I’m all for letting people wear whatever they want. What is the harm?
Here in Canada I’ve seen police officers wearing turbans. Works for me. Nude beaches? Sure thing. I’ve seen people in my neighborhood wearing Saudi-style niqabs and Afghan-style burqas.
Who am I to tell people what they should or shouldn’t wear? How could it be my business?
I’m also for people burning the Qur’an if they so please. Or the bible, or the rainbow flag, or the national flag if that’s how they want to protest. Ideas are there to be challenged.
I draw the line at threatening or harming people.
France is a secularist Republic. Freedom of religion is guaranteed but every religious sign is banned in the public space.
I understand that’s how things are, but I don’t think that is how they should be. And while I’m an atheist, I also understand many people aren’t. Why force my irreligiosity on them?
So while students should not be indoctrinated on any particular religion in school, I don’t see the harm in letting both teachers and students wear whatever they like, including religious symbols.
In fact, it would be great if we taught all students the basics of multiple world religions in school and let people of different faiths talk to each other about what is important to them.
I really like this stance. Understanding other people is absolutely important. You don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to understand them and see them as people.
I can see where you are coming from. How can we forbid clothing if the goal is to not dictate what to wear?
But consider that in a community, be that at school or in the neighborhood, classmates and neighbors can uphold unregulated, religious rules. Is it free choice of clothing if the law doesn’t forbid anything, but only girls with (insert appropriate clothing) are allowed to join in the play? And there is plenty precedent of religion that causes precisely such group behavior.
I understand that’s how things are, but I don’t think that is how they should be.
Don’t take that guy just at his word. France does force secularism on their government buildings and workers, including teachers. But public wearing of religious symbols or garnment is perfectly fine. They recently banned face covering, with the obvious target of Muslim women wearing burqa or niqabs, but everything else is perfectly legal to wear in public.
I don’t see harm by them not being allowed to wear it…
And you should talk about all religions, but only in a negative way.
Every sign being banned in public? So what about all the crosses on the churches, or the ringing of their bells? What about people wearing crosses and nunns wearing the traditional dress? What about the easter processions in some places?
Sorry, but claiming that this would be in line with a secular policy doesnt work. It is target against muslims and muslims specifically without any actual bearing on secularism
These laws have been made to kick of the priest out of the school. If you’re a nun or a priest and attend school you have to wear civil clothe.
I am fine saying that these laws are over used against Muslim,but religious signs are banned in school and for government employee
As an American this is difficult to comprehend. I’m feeling culture shock. Maybe the first xenophobia I’ve experienced in years.
France doesn’t have the First Amendment. I mean, I don’t much think that this is a good idea either, but different country, different system of government.
It’s a smoke screen to get right wing voters on their side once again. Public services in France are in shambles, our education is getting noticeably worse by the decade and this is what these fucks focus on.
That makes sense. Here in Canada they use similar tactics to distract people from stuff like the astronomical cost of housing, crumbling health care, underfunded education, etc.
Exactly this, and it’s the perfect example of how “progressives” (that aren’t really that) enable fascism.
Nude beaches? Sure thing. I
In other words: Nudist “clothing” is banned from the entire public safe very few exceptions.
In Spain you are allowed to walk around naked on any public spaces, with very few exceptions. It doesn’t happen very often in practice, but it’s allowed.
Yeah, that is how you actually let people decide to wear what they want. Afaik Spain also doesn’t have burqa ban or anything similar (at least not in general, there may be rules in special cases).
I’m just always a bit annoyed when US-Americans criticise it when European countries ban certain clothing. They have rather draconian laws at home as well. And of course we’re talking about schools here, hence school uniforms provide another relevant and rather widespread example of infringements on clothing-freedom.
I draw the line at threatening or harming people.
Except these bans are harming people.
Anyone dictating what others can or cannot wear is harming people.
All this “enlightened” centrism bullshit does is enable oppressors.
I agree, but there is a somewhat thorny question here: Where does the dictation start?
