muslim countries *are* taught that they will be responsible for any untoward events that follow a man becoming insensible with desire after seeing a woman that is not properly covered up. So it's not entirely accurate to suggest that such women don't believe that they are capable of arousing wild passions in any or every passing man--many certainly do (because a pair of uncovered swarthy hands will do it, every time).
By the same token, although men may be viewed as creatures governed by a lust that will awake at the unbidden sight of a pair of eyebrows, this all goes back to the view that men are all-powerful (hence that idiot statement by an Iranian cleric a few months back about uncovered women causing earthquakes, because the swell of male desire would be so great it would cause the very firmament to rupture).
So if the world implodes, it's because women have showed their forearms.

Well, Claire, I was trying hard not to tar everyone with the most fundamental 'nonsense' brush. Your crack about 'swarthy' hands was a bit near the knuckle for me.

And as for 'someone' stepping in and stamping hard on the worst of the nonsense, words are all very well, but I'm not volunteering, thanks very much.

But this does seem more of a cultural than a God-fearing obsession, entirely related to whether one was born with a willy or a fanny (why are the 'religious' so often hung up on the purely physical and sexual?), and the victims created by it - surprise surprise - tend to be the women. Any attempt to 'cure' the obsession should not create more victims than it relieves. I would hope that as people mingle more and more with liberated types like us, and see the kind of freedoms we uphold and enjoy, change would come gradually from within, with the victims taking charge of their own destinies and saying "Bugger the burka, I'm getting me tits oot for the lads before they reach me knees".

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I'm afraid that I did once buy one, in Qatar...it came in very handy for Hallowe'en.

Ah, well the Croydon BNP candidate at the last election (she lost, thankfully) got into a bit of a row recently for wearing one to a fancy dress party, so I won't be following suit.

She also made a tit of herself by saying that the Cumbrian gunman should have come down south and used his bullets to get rid of unwanted... well, I'll let you guess the rest.

Love,

Caz
X

[Rubyretro]

I would hope that as people mingle more and more with liberated types like us

,
I agree with you in theory, but it is impossible to 'mingle' in a burka, and although I have many Moslem friends, it is extremely unlikely that I would ever meet any burka wearing women socially, nor even professionally.
I would say that wearing the burka deliberately keeps them segregated -and equally segregated from ordinary Moslems as much as me.

edit: I would like to point out, as I was making crude 'burka' jokes, that I am English, married to a Portuguese husband and we live in France, and so immigrant integration/discrimination is something which I have experienced at first hand -and I can assure you that the English are the butt of many a joke here, and are disliked in some places (the Luberon -not far away) for pushing up house prices
and causing businesses and schools to close. The North African Moslems here are far more of the French culture than I am, and have far more 'right' to be here (due to a colonial history). Burka wearers are a whole different story as they are actively working to destabalise our society by being provocative and deliberately not attempting to integrate/participate.

[caz]

There was a case recently where a hotel landlady refused to give a room to two gay men. They complained, and the last I heard the police were looking into it (into the case, not the room).

Yeah, I heard about that one, Robert.

I do feel it should be up to the landlady to decide who she wants sleeping in her bed, but I also think her business head needs testing. The pink pound is not to be sniffed at, and if the boys had enjoyed their stay they would have told all their friends (gay and straight) and she could have had new customers coming out of her ears. And they would probably have run up bedroom curtains for her too.

Hotels or guest houses run by gay men are among the very best, smartest and cleanest I've ever stayed in. But there's nowt so queer as homophobic seaside landladies.

Love,

Caz
X

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

I am in Malaysia at the moment and the woman in front of me at Passport Control had a burka on. I was wondering how in Allah's name would they know it was her? Bizarre.

[caz]

,
I agree with you in theory, but it is impossible to 'mingle' in a burka, and although I have many Moslem friends, it is extremely unlikely that I would ever meet any burka wearing women socially, nor even professionally.
I would say that wearing the burka deliberately keeps them segregated -and equally segregated from ordinary Moslems as much as me.

Hi Rubyretro,

If women don't want to meet me socially, I can assure you it won't worry me in the slightest. And I won't care whether they only have their eyes peeping out at the world or proudly sporting their birthday suit.

Love,

Caz
X

[Robert]

Being sartorially challenged, I'm not sure exactly what these terms "burka," "yashmak" etc mean, but there you go.

Bob Hope once complimented a woman on her sari, to be told that it was a sarong. He replied "Sorry I was so wrong."

[Rubyretro]

We totally agree on something then !!!!

I would be happy to meet anyone wearing a Burka (less their husband !) -I only mean't that it was highly unlikely that I would in the ordinary run of things..

[Limehouse]

I think that may be more in our minds than theirs, Limehouse. In any case, if it was man who first put his woman in a burka, it would imply that he knew what men were like and didn't trust them. It is, after all, the male's biological must-have, to fancy the burka off the female of the species.

