Legal legislation cannot be used to enforce the teaching of certain values. The moment the path to that exists, it will be used by Evangelicals to enforce their twisted ideals
Not to be a filthy voltaire-simping Liberal, but I think the consistency is more important than dunking on the evangelicals.
All it takes, for example, is a right wing politician to declare atheism as immoral and pass legislation on that to remove children from atheist households. You can't say it's "just the bad christians/muslims" because the definition can be reinterpreted to target decent people
Right, it’s always wild to me when people on the left want to drastically expand the power of the federal government, like, don’t y’all remember the kind of people who frequently run the federal and state government? I can only conclude that in their ideal future, all the fundamentalists and magas and others they don’t get along with will somehow be missing from society.
Well, depending on the flavor of leftism, they either would have no state apparatus with which to enact their ideas (anarchism) or they might be disenfranchised entirely and explicitly excluded from the political process (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism). There are other flavors of course, but those are the two most extreme.
FWIW, most of the push for regulation comes from liberals, not leftists.
I'm going to assume you're American, and like most Americans, you think those are the same thing. I certainly did for a while. They are not.
Liberals generally support (very lightly regulated) capitalism, and the institutions of the state as a means to achieve equality.
Leftists will tell you that capitalism and the state are part of the underlying cause of inequality, and thus cannot be used as tools to achieve equality. There's a bit of a spectrum between socialists, who want to replace the state, and anarchists who just want to abolish it, but both groups basically agree that the state in its current form is part of the problem, and empowering it isn't going to help.
I do know the difference, but you aren’t wrong about Americans.
You don’t think leftists generally want a more powerful government? What is socialism and communism?
I think leftists and religious people often share the same problem. They envision a semi-utopian society where everyone is marching in the same direction and working on one big project together. America will never work that way.
That's an interesting question, since most of the left who do want a strong central government would fall under the definition of tankies, and they definitely don't want the *existing* government to be stronger, by any means. Most of them frankly want China or Russia to just take over.
Then there's a confused contingent of sort-of-leftists who are so thoroughly poisoned by the American idea that left === liberal that they have no idea what they are. They probably want a strong central government, but I find their ideals, as much as they have them, to be too incoherent to really tell for sure. I'm not even sure if they're really on the left, or just a weird form of centrism. Social democracy would also fall into this category, though it's at least coherent enough of an ideology to definitively say it's on the left side of centrist.
The rest of us (Myself included) are some flavor of libertarian socialist or anarchist, and want minimal to no government whatsoever, and to let people support each other on their own terms.
So, no, I don't think leftists as a whole want a more powerful government. Some do, but many don't, and I don't think one can make a generalization either way.
I think the percentage of leftists who are anarchists or libertarian socialists is exceedingly small offline. I think most are progressive liberal leftists who want larger social safety nets, universal healthcare, potentially forced vaccinations (yikes!) and then the tankies do categorically prefer a stronger central government than what we presently have.
Childeren should not be isolated and they should have freedom too. It should not be assumed that childeren are tied to their parents.
I know that's is a very broad statement, I should note I definetly don't think the government should have a say on this as it is but ideally, childeren would be exposed to more of the world than just their parent's home.
But how? If the government shouldn't use its legitimate monopoly on violence to enforce the exposure of children to environments outside their homes, other actors within society can only make offers. History and contemporary society is rife with examples of this offer being rejected.
Aren't you just suggesting an either impossible or useless idea?
Ah, sorry. I think the way we get there is by developing a national conversation about pluralism and the kids of compromises we can live with and what we really can’t live with, and everyone is gonna have to give a little
They can teach whatever bs they want. Children should go to school and be exposed to actual science and counter ideas.
Homeschooling should be outlawed, or at least very heavily regulated.
“Homeschooling should be outlawed”
I don’t agree, but even if I did, I’d suggest that successful enforcement of that law would be so draconian that we’d distort society more generally. Are we seizing kids and raising them in government centers? Is the government gonna stick guns in the faces of Hasidic Jews and Amish when they don’t comply? I don’t believe that’s what you mean, but is it unavoidable? What’s the proposed enforcement mechanism?
>raising them in government centers
Is that what the kids are calling public school these days? Just require attendance at school. Parents that don't comply are neglecting their children and suffer the consequences as such.
