@ Reed John
First off, I'm not saying we should ban the headscarf. What I was doing was questioning a few of the assertions you made that sounded a bit like the more ill-thought out liberal arguments that really annoy me.
Generally you've answered all my questions with grace and style.
But I still want to pick up a few things:
Reed John wrote:
Isn't the issue here 'who defines what is modest?'. If a woman decides 'I want to be modest and not show off my hair', then that's one thing. If it's because men tell her to wear a headscarf or face dire consequencs of dressing immodestly, then that's quite another.
Our ideas about modesty are always culturally mediated.
Which surely means any argument from 'modesty' is unsustainable. What that means is that anybody telling anyone 'you have to dress a certain way or you'll be immodest' should be challenged. So whether its an imam or their mum insisting they wear a headscarf, people should be free to challenge it.
The big question is 'Do people feel free to stand up for themsleves and challenge these demands that are made on them?' My gut feeling is they don't feel able to and so I see hijabs, niqabs or burkhas as outwards marks of misogynistic oppression. That's my personal prejudice, maybe, but I have yet to see any evidence that every woman wearing those items of clothing is doing so entirely of their own volition and isn't being controlled by fathers/husbands/the community that obviously has a natural interest in keeping women 'in their place'.
No, banning those items isn't the answer, but neither is just shrugging our shoulders and saying:
Reed John wrote:
It's a symbol of their culture
Well, fundamental human rights, for one. It's their head and they should do as they see fit with it - with the above caveats on who is really deciding that.
This is the under-thought liberal view. 'We' can't impose 'our' culture on 'others'. But there are no 'others'; we're all human and we should all be treated as such, with equality in our opportunities to live life on our terms.
If that means wearing a headscarf (or a viking helmet or whatever) because you choose to do so, then fair enough.
But to use 'human rights' as the reason to not 'interfere' with 'cultural' matters is a misnomer.
I repeat, I don't want to ban anything, certainly not items of clothing. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I might be interested in that.
But I think if we are serious about the rights of individuals, then the 'it's their culture' argument doesn't wash.
(Also there are arguments of protection. We have a law that motorcyclists have to wear a helmet to protect their heads. So even in a 'free' society there might be well-thought out limits to what you can and cannot wear.)
Jongudmund wrote: We have a law that motorcyclists have to wear a helmet to protect their heads. So even in a 'free' society there might be well-thought out limits to what you can and cannot wear.
Funny, that. For motorcyclists this seems perfectly logical to me. Whereas, me being from the Netherlands, the number one cycling country in the world, imposing such a law on ordinary cyclists annoys me beyond belief. I find encountering such mandatory helmet laws, for instance in North America, bewildering. People from that continent, on the other hand, must frown upon millions of Dutchmen cycling without what they perceive as proper protection.
I'm sure there's a "different strokes for different folks" in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what we can conclude from that.
This is a bad one, for me: pregnant women smoking. And not giving a fuck about it. And 'looking' as if they dont give a fuck about it.
Ah yes, the gall of these women to do what they want with their bodies.
This is hardly a ground-breaking revelation, but actually it's not concern about 'their bodies' which makes doctors discourage pregnant women from smoking.
Reed John wrote: Now, I don't think anyone can expect London, for example, to broadcast The Call to Prayer like they do in some countries. That would be annoying to far more people than would prefer it. We can't all have what we want when it comes to loud public noises.
Well, to be fair, ringing church bells are considered to be part of the English idyll. I would quite like to hear the muezzin in Somerset
Birthplace Of Industry wrote: Shrewsbury: Middle class tory town, full of old money, privelledged snobs and inbreds. Hotbed of racism and benefits from local media bias. Annoying accents. BAD
Jongudmund wrote: @ Reed John
First off, I'm not saying we should ban the headscarf. What I was doing was questioning a few of the assertions you made that sounded a bit like the more ill-thought out liberal arguments that really annoy me.
Generally you've answered all my questions with grace and style.
But I still want to pick up a few things:
Originally posted by Reed John
Isn't the issue here 'who defines what is modest?'. If a woman decides 'I want to be modest and not show off my hair', then that's one thing. If it's because men tell her to wear a headscarf or face dire consequencs of dressing immodestly, then that's quite another.
Our ideas about modesty are always culturally mediated.
Which surely means any argument from 'modesty' is unsustainable. What that means is that anybody telling anyone 'you have to dress a certain way or you'll be immodest' should be challenged. So whether its an imam or their mum insisting they wear a headscarf, people should be free to challenge it.
