Mostly it were men who tried to decide what a woman was allowed to wear or not. In the past clothing was restricted by the views of the macho male society, where women often came on the second plane. Today there are still societies where women are paid less for the same function or same job. Equality is in many countries still not there.
A lot of men also consider a woman not yet able to decide for herself and therefore want to impose laws telling what women may not wear because otherwise they could be dominated by their own husband or family. By imposing restricting laws do they themselves not want to have enough power over women, and let others belief that really woman are not able to decide for themselves what religion to chose and how devout they want to be?
In a civilised society that claims to want freedom for all, freedom for religious thought and religious development should be allowed. We should not try to impose our religious ideas or morals to others and certainly when they are trying to be more dignified than the majority of the population which want to play with morals or not to take it so serious.
In our so called democratic free state everybody should have a voice which will be encountered with respect. Liberty should be given to each person to go on a search for spiritual and religious values. And we should know and respect that not all are on the same level at the same time. We should allow each person to be on his/her own personal spiritual and life journey.
Who has the right to impose our own ideas of spirituality and morality on other women and still claim that we live in a free world?
Today we listen to a 22 year old South African Muslim woman, (Sabeehah M.) who spent about 12 years growing up in Europe, as well as an additional 3 years there, pursuing higher education and residing alone in a different country to my parents and a opinionated and ambitious woman (Shaazia E.) who perhaps like dismantling stereotypes about women who wear lipstick, look at the burkini affair in Europe.
Shaazia E. finds that women have always been judged by what they wear and that we can find several times men staring and whispering about women. Concerning the Muslim and Western women she notes also that may people wonder of their upbringing and how their covering or non-covering says a lot about that upbringing or about their limitation brought on by religion or by others.
She also looks at what happened on the French beach
On Wednesday, the article circulating of three armed men forcing a woman to remove her clothes on a beach in France shocked people into a semblance of humanity (Well, most people anyway)
And said
Nobody should have to go through such humiliation and violation for the sake of their beliefs. But before we look at the French government with disdain, we need to understand that the amount of clothing a woman is wearing is not parallel to her morality.
Sabeehah M. noted
If you want to cover up for comfort at the beach, you might just be forced to undress by armed police. {Look Out, It’s the Fashion Police}
So you want to cover your legs at school… GASP, the audacity, you should be sent home! {Look Out, It’s the Fashion Police}
The ladies point at a danger coming to Europe as well, the same we condemn in the East, but created also here a Fashion Police or a Moral police who can come to you to humiliate you in front of the general public. Or like some police officers came to ‘help’ to undress a woman because it went not fast enough according to their liking, perhaps they can beat her up as well?
Perhaps you reject ‘Sharia’ dress code as an arbitrary concept. Careful, you could be next in line for a flogging. {Look Out, It’s the Fashion Police}
*
We remember from their writing
- uncovered, = immodest + lower standards of morality = odd assumption that women alone must behave modestly.
- whether in the East, West or somewhere between > if you’re a Muslim woman, > no say in what you wear. {Look Out, It’s the Fashion Police}
- woman’s modesty = subject dictated, controlled, judged, imposed by men, without including woman in the design, marginalising woman from the discussion, and without woman’s consent. {Look Out, It’s the Fashion Police}
- way you dress = influence people to be immoral + manifestation of how you have wrong morals. {Look Out, It’s the Fashion Police}
- we judge each other’s morals based on the amount of clothing we are wearing every day
- women can never win.
- in Islam women are supposed to act and dress modestly >>> But so should men
- why is this expectation emphasised + even imposed on women alone?
A man should be covered from his navel to his knees in accordance with Islamic codes of modesty.
A woman should cover her hair and conceal her body shape, only revealing her hands, feet and face.- modesty = to be two-fold, both external + internal.
- careful of double standards of modesty
+
Preceding articles
Being Religious and Spiritual 2 Religiosity and spiritual life
Connection between women and environmental sustainability
Poverty and conservative role patterns
Women their education and chances to become a parliamentary
French showing to the whole world their fear and weaknesses
Does Banning Face Veils Help Us Fight Terrorism?