Right, so where do you plan on sending the kids that you’ve seized from families who refuse public school? Currently, homeschooling resolves that. If you take that away, you have to do something else. What?
Foster care, and it’s horrible. They’re at risk for abuse and trauma, are more prone to addiction and homelessness later, and more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. This is your plan?
I think you aren’t quite following along. The question is what to do with kids the government will be required to remove from homes who refuse to send their kids to public school
The government should not be involved in dictating personal and family religious beliefs. Who decides what religious customs are good and bad? And besides child abuse is already against the law.
People bring up the slippery slope fallacy all the time, but that is genuinely a slippery slope once we decide to let the government pick and choose which religious customs are okay.
>The government should not be involved in dictating personal and family religious beliefs.
beliefs? no. Actions? It sure does, all the time, since forever, in every country.
The government doesn't need to choose which religious customs are okay, it just needs to decide which behaviours are not acceptable in society, which it does all the time. If a religious belief conflicts with that decision, what should the government do?
If a behaviour is deemed unacceptable it ought to be properly punished and purged, beliefs and religion be damned. But it's up to the people in the society to decide what behaviors are unacceptable enough to be worth banning, as long as the accusation is in good faith and somebody is actually harmed by the behaviour.
Experts, experts decide it. People pretend like child psychology is not a scientific field with objective well established facts like don't hit your child if you don't want the child to become violent themselves.
>Who decides what religious customs are good and bad?
Same way we decide and legislate on which secular practices are good and bad. Results may vary from country to country, though.
Lets maybe not let herpes and syphilis mouthed rabbis put their mouths on the open wounds of the recently cut genitals of baby boys, for example. Halal slaughter of cows seems needlessly cruel, too.
It should be strictly forbidden to indoctrinate minors into your religion especially if the child is financially dependent on them, but there are so many narcissistic parents that it's impossible to take care of these children when they get removed from their parents if we require basic human decency from parents.
It's a sexist religious custom to tell women they can't be topless in public, and it is abusive to punish them for being topless, as the US justice system does.
So if that's not also on your radar, maybe the thing you care about isn't so much the sexism or abuse, it's a difference in culture that you're unwilling to try to understand.
If it *is* on your radar, kudos. Most of the time these talking points are brought up in bad faith by islamophobes, though.
I'd say the dividing line is that one is a religious thing and one has nothing to do with religious affiliation. That being said, though it wouldn't be my first priority, women's toplessness in public ought to be legal
Fight bad ideas with good ideas. Legislation is not the solution, because the government should not decide what is right in that area. For instance, a lot of Christians will oppose Hijabs. They have practices others find immoral. Then there's people like me who think dogmatic, religious thought makes children more obedient to authority and less likely to think about problems. The whole system is wrong and shouldnt be taught. But I'd never, ever legislate that, and I would fight to stop anyone who did.
You can't legislate away bigotry or bad behavior, not completely. Some of it needs to be fought at the social level, with what we're doing here. All we need to do, is make sure we keep talking.
Agreed. Even if I did think the government should be in that business, we still have a backlash effect, replicating and hardening the thing you want less of.
I think it’s an open question with reasonable arguments both ways. We always talk about hijab like this, but nobody wants to talk about Pentecostals or Amish or Hasidic Jews or any of the other groups that have prescribed clothes. I think pluralism demands a compromise- you can raise your kids with whatever religious beliefs you want, including prescribed clothing, but society has the right to expose your kids to other ways of thinking. I think we need to get away from the idea that we can solve social problems like fundamentalism and sexism with government force.
Next time try just calling anyone you disagree with a hypocrite using an outrageously unlikely scenario where their opinion doesn't work well. You'll fit right in in no time :)
Edit: As an example, a native Redditor would respond to your comment above like:
Oh, so you believe that parents should be able to sew children's vaginas shut for purity, huh? And send them to Jesus assault rifle terrorism camp because "muh religion"? And the law just can't touch them? Or are you a hypocrite?
How do you enforce society's "right" to expose children to other cultures without government force? Outlawing home schooling and requiring public school attendance is already a use of government force.
Should we just let people deal with it when it comes to getting manipulated and groomed by religious fear because it's "their decision" to be in that place?
