- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
The Egyptian government has announced a ban on the wearing of the face-covering niqab in schools from the beginning of the next term on 30 September.
Education Minister Reda Hegazy made the announcement on Monday, adding that students would still have the right to choose whether to wear a headscarf, but insisted it must not cover their faces.
He also said that the child’s guardian should be aware of their choice, and that it must have been made without any outside pressure.
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This might prevent a lot of women from going to school or work if their male guardians don’t let them step out without Niqab or Buqra (which is the real problem).
I wish people would just leave women the fuck alone when it comes to their choice of dress and put this much needed focus into ensuring that all women are able to make their own choices.
if their male guardians don’t let them
when it comes to their choice of dress
Their choice huh
You think you’ve found some logical inconsistency, but you haven’t. They’re talking about IN GENERAL, people need to stfu about women’s clothing. Including the men in an unapologetically patriarchal country.
Yeah rhis is what happens when you take phrases out of context. I meant they should have the choice to not wear it if they don’t want to. I explained a bit more about my position in other comments under this discussion.
Good thing in the US we all have complete freedom in how we can dress. We would never persecute people for not dressing in the way our society says they should be dressing based on their genitals. Er… Wait.
(Yes I know it’s not the same, but it comes from the same place of ignorance, and this is exactly where we are headed if we allow it to continue to escalate)
Why are you talking about the US to me?
You can’t even write 2 sentences without contradicting yourself. It’s their choice, but their male guardian wouldn’t let them out without it?
It should be their choice, but with guardians they’ll just grow up abused and school-less.
So, in order to not provoke their moronic parents, we should let them be oppressed. Got it.
I guess being from the middle east myself and having experineced this shit firsthand, yes - it is better for them to still have access to the workplace and school. Nothing in what I said supports guardians treating their children like shit or thinking they have any way in the live sofnwomen aged 18 and above. Ultimately the problem is women having less freedom, and I don’t see how restricting that further with bans will do anyone any good.
Problems where the symptoms are fixed will still have root causes that run deeper and deeper. If you want these women out of these horrible situations and life, this is a bad way to do it.
Yea, cuz they’d get more oppressed if provoked. I’m not sure if I believe in that but that’s what they’re saying.
Force kids to have to go to school? That’s what western nations do. Parents get in huge trouble for not making sure their kids are in school.
Not sure what the situation is in Egypt, but seems like that would be a great way to get these people to pull their daughters out of regular schools and start homeschooling them, giving them the absolute bare minimum education they can get away with, and further cut them off from the world.
And possibly a few would go full psycho and do some honor killing bullshit “I’ll be damned if I let my daughter out of the house with her face uncovered, I’d rather kill her”
Homeschooling isn’t allowed in the majority of places, although i’m unsure about Egypt.
I think it might still happen even if it’s illegal. They can do it at schools that don’t care about attendance or say that the children have some kind of learning disability or mental problem preventing them from coming to school. As long as they go to exams, I’m assuming it can happen.
Looking at the other comment, the status of homeschooling seems somewhat ambiguous.
However, in my country where children must attend school until they’re 18, what you described doesn’t work. No child is exempt from this rule, save for those with extremely severe learning disabilities. And schools are extremely strict when it comes to non-attendence of minors. For instance, after 10 missing days each further missing day must be accompanied by a doctor’s notice (or other proof if it’s unrelated to health, such as attending a funeral of a family member during school hours). If there is no valid reason why the child was missing for so long, the parents will either receive a fine in the low thousands of dollars or a criminal investigation will be started.
Well that a feature if personal choice. You just ignore all the influences all the bad things that happen you make the wrong choice
I feel like you misread my statement. Sorry if the English was wonky (I doubt it though).
My reading was they expressed concern that the guardians who imposed face coverings on these girls would deny them education rather than give up the garment, then frustration that some people, like those guardians feel they have the right to impose such rules. Seems consistent to me.