Many of these students and their families are being dictated to by Sunni wahabbist imams trained and funded by Saudi oil money, and they actually come from cultures and religious traditions that didn’t give a shit about the abaya in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Well how about they tackle the foreign financial support of such extremist religious subgroups then? How about they provide more public information about the personal rights of women to choose themself what they wear? How about providing better infrastructure with properly trained social workers to better help such women to flee from such oppressive households?
Any of these examples would be several times better at actually improving the lives of such women. Definitely more than them being forced to not wear something. Women who are forced to wear such stuff should be helped to understand that it isn’t right for them to be forced to wear something they don’t want. Guess what certainly doesn’t help in that task, the state also dictating what they can’t wear.
I draw the line at threatening or harming people
Except these bans are harming people
Sorry for not being clear in my statement. I mean harming as in: beheading, stoning, bombing, shooting, etc. Not as in hurting their feelings.
But we agree: nobody should impose on other people what they can or cannot wear, whether it is religious symbols or pirate regalia.
All this “enlightened” centrism bullshit does is enable oppressors
Could you please elaborate?
these bans harm people because they
- encourage shitty men in the lives of these women to limit their education
- encourage these hardcore religious communities to form and utilize their own school systems, which will indoctrinate their youth
- encourage these families to leave France and potentially return to repressive theocratic states.
The fact that you think this is about “hurt feelings” rather than what it is - actual oppression that leads to real life marginalisation, violence, and death, you’re either not paying attention or are being wilfully ignorant and obtuse.
All this “enlightened” centrism bullshit does is enable oppressors
Could you please elaborate?
You could open your eyes, or simply take the idea of dictating what people do and don’t wear to it’s only conclusion (it is literally oppression in its own right, no matter your personal feelings on the matter), but here, I’ll save you having to do any hard work:
specifically:
https://socialistworker.co.uk/what-we-think/stop-islamophobic-attacks-on-the-veil/
https://daily.jstor.org/muslim-women-and-the-politics-of-the-headscarf/
generally:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
https://blacklikemao.medium.com/how-liberalism-helps-fascism-d4dbdcb199d9
“When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them,”
Sir I’m sorry but a abaya doesn’t prove someone is religious. You can wear one if you so please even if you’re not Islam. It’s just a dress.
Sure, and you an atheist could wear a cross and speak a prayer every morning. They just usually don’t and until we can telepathically determine what someone actually believes such insignia are the best way to show support for religion.
But the abaya is not a religious symbol, it’s literally just a fucking dress like any other, it’s just what they wear typically in that part of the world. It’s like saying that pants are a christian symbol because all Europeans wear pants, and Europe is majority christian.
Do you really think those girls wear abaya inside school not because of religion?
I’m not an expert on religious clothing, but the Wikipedia article is pretty clear that it is strongly connected to Islam.
Your comparison is flawed, because while “christian” -> “probably wears pants” is true, the opposite is not. If I tell you I saw someone wearing pants, you would not think about their religion. They could be Hindi, Atheist, etc. But if I tell you I saw a girl in a full body dress, you’d be able to tell their religion pretty accurately.
Also, we are talking about France. If the Abaya is “what they tyipcally wear in that part of the world” then “all Europeans wear pants” is a contradiction.
I think saying this largely denies the cultural implications of many religiously associated garments and symbols.
Most religious symbols are not just that, they’re cultural ones. People adopt them, change them, redefine them. Drawing lines between religion and culture is very difficult so attempting to stop someone dressing some way is just a restriction of freedom, regardless of religion.
Many of these girls are brought up to believe it is wrong to not cover your body as a girl and woman. How is that freedom?
You know, the solution to women being told what to wear is not to tell them that they cannot wear it.
I don’t agree with this prohibition, and I doubt that it’s likely going to achieve much, but if my experience looking at past government restrictions on things that people want to do is predictive of the situation here, it’ll mean that someone will sit down and figure out the exact limit that the French government prohibits and then figure out a garment or combination of garments that accomplishes as much of the original aims as possible without crossing whatever specific garment line is there.