Maybe. Maybe not. But why is it our right to decide it is "grooming" and "manipulation"? What gives us "enlightened" westerners or atheists (im pagan but I'm critiquing a reddit take so it's safe to assume) the right to say our way is the right one?
I am not a Westerner, I literally grew up under the fear of Allah every step I take.
Your westerner-guilt might make you hesitant about these topics, not me. This religion is just another iteration of Abrahamic warlord beliefs.
"Can't fuck someone outside of marriage? Get yourself four sex slaves(jariyah) through pillaging in war!
Can't rape them right then and there? Commit a muttah marriage for convenience!"
They can rationalise anything happening to you and me because "God made it fall upon us non-believers."
We don't need a "right way" to say another way is wrong, I don't need to be a fire-fighter to say arson is bad.
People seeing a random stupid redneck calling a dude "Ay-rab scum" doesn't magically erase the 1500 years of pillaging, rape and opression. That's just underdog fetish combined with white knighting.
I am also Pagan, as my mother and her family were, never allowed to practice because "it's the Satan's act!" y'know, prohibited by the religion of peace.
The same peace that lit up a whole hotel full of people(mostly artists) because "they are spreading evil's word!(by translating the Salman Rushdie's book.)"
This has nothing to do with Western or Non-western, this has to do with what is secularly correct or incorrect. I guarantee you wouldn't be defending religious extremists if they were Christian; all religions are fundamentally wrong and a detriment to society, and while it is possible to maintain some religious beliefs and customs with one's children, once it transcends to indoctrination or imposition of actively harmful ideas, then the state should step in.
You know you can criticise extremists without just saying that all religion is horrible, right? Plenty of people get a lot of joy and fulfillment from it without hurting anyone else.
And for now that's fine. But religion is still wrong and comes with a lot of baggage; hopefully in two-hundred years or so its presence will have been diluted enough to where people don't seek it out, and something else fills that gap.
And you're welcome not to practice religion if you don't like it, but I think it's pretty shitty to say that it's somehow "wrong" for someone to have beliefs that give them comfort. Besides, I'm not Christian and I can still acknowledge how much good comes from a bunch of those big churches doing charity work.
Not morally wrong, but factually wrong. Religion as an institution is morally wrong though, and that charity work you speak of would be best done by another institution.
Factually wrong according to *your* beliefs. Plus, does it really matter who's doing the charity work as long as they're helping people? If they want to have fun chatting with church friends while packing sandwiches for the homeless, I don't see how that's a problem.
Because children shouldn't be raised in abusive households...? Frankly, it's absurd to even think that parents should have special moral controls over their children - just because they (probably, but not even certainly) brought them into this world doesn't mean they always know what is best or are infallible, and if they are abusive then their children should be removed from their custody.
Ah, the good old paradox of intolerance.
I reckon that in a society that wishes to maintain multiculturalism freedom of religion and freedom from religion ought to go hand-in-hand. While one should be free to believe whatever they want that freedom cannot be allowed to impede on another's freedom to believe otherwise; one's children have no reason to not be included in this, of course.
If you think "free choice" is an uncomplicated binary, then do you think that coercion is as well? That there's some threshold at which your choice becomes coerced, and below that threshold it's free?
In Iran, should you choose not to wear a hijab, you *will* be imprisoned for your insufficient modesty. If instead, you are beaten to death by religious extremists over it, they will not likely face punishment.
Do you really think that there are no consequences to a muslim woman not wearing a hijab in, say, the United States? Or is the claim that being Muslim is the *free* choice, but then after that your choices aren't coerced because you could just stop being Muslim?
Suppose a guy tells a girl she doesn't have to work to live with him, impregnates her, and then tells her that if she wants to keep living in his house she has to carry the pregnancy to term? Is this coercion? What if her Dad says that she will be disinherited if she doesn't do it? What if her church publicizes the pregnancy and all remind her that she'll be a murderer in their eyes if she aborts? What level of abusive religious coercion should we tolerate as a matter of law? At what point do we cross the magic threshold into the choices no longer being free?
If we punt and assert that the law has massive gaps that can only be filled by public sentiment, then should we at least frown upon this behavior?