Learn to read. The 2 statements that were written are not contradictory.
Agreed. I don’t understand why this is so difficult a concept for people who claim to be trying to help women. Banning certain head garments because they’re “symbolic of women’s oppression” is just another way of restricting women’s choices and doesn’t promote their independence at all. Just let women choose how to dress themselves, same as men, it’s really not that complicated.
Problem is while other hijabs might be voluntary I don’t think anyone voluntarily wears a niqab
I agree that this aspect of it makes this issue very complicated. I wore a hijab aged 12 (out of choice, but really it was religious indoctrination) and took it off at 17. Almost every other Hijabi and Niqabi I know doesn’t really want to wear it or wishes it was not part of their lives or a religious obligation. A large number of said women eventually took it off. And of course a handful wanted to wear it and enjoy the look of modesty.
However, how does banning the Niqab help any of these women? 😬
One argument my partner made while discussing this is that it could help some women forced to wear it to be able to take it off… But I doubt that is the situation in Egypt given the culture, traditions, and law.
I know several women who wear the niqab by choice, and in the face (pun not intended) of social pressure.
That completely misses the point. The issue is that women should be allowed to wear whatever they want, same as men do. Banning a garment, even when no woman elects to wear it, serves no purpose except to restrict women’s choices.
not trying to shit stir, but can men really wear balaclavas anywhere they want?
I’ve seen plenty of delivery people wearing them during the colder months in my city. Since they aren’t worn for religious reasons, I suspect most men don’t wear them indoors, but I’m unaware of any law that prohibits them from doing so. Sure, maybe there are some high-security places where you wouldn’t be allowed to wear anything that covers your face, but that applies equally to men and women.
I’m not sure what your point is, as the bans in question were clearly sprung from concerns about Islamic face coverings in particular. They may have used generalized language in the laws to mask that focus, but it’s clearly there. Am I missing something here?
Exactly. No one is saying those women should be forced to wear a Niqab by society. We are actually saying the exact opposite, Egyptian women should be more free to take the hiajb or niqab off if they like, and not have to live with legal or societal consequences.
There are feminist organizations already working on that. It’s not like the only two choices are a ban or no ban.
That’s one way to solve the issue in a method that works, rather than going around to destroy all “symbols of oppression”. Like go ahead and bash at all these symbols, but make sure you don’t bash women along with it.
There are feminist organizations already working on that.
My understanding is that feminists themselves are split on this, sad as that is. At least with respect to the ban in France, I know some feminists have argued in favor of a ban on the hijab, exactly using the “symbol of oppression” argument. I don’t pretend to know what the divide in opinion is among feminists, percentage-wise, but clearly a significant contingent of them are supportive of this bullshit.
Again, I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept, but it apparently is. That, or my standards for human intelligence are just too high. Probably the latter.
One reason may be that Hijab and Niqab are politicized. Culture wars are happening on the expense of these women who just want a normal life and basic human rights.
Edit: I also just read the news article on Aljazera Arabic and one thing I did like is that they emphasized that all female students are free to wear Hijab as long as it’s their choice and they are not being forced by parents, but there is a full ban on face covers for school-aged girls. This changes my view on a bit, I think up to a certain age it should not be okay to come to school with a totally covered face (unless it’s for some reason necessary). However, once you get to high school level or bans in the workplace, it gets problematic.
I would still have much rather seen schools take a bigger active role in the lives of students who wear the Niqab and discuss the issues with the parents.
If their guardian decides, its not “their choice”'. How are you even agreeing with the statement above?
I’m talking about women, not their guardian. I don’t think parents should be able to force their children to wear restrictive clothing, unless there’s some sort of medical reason for it. Certainly not for religious reasons.
The statement seemed to me to say it should be their choice and not a “guardian”. How are you confused by the response above?
The problem is, you know most (80-90%) of these girls are forced by their parents to wear religious clothing. Not doing so will result in beatings or, when they’re older, being kicked out of the house.