The big question is 'Do people feel free to stand up for themsleves and challenge these demands that are made on them?' My gut feeling is they don't feel able to and so I see hijabs, niqabs or burkhas as outwards marks of misogynistic oppression. That's my personal prejudice, maybe, but I have yet to see any evidence that every woman wearing those items of clothing is doing so entirely of their own volition and isn't being controlled by fathers/husbands/the community that obviously has a natural interest in keeping women 'in their place'.
No, banning those items isn't the answer, but neither is just shrugging our shoulders and saying:
Reed John wrote:
It's a symbol of their culture
Well, fundamental human rights, for one. It's their head and they should do as they see fit with it - with the above caveats on who is really deciding that.
This is the under-thought liberal view. 'We' can't impose 'our' culture on 'others'. But there are no 'others'; we're all human and we should all be treated as such, with equality in our opportunities to live life on our terms.
If that means wearing a headscarf (or a viking helmet or whatever) because you choose to do so, then fair enough.
But to use 'human rights' as the reason to not 'interfere' with 'cultural' matters is a misnomer.
I repeat, I don't want to ban anything, certainly not items of clothing. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I might be interested in that.
But I think if we are serious about the rights of individuals, then the 'it's their culture' argument doesn't wash.
(Also there are arguments of protection. We have a law that motorcyclists have to wear a helmet to protect their heads. So even in a 'free' society there might be well-thought out limits to what you can and cannot wear.)
I'm not saying the hijab is ok. But it cannot be successfully addressed on its own. It will go away (or maybe not) in due time when the more substantive issues are addressed in that culture.
I'm only really talking about the question of banning. It is perfectly reasonable to point out the problems with it. In a society tophat values both free speech and freedom of religion, religion cannot be given special protection from criticism.
But, in practice, most of the criticisms leveled at Muslims come from people whose own cultural practices would not stand up to similar scrutiny and the hijab is being singled out, often by people who clearly don't give a shit about women, but do see Muslims as inherently "foreign."
In the grand scheme of all the unfairness going on even in our advanced liberal society/economy, the hijab isn't a big deal. It isn't nearly as bad as, for example, the persistent belief of even those in law enforcement that women get raped because they "dressed slutty."
And, insofar as women wear the scarf because they're compelled to by their family, there isn't a whole lot the rest of society can do in the short-run to "fix" that dynamic. The best we can do is show an alternative example and give girls opportunities to pursue education. If they do chose to split from their family, their rights have to be supported, but we also have to understand that women that chose not to defy their family over this issue aren't necessarily weak or backward and in need of rescue. Most of us make compromises to get along with our relatives.
I just had to look up 'arse antlers'. You learn something every day.
My personal prejudice is mainly feeling slightly superior to people who drive and/or own property (unless they're my friends). It's a sort of childish "I'm not in your rat race" thing, I think.
When we got our new kitchen done (sorry, delicatemoth), we got one of those hob hoods with lights in. Initially, of course, it seemed like a great idea, being able to see what we are cooking. However, I have quite taken against it. Not the hob hood itself (aside from banging my head on it occasionally). It's the light. I don't know why I have taken against it but I think that it is that my wife habitually turns it on whenever she is cooking (what the level of light or time of day) and then leaves it on even when she has left the kitchen and turned the main light off. No, my wife has a thing about side as opposed to main lights. If I ever turn the main light on in the living room without the side lights, she comments that it looks like a morgue. I wonder if, perhaps, she feels that the hob light is a nice light compared to the very bright main kitchen lights. Anyway, I made the mistake of mentioning to the wife about my bizarre discomfort of the hob light being on - to the point that I never turn it on unless I really really can't see without it - and now she feels self-conscious about putting it on.
After living in my place for three years without one, I bought a hood with a light and I love it. I don't use it all the time, but when I'm cooking something that I need to be able to see well, it's fantastic. It has low, medium and high settings. The high makes it look like a spaceship--I rarely use that setting.
One of the myriad reasons that we haven't bought a new stove is that we would prefer not to have to install a hood with an extractor fan (which the building requires for stoves above a certain BTU output).
I was surprised to learn that stove hoods with extractor fans can be installed without venting to the outside. It just kind of pulls the smoke through a filter and discharges it into the room. My building doesn't have any ducting and there's no way to add it. It's weird, and it's definitely not as effective as venting it to the outside. I just have to remember to move the smoke detector from high on the wall to somewhere near the floor while I'm cooking.
Although the ubiquitous adverts on cycling broadcasts would suggest the answer is Slovakia, my understanding is that they can be vented externally or internally along the lines FF describes.
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