I mean, what’s a women’s garment that does the head and neck? The bonnet?
googles
Hmm. Apparently it actually did have some religious background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnet_(headgear)
Bonnets remained one of the most common types of headgear worn by women throughout most of the 19th century. Especially for a widow, a bonnet was de rigueur. Silk bonnets, elaborately pleated and ruched, were worn outdoors, or in public places like shops, galleries, churches, and during visits to acquaintances. Women would cover their heads with caps simply to keep their hair from getting dirty and perhaps out of female modesty, again, in European society, based upon the historical teaching of the Christian Bible. In addition, women in wedlock would wear caps and bonnets during the day, to further demonstrate their status as married women.
But, as far as I know, they aren’t banned. So someone says “Okay, so people can’t wear (religious) abayas, but can wear (secular) trenchcoats? This new garment isn’t an abaya. This is a bonnet and trenchcoat.” Or, you know, whatever.
Wanna know why this whole thing isn’t about a pupil wearing something that shows their religion? They sure as hell don’t ban the kippah, sikhi turban or buddhist and hindu garnments.
For some reason it only goes after Muslims and there mostly after women with the guise of “protecting them from oppression! ;-)”. And it never involves actual talk with the “oppressed” women in question, it’s always the assumption, that of course these women can’t decide for themself and obviously all are forced to wear such garnments.
It started with the burqa and niqab but the people in favor of that promised that it’s just about the face covering, that there is no reason go after the hijab or similar garnments. Surprise surprise, only a few years later here we are and they still fight against “oppression” by limiting what Muslim women can wear. One would think that fighting oppression really was the goal of these people they would ask for actual support measures like providing education campaigns about personal rights and better support network for women. But no, these people think or pretend that such bans will magically solve the issue without any flanking measures. And that tells you all you need to know about their sincerities regarding this topic. It’s not about the girls and women, it never was and never will be.
The problem with religious clothing is that the more people who wear it, the more pressure can be put on children to wear it or stand out/be condemned. It gets worse when the clothing is gender-specific.
It also puts children in a situation where their religious background can be seen from afar, making them Christian/Muslim/Jew etc. first and citizen second, when in a secularised country it should always be the other way round.
It is twice as bad when teachers wear religious clothing, because how can you not wear it if your teacher is wearing it. And when children wear religious clothing and have to defend wearing it, they get into a situation where they may have to defend it and wear it and even be part of peer pressure because there is no way out, you are either pushed from one side or the other and many choose to then rather push themselves.
Religious freedom is a double-edged sword: Freedom to live your religion, but also the freedom to live without religion, and especially children who are brought up in a religious family need the school as a place where religion isn’t a thing, so that they have a place to even think about what it feels like to live without it. Religion needs to be a personal choice and only if you have a place to check what it means to be without it you can choose.
If your religion can not give children a place to be without it so they can then freely choose, there is something severely wrong with that religion. Unfortunately I have yet to find a religion that does allow it.
how can you not wear it if your teacher is wearing it
What logic is this? Just make everyone know that a school is a safe space where nobody is made to wear or not wear anything unless it’s offensive (such as profane, racist or too revealing).
Because a teacher is a role model and if your teacher is a role model for religion in a place that should be the one place free from it, then that’s not working.
School can only be a safe place for children to take a breath from a religious background if religion stays completely out of it.
You think it can be a safe space when the girl gets told by its parents “look the teacher is wearing this, so you need too” even if the teacher isn’t saying it?
Unfortunately religious clothing isn’t just clothing like every other and religions of this world (not just one specific) are not about safe spaces, they want to be everywhere and they want to occupy school too. A secular country can not allow that.
I literally said that nobody is [forced] to wear or not wear anything […] - as in “total freedom unless offensive”. You’re implying I said the opposite.
I did not know what an abaya is, but it did not matter to know this is a stupid ban. Just let people wear whatever the fuck they want to wear.
The thing is some children do not have a say in the clothes they get. Those children still deserve the same conditions in school
If that were genuinely the motivation and it would be handled with the appropriate nuance, I could get behind that. But as it stands, this is saying, for completely arbitrary reasons, you can’t wear your clothing that you wear all the time, the clothing you’re likely comfortable in.
And they just won’t be able to get these school conditions, the same way that they can’t play club sports and that Muslim moms can’t volunteer for school trips.
