Jingsamichty

Yes. There is no theological requirement to cover a woman's face. A niqab is only a head scarf, not a face-veil.

Do you think it is correct, that given there is a simultaneous "Me Too" thread, that men can "require" "their" women to dress so that they are unidentifiable? That's OK with you?

If women genuinely want to do it, that's one thing. But personally I don't conflate indoctrination with real personal choice.

Oakvillian

There are countless Muslim women who, unfettered by any husband or male relative, decide for themselves that they wish to go veiled.

Hijab, as I'm sure you know, is the Arabic term both for the concept of "modest dress" and for the headscarf that many Islamic women wear to achieve that. The headscarf is not at issue here - nobody has (so far as I know) suggested that people may not cover their hair. Niqab, I understood, is the term for a veil that covers all of the face except the eyes. I bow to your superior grasp of Arabic if I am mistaken.

Jingsamichty

My mistake, I said niqab when I meant hijab as I am sure you realise.

Yes, many of them do it through "choice", the same way that some Hindu women throw themselves onto their husbands' funeral pyres through their own choice. The same as some women choose not to use contraception and have 10 kids through their "choice"... all influenced by (male dominated) religion.

Can you really argue that is it what you would call proper free choice?

Almost Canadian

Would you agree for them to go veiled in a Courtroom, if you were a juror?

As I am sure you realise, there are lots of "rules" that prevent people wearing what they wish to, when they wish to.

Oakvillian

No. It is well established that in some instances, for example when required to verify identity or, in a courtroom, to enable jurors to see facial expressions, face coverings are to be removed. But that's a bit different from riding a bus or sitting in a public library, isn't it? Your reductio ad absurdum won't work here, I'm afraid.

Almost Canadian

I can understand why people in public places would also wish to be able to see the face of others and would not like it if others were not willing to do so.

Shard

Me too

dbd33

If they were a gang of yuts wearing hoodies and scarves I can see that there would be cause for concern over the covered faces. Indeed, on the local news feed from home there was a warning today of just such a group of people in the street; public fear is reasonable in that circumstance.

A woman in a veil though, for what you have to see her face? One of my egg customers is a woman who always wears a headscarf and sometimes a veil, she doesn't seem more or less likely to explode in one costume or the other. I don't like her religion or her customs but they don't affect anyone but her and so we've no business interfering.

Stinkypup

Having read this thread, I have decided that I am quite within my rights to maintain a degree of anomonity so from now on my patients will have to get used to this....

dave_j

This is a disturbing dilema. We, as westerners, are apparently upset and sometimes fearful when we encounter a woman whose face we cannot see.... and yet we, as a group, will willingly engage with others who we don't know and cannot see across the internet.. as we do on this site and this apparently poses no problem at all.

So why should face obscuration be such a problem? At a basic level, when we are in the same physical space with a person whose face is covered then we encounter an issue that's outside our normal everyday experience but when we're separated by anonymity we don't care. Ordinarily this shouldn't pose a problem.. but.. we have become aware, probably resulting from our intervention in areas of the world far away and for so long that there are some groups who would like to adopt an eye for an eye approach and we are aware that women associated with this group can be identifiable by their dress and deep down we have become wary of them.

The real problem is that time has passed and the world has become a much smaller place. Decades ago when the middle east was a long way away and only the wealthy could travel then any threats that existed generally stayed where they were and were controllable and they were kept a long way away generally by force of arms. Today it's changed, travel is easy and we have become fearful and this question of female dress merely exemplifies our fear and this issue of women wearing burqas has crystalised this fear in many minds.

We know deep down that we have more to fear from the drugged driver than the woman wearing a burqa but we make cannabis legal and look to ban the burqa, it make one wonder who we have put in charge of the asylum?

Shard

Stinky! Had been wondering where you have been lately?!

BristolUK

But that's a terrible waste of a paper bag though. I have a habit of blowing air into them for a nice bang. I can't resist.

But that one has holes in now

macadian

Could not agree more....

dbd33

Don't go skiing then. Or skating outdoors.

macadian

Another example of gravitating from the rediculous to the sublime?