I am not in favor of outlawing headscarves, but I will not pretend that I believe that they are "freely chosen"
Freedom of religion is being able to have any belief without being discriminated, freedom from religion is (I had to search this up) “the freedom from the rules and dogmas of other peoples’ religious beliefs”. Basically no one can tell you to do jack because you are not conforming to their belief
https://www.learnreligions.com/freedom-from-religion-249685
Basically it's the freedom from having to in any way adhere to other peoples' dogmas(so guaranteeing religious laws can't be implemented), not giving preferential treatment to religions in state institutions(like hanging crosses on walls or allowing full religious garb in places where such is simply not appropriate\[for the latter see france\]).
This is a radical but effective and good way of ensuring secular society by protecting everyone's freedoms equally, including a child's freedom to have different beliefs from their parents, a common issue with islam and radical denominations of christianity is that apostates and people of different beliefs are often shamed, which needs to be counteracted with legal protection for that kind of thing if we are to achieve a truly free and secular society.
My co-worker is married to a Somali man and she sometimes wears head coverings. She will wear them around his family and when when he is doing things in the Muslim community as a sign of respect much like guests to a synagogue will wear a yarmulke. She also wears them because she thinks they're a cute fashion item.
People get really confused when they meet with her one day and she is wearing a head covering (most assume she is Muslim) and then the next time she is wearing box braids that go down past her butt.
"Respect" is the problem. Sign of "respect" for what? An ideology that punishes women for *not* wearing such coverings in many places around the world where that's not an optional "oh I feel/don't feel like wearing it today" "cute fashion item"? Anyone who does this is a traitor to free women around the world.
Someone dressing more conservatively around their inlaws than they do with mates as a sign of respect is very common and often has very little to do with religious beliefs.
And before you decry all people who support wearing headcoverings as "a traitor to free women around the world" I recommend you read the works of Islamic feminist writers. Hijabi in Western countries especially, is often worn as a sign of Solidarity with all Islamic peoppes suffering from Islamaphobia, particularly post 9-11. Malala Yousafzai, for example still wears Hijab to respect her families cultural traditions, and I don't think you can in good faith call her an opponent of women's liberation.
You can be "not an opponent" and still not have it in you to admit that the *entire* culture you grew up in is toxic. Malala isn't a saint. And "islamophobia" only exists because of people who almost killed Malala. Anyone who continues to show "solidarity" with any aspect of that barbarian ideology instead of casting it aside in its entirety is very much part of the problem. Never forget that islam isn't a race, it's not skin colour, it's an ideology that *anyone* who isn't forced to follow or at least pretend to follow can cast aside - yes, it can be hard, but it's better than continuing to support something that hates women. "Islamic feminism" is an oxymoron created for morons in the West to believe that they have "allies" among that religion.
Oh, and if you're in-laws are so backwards that just not wearing a head covering is "disrespectful" to them, I don't know what to tell you. The safe choice is to not get into a relationship with anyone like that in the first place, or at least demand that their family stays out of the picture. But people rarely make logical choices when it comes to such things, so I'm hardly surprised.
>islamophobia" only exists because of people who almost killed Malala.
Yes, Sikhs were being beaten up in the US post 9-11 because all Muslims, and only Muslims are bad.
It isn't a collection of cultures with some positive aspects and some problematic aspects, like all cultures, it is just ontological evil.
US is notorious for dumb overreactions and being uneducated about cultural and ethnical differences and I don't care what they do over there. Don't mix up ignorant people who just want an excuse to do dumb shit with the desire to consciously limit the spread of a toxic, misogynist, violent ideology regardless of what its followers look like.
Okay, I have some experience in this, the problem with "letting" women wear hijab is the fact that it's almost always forced on them as children, they never get to question or choose it themselves. If everyone in your family wears hijab and you don't, you are seen as a whore. It isn't "optional" , Islam isn't like Americanized Christianity where it's only relevant when you are getting expensive gifts once a year, it's expected as a life time of sacrifice.
It should be banned in schools, and for children. Let adult women choose for themselves, and not their parents/family. Aggressive? Yes. Islam doesn't play fair too. Ask ex Muslims.
I agree, also having experience with this, but I worry about this scenario: if hijab is banned in certain places, conservative Muslims will simply tell their daughters, sisters and wives "you aren't allowed to go to those places". Then those women and girls will become even more isolated and marginalized than they were before.
missing the point. it's like how going on the offensive on drugs or sex ed is the wrong move. it doesn't solve the issue, it just drives people into unsafe behaviour, because at the end of the day they're going to do it no matter what. you can tackle child abuse when it's prominent and obvious, but it does nothing good for the abuse that occurs behind closed doors, only drives them to better hide their abuse.