Islamism Rises from Europe’s Secularism
++
Additional reading
- Women’s Groups Say Gender Equality is a Must for Sustainable Development
- Gender connections
- Gender equality and women’s rights in the post-2015 agenda
- What is Racism??
- Is Europe going to become a dictatorial bastion
- On French beach French police forces woman to undress in public
- Women in France running with naked bosom all right but with covered bosom penalised
- France and the Burkini
- Not limiting others but sharing peace with all
- What we don’t say about the refugee crisis?
- A charter for a truly free world and why we need it
- When will it stop
- ‘I try to keep my hate in check. If you can’t hate, you can’t love.’
+++
Further of interest
- Fomo, Jomo, Somo
- A Window to Look Through
- Would You Trust These People with Our Planet?
- Somewhere between the lines,we make a choice.
- The Morality of Firefly.
- Can You Be A Christian Doctor and Not Lose Your Morals
- Morality and Society: Why Secularists Do Not Need A Holy Text
- Why live a moral life?
- You Only Cheat Yourself
- Journey to Life
- “Progressives” Act as if Bigotry/ Racism are the Worst Sins —- No, It’s Pride
- Vladimir Putin: “One should not completely draw a line between the culture and the church.”
- The Good And The Bad
- Social, non-political, nudity observation
- Are Bathing Suits Harmful to Others?
- The Pastoral is Political: Don’t Tell Us How to Dress!
- Burkini a boon for Muslim women
- Bretons bathe fully clothed as Muslim asked to leave beach
- Here’s to your burqini
- French mayors dismiss suspended burqini ban
- The Burqini Ban
- British public heavily in favour of burqa ban: Poll
- To bare or not to bare
- Swimsuit Season : Burkinis and Man Boobs
- This letter to the editor has gone viral… #BanSuits
- Burkini Ban Suspended By French Court, But Sarkozy Says He’ll Keep The Law If Elected President.
- 9/11 Truth Movement celebrates Muslim women’s new French fashion style!
- Trying To Not Blog Politics
- Im-Politic: Immigration’s Essential – but Elusive – Assimilation Dimension
- What to Wear
- Wonder Woman’s Burkini
- What (not) to wear on a French beach this Summer
- Hugh Fitzgerald: Jean-Louis Harouel On France’s “Marche Vers Dhimmitude”
- Cannes burkini ban overturned after top French court ruling
- Burkini Bans: The Iconography of Attire
- Banal Ethnic Conflict and the Burkini
- Banning The Burkini
- Valls shouldn’t be surprised that there are whites who defend the burkini, ’cause it’s them who are bringing the muslims in.
- The Burkini is About Sexual Violence Against Women
- Let’s Do Secularism Right
- To wear or not to wear: the battle of the bikinis
- Belgian prime minister labels burkini ban as impractical
- Burkini and the Breast: Sisters in Feminism
- Can it Be Justified? The European Debate Over the Burka
- Le burkini: a national debate
- Burkini ban spikes sales
- Have I Been Hiding? No, Just Writing ElsewhereLe port du Burkini n’est pas anodin et c’est une marocaine qui le dit.
- Sous la plage les pavés
Related articles
Women have always been judged by what they wear. In our society, the less clothing a woman wears the more she is considered immodest and indecent. A Muslim woman in shorts is a social pariah. Clusters of women or gatherings of men will stop and stare and whisper about her. She is looked at up and down. People wonder of her upbringing. People think because she is uncovered, she is immodest and has lower standards of morality. People have this odd assumption that women alone must behave modestly.
On Wednesday, the article circulating of three armed men forcing a woman to remove her clothes on a beach in France shocked people into a semblance of humanity (Well, most people anyway). I think what was the most striking was that the woman on the beach could have been us. It could have been me; it could have been you. It could have been…
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Stepping Toes 