This is what makes me hate the niqaab. When a woman talks in one, it feels weird. You can't see their facial expressions or anything, so a conversation is very odd, even from my experience when I talk to Niqabis something just doesn't feel right.
I got a solution-- don't talk with them. I don't. I see niqabis all the time in Philly, particularly West Philly, pushing around baby strollers, shopping and whatnot, and I don't have any reason to talk to them so I don't, anymore than I'd care to strike up a conversation with someone handing out fundie Bible tracts. You wear a niqab and you might as well be wearing a big fuckin sign that says "I'm a religious fundamentalist", so why would I want to talk with someone like that? The fact they are wearing a mask only compounds my disinterest in communicating with them.
On that level, I can totally understand why people detest the niqab and why people feel sorry for the women who are coerced into wearing it by their family or husband. In Muslim-majority countries, like Turkey, I can sympathize with it, because it's hard to escape the social and family pressure/coercion to wear it that a ban is the only option the state has to protect the freedoms of those who don't want to wear it.
But in the West, women have a choice. That choice may be difficult, but most important choices are, and that decision may come with sacrifice and risk, but very little is gained in most people's lives without some level of sacrifice and risk. In secular, Western nations there is the option for women to liberate themselves from wearing an unwanted niqab, and seek assistance from the state and charitable organizations for doing so, and so long as that option exists, the state should not ban it, because it will trample on the rights of those who do freely choose to wear it.
I just don't get why people get *personally* offended by a niqabi.. I don't like it, but CC's downright hateful tone (ie immature twat) is puzzling.
I kinda get it. She's reinforcing Islam's gender apartheid, and that is kinda personally offensive to me. It's one thing if you're wearing a niqab because of family or social pressure, quite another to implicitly or explicitly promote this crap on the internet. Just cause I respect someone's right to make a choice doesn't mean I respect that choice. I fully support Nick Griffin's right to spew his hateful shit without the UK government punishing, but if I saw the guy in a bar, I'd scramble his fuckin face.
In such a case a judgment was made that the practise could infringe on the right of children to receive an education unimpeded by this attire.
That's not a right. It's a social obligation and a public good, but it's not a right.
Poll
Topic: Ban Niqab?