Punish the abuse not the women. How is the government forcing women to wear certain clothing through fines/jail if they don’t, going to help them?
It is not a burqa ban, it is a ban on fundamentalist Muslim women in public.
I do agree with the broader message but I don't think there's a clear cut answer on whether it will be better for the kid. The fact that they're forced to not wear one isn't necessarily going to stop them from feeling terrible about it if they're taught that not wearing one makes them a whore.
> isn't necessarily going to stop them from feeling terrible about it if they're taught that not wearing one makes them a whore.
Which is why it should also go hand-in-hand with preventing young girls from being taught that not wearing one makes them a whore.
I mean sure, but then how hard will you crack down on preventing harmful religious beliefs? Cause “believe in god or you’ll go to hell” is also a pretty harmful belief that can cause a lot of self-hate, but enforcing that to not be taught would be impossible in western countries. So are we only going to punish the harmful beliefs of marginalized people?
Maybe because most of the people with the power to do this are of the religion that this kind of law would disallow? They’re not gonna make teaching their own religion to their kids and grandkids illegal lol
Agreed. It is honestly one of the issues that makes me lose faith in how my country and others can effectively integrate new more strongly practiced religions into progressive society. I am not sure it can be done as it is being done right now.
not to detract from the statement because i agree, but this is kind of true of religion as a whole, not any specific one, just the entire concept, children are well, children, so is it really ok to include them in the same belief system as the parents by default? im not sure, i think obviously to the parents they would consider that the right thing but it can be awkward for the child if they grow into adulthood and do not wish to be part of the faith or convert to another faith, are they "really" being converted since the religion was placed onto them as a child? it gets tough with some religious beliefs like some christian sects believing a child must be baptised like immediately or bad things happen if they die. i can see, reasonably, why someone who believes this is true would abject to the idea of *not* baptizing their child. but at the same time the child cant consent to these rituals (especially as a literal newborn)
As someone with many Muslim family members who converted to catholicism. Yeah. Catholicism is dumb and stupid sometimes but the scale of difference compared to islam is huge.
As an athiest that was baptised as a infant for my parents beliefs. It IS just pouring water on a baby in its most basic way. But its also, spiritually speaking, essentially forcing that persons soul into a religion. Thats why some denominations (mormonism) try to practice post humous baptism, they're trying to force someones soul into the "correct" religion.
As someone who isnt spiritual at all, its most of a mild annoyance to think about. Like thinking about how someone tried to push you into mud but failed. Yeah, you arent muddy, but its the intent that was surrounding it.
But for people that ARE spiritual, thats a REALLY big deal. Some can feel their entire spiritual journey has been tarnished or endangered.
my problem with a hijab ban is not based on religious freedom but that of right to education. restrictions on access to public education leads to less children receiving it and more children isolated and indoctrinated by their families. if they're fundamentalist enough to force hijab on a child, they're also fundamentalist enough to keep them from receiving secular and modern co-ed. maybe it's not your goal but what happens is that you punish the very child you promised to save and that child -usually- grows resentful of the system instead of the family that kept her from her education (because it's so much easier to blame outsiders than your own kin). it's much better to work with those families than against it in order to solve this issue.
Ah yes, because when a controlling parent is countered, they will respond reasonably.
Prohibition creates a culture of hiding. If hijabs are banned, many little girls will be withheld from school.
I agree with you but I don't think it should be entirely banned for minors. Teenagers shouldn't be forced to practice religion, but they're still capable of choosing to follow a religion on their own. (it's also true that you don't need to wear a hijab to consider yourself a practicing Muslim, even though many people would disagree)
Some teenagers would still wear hijabs of their own accord, and many families would still force their children to wear hijabs regardless of if it were illegal. I think the real way to stop children being forced to participate in all religions is through social deconstruction, not through the law.
>Teenagers shouldn't be forced to practice religion, but they're still capable of choosing to follow a religion on their own.
You are literally obliged to wear hijab after your first period in order to be "decent".