How are you, as a society, going to protect these children? Just sitting behind your keyboard philosophizing that you shouldn’t restrict their free choice does not protect them at all, as history proves.
Just sitting behind your keyboard philosophizing that you shouldn’t restrict their free choice does not protect them at all, as history proves.
Stop being cheeky, it’s not that cute. I am not society and it’s not my job to protect these folks. I have always been of the opinion though that Western nations should not be taking in immigrants from Islamic countries that practice these strict religious codes that are incompatible with our mores. For the families that are already there, they’ll have to deal with them via the same CPS systems they currently have in place. The parents will have to learn to assimilate and adopt Western morals surrounding child rearing or lose custody of their children. Maybe the French government could run adverts encouraging people to adopt Muslim girls so they don’t all wind up in group homes. It’s a shitty situation, born of a culture clash that could have been avoided.
This is the beauty of the French system, it’s all religious paraphernalia banned in schools.
Baby steps.
Will this receive the same amount of outrage as the similar news from France?
France has banned Hijabs and Abaya robes in schools not just Niqabs. Egypt is preventing people from hiding their face in school, France is doing a lot more. I don’t think it’s directly comparable considering the Niqab bans at least have a safety component. Whos safer because school kids cant wear head scarfs?
Devils advocate here: isn’t the reasoning behind the hijab bans that it’s sexist, not a safety issue?
Not really. It’s a secular issue. France bans all religious displays in schools.
Yeah, that’s what I mean there’s no aspect of safety there. I don’t think it’s less sexist to legislate that no girls or women in schools can wear them them than it is to choose to wear one though. And if we just assume it’s sexist anyway, who is it hurting? It seems like over reach to use sexism as the reason to ban something that only effects the person who choses to do it. Does France ban any other sexist clothing, or just the ones muslim women wear? That may be a good insight into their decision making.
I agree in most cases. However it is an issue when it’s no longer a choice.
Anecdotal, but a church/cult where I grew up and went to school, forbid women and girls to wear anything but skirts. Now a lot of them maybe preferred skirts over pants, but it was never their choice.
Gotta say I’m on the fence on this one. Women should be allowed to wear whatever the hell they want, but it is a problem when a garment is occasionally forced on only them. I have no good solution
In France I imagine it’s a choice more often than not, but if its an issue when it’s no longer a choice, then a blanket ban on them in school poses the exact same problem as now many women who want to, no longer can or they face legal punishment. This ban likely applies to teachers too who are clearly old enough to make their own decisions.
Hope you’re right. Nice chat :)
Hijab and niqab aren’t the same. The latter completely covers the entire face other than eyes. Hijab is just the scarf.
I think they were saying that the niqab ban could be justified for safety reasons, while you can’t really do that for hijab.
I recently learned that this ban on France doesn’t really including everything. Small crosses are okay. Some Turbans are okay. Jewish kids can go to Jewish schools. At least that’s what the wikipedia page said. I found the one about the cross interesting.
My initial reaction is the same as to the recent abaya ban in France. Opposition. I’ll need to read more about it though, because I think the motivations and outcomes will be different.
I was looking for that exact same thing.
Something tells me this news from Egypt will get a lot less press even though it probably is even more Important.
Again, we see the same male dominant governments, decide, for absolutely no necessary reasons, what women should and should not ware. While people respond with the same; deciding on behalf of other what is good for them. Saying hijabs, nigab, and othe religious clothing is oppression, is by itself a personal opinion. Making rule based on that, is oppression.
Instead of focusing on education itself, social support and protection, they put out laws that devide people further and distract them from major issues that’s going on.
Disgusting…
Yep, but worse of all it seems that some people would respond to any criticism of the ban as one being okay with oppressing women. Bans are shit, usually poorly motivated, and often motivated by politics and xenophobia. No one likes the slow way of social change, and people sometimes ignore the efforts already done by women in these communities (in other words, they are already liberating themselves with their own hands)