The point is surely, that all women should be able to trust men to behave themselves while still desiring - from a safe distance. I don't believe that women who wear a burka do so because they assume they are irresistible to men. Some are going to have faces and bodies that only a mother could love.

While it is my firm belief that women should be able to wear what we damn well like, wherever we are in the world, and there should be no laws to stop us doing so, we are responsible for the reaction we cause by our appearance, if we are well aware what that reaction is likely to be, and we go ahead regardless. In any civilised society, we should be able to choose our religion, choose our husband and choose our clothes. But we can't choose where we were born and we can't always choose where we live.

Women who have the choice, and choose to wear the full burka, should at least bear in mind that there are women stuck in other countries and cultures, who don't have the luxury of choice and have to wear it against their will. As a powerful symbol of male on female repression, it does send out mixed messages when women adopt the symbol of their own accord for some other reason. Their reasons may be their own business, but people will make assumptions and you can't stop them. Maybe the women who wear it by choice (for modesty or to stop men ogling or whatever) could make a stand for the women who don't have that choice, by picking a certain colour that would communicate to everyone a "right on" message.

But as Rubyretro says, women get slapped twice if they are punished by the law for being forced by their husbands to wear the thing. That has got to be the wrong way to deal with this perceived 'problem'.

Love,

Caz
X

I agree almost entirely Caz. I believe that in some cases, women are told that they should cover their faces to avoid unwanted attention from men and I believe that that in itself is disrespectful to men because it implies they cannot control their desires/emotions and it is also disrespectful to women because it makes them responsible for the so-called out-of-control men.

It should be the choice of the woman if and why she wears a Burka but I do sympathise with people who feel they are out of place in western society.

[claire]

Caz,
Thanks so much for putting me straight. It is always a distinct pleasure to encounter someone who not only wants to tell people how misguided and offensive they are whilst refusing to actually engage in the real debate or put themselves in any sort of frontline. Your entire response seemed intended to draw me as some sort of BNP sympathising idiot; I don't appreciate it. In fact, frankly, how dare you?
It's very, very easy to sit in the west deploying your nasty little superiority complex, but having spent years in various parts of the middle east and watched the struggles of young women to make something of themselves, only to be stamped on by men who hide behind the cleric's mask, I think I prefer to trust my own judgement on this rather than your vitriol.
Go pick on someone else, Caz. Go put someone else straight about their deficiencies on all matters that you wander past and feel like chipping in to.

And if that gets me banned, then that's just hilarious.

[Natalie Severn]

Claire-you are not alone--- I "ve been on the receiving end of a particular brand of "Caz vitriol " myself and I am pretty sick of it too- so right on---you tell her!
On the Burka ,the point is where will the repression stop ? If Hindu fundamentalists also begin to insist that in the name of religious purity "widow burning" should be restored would that be OK too? Will the endorsement of wife battering follow because certain religious groups claim it is part of their traditional faith? Will the stoning of adulterous women be the next " religious practice" to be endorsed ?
Cheers
Norma

[Limehouse]

Claire-you are not alone--- I "ve been on the receiving end of a particular brand of "Caz vitriol " myself and I am pretty sick of it too- so right on---you tell her!
On the Burka ,the point is where will the repression stop ? If Hindu fundamentalists also begin to insist that in the name of religious purity "widow burning" should be restored would that be OK too? Will the endorsement of wife battering follow because certain religious groups claim it is part of their traditional faith? Will the stoning of adulterous women be the next " religious practice" to be endorsed ?
Cheers
Norma

Good points Norma. A dress code is one thing, but, as you say, it could be the start of a long line of strong-arm tactics imposed in the name of religeon. And that was a good point claire made - why are these things imposed on women? I was really shocked at the cleric who blamed women for earth quakes etc. How could a sane man suggest such a thing? And why would anyone take notice of him?

[c.d.]

What do folk think about the great burka bust-up? If I were a Moslem woman, I wouldn't wear one - how can you have a fag with one of those on?

uh...you are talking about cigarettes, right? You see, here in the U.S....uh...never mind.

c.d.

[belinda]

The most hypoccritical thing I see here is women forced to wear head scarves yashmaks and even once a Burka yet the men they are with are almost always dressed in western style clothes. I even see little girls with headscarves on.

The trouble is as mentioned above women are indoctrinated from childhood that they cause men to have evil lusfull thoughts so they must cover themselves or they are insulting God/Allah who as we all know is a man.

In documentaries about Ancient Egypt I have been watching lately some of the female archeaologists are now wearing headscarves while the men are dressed in western style.

Islamic women are the only ones who can change this yet they have practically no power to do so.

I know of one woman who had to leave her country because of death threats about the "radical views" she was promoting.

I have also heard Islamic men saying how much the Islamic religion values women. What as I don't know