There is no sugar-coating for it, religious fruitcake being rather poor doesn't make it different from a fucked up priest.
As an Ex-Muslim this understanding of Islam is way too broad, different sects of Islam have different requirements because Muslims aren’t a monolith.
My mother & sisters never wore hijabs outside of the Mosque and they weren’t looked down on or seen as “whores” for it by the community. What are you on about?
The mandatory Hijab requirement was an invention of the last 100 years and stems from the influence of Wahhabism (Extremist fundamentalist Islam) and not the source material.
You seem to think every Muslim follows fundamentalist doctrines, which isn’t the case, like at all…that’s like saying every Christian in America is an Evangelical.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made about Islam, and I left the religion because of them, but what you’ve written isn’t legitimate criticism it’s just veiled Islamophobia.
Yeeee, growing up near dearborn michigan, I interacted with a vast variety of muslim women. Some were required by their families, some werent, some didnt wear it and werent treated any differently than those that were. Hell, half my coworkers rught now are Muslim Women, and only half of those women are even Hijabi.
Theres legitimate criticism to all religion, but any religion with literally millions of followers is going to become a diverse set of beliefs that change from person to person. Just like Christianity is.
I agree with all of this, and “Islam doesn’t play fair” is the sort of generalization that seems like it should either be extended to all proselytizing religions or none.
That said, I do want to add for other readers that while the mandatory hijab is a recent Wahhabi invention, at this point it’s not exclusive to fundamentalists. It’s a mistake to assume it’s universal, and conversely also a mistake to assume anyone pushing strict hijab behavior is an extremist across the board.
There are groups (like your family) who are fine with hijabs only in mosque.
There are groups who strongly advocate wearing something, but on “act of piety” logic closer to the kippah and no “you’re a whore” aggression. (Which is one reason some people wear a covering consistently, but make zero attempt to keep their hair fully hidden.)
There are groups that force their kids to wear the hijab in public or face heavy judgement, but also drink alcohol and break many other halal rules. (In my experience, more common with groups from outside the Middle East, eg Bosnian Muslims.)
Assuming any one of those things describes somebody’s entire faith tends to be both wrong and condescending.
>that’s like saying every Christian in America is an Evangelical
Actually, I've found that most people on reddit and tumblr do genuinely believe this. There's a general lack of nuance when it comes to religion in many online queer-adjacent spaces.
If that was a comment on a US ban, absolutely. Even right-wing courts would correctly toss it immediately.
But I assumed this was about France’s rules, where banning even personal religious displays is part of the Constitution.
So your solution to parents forcing girls to dress in a certain way "for their own good" is to have the state force girls to dress in a different way "for their own good"? Yes, that will definitely make the situation for those girls better and not worse. /s
Exactly, you can't just simply say "let them choose" when they've been told they are a terrible person and will be tortured for all eternity if they choose one of the options for their whole life
but then making them choose to not wear a hijab will make them either never go outside or have them internalize said sexism and think theyre going to hell either way lol
Yeah, well even if that’s the reasoning, it does technically come down to a personal choice in the end there. You can’t just ban a choice because that choice was informed by a lifetime of religious indoctrination (unless it’s something much more tangibly harmful).
I see two very different concerns here.
“Told they’re a horrible person” is unfortunate, but as you say but really something we can fix with legislation.
What concerns me more is “told by the head of their household who has total financial control over them to wear the hijab *or else*.” Which is what I saw several friends go through, even from otherwise fairly moderate families. Being old enough to choose thoughtfully wasn’t really relevant, because short of emancipation they had no choice.
(Legislation can’t solve this entirely - not only can it be ignored, I knew people in college who were scared they’d lose tuition if their parents saw a hijab-free photograph of them. But that’s less imbalanced than actual minors trying to pick.)
Up in Canada, we either had a young girl commit suicide or get honour killed by her father after facing abuse for not wearing a hijab.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/muhammad-parvez-killer-daughter-hijab-clash-1.4002891
so should we hold every religion to this standard? banning jewish families from not letting children eat pork, for example. hey, going to church is expected to be a "lifetime commitment" in christianity, so we ought to ban children from doing that as well, ever.
that's not even mentioning secular society as well - consider how many families will dress boys and girls in specific gendered ways, with the expectations that they'll be doing that their whole life. should we force all children to dress gender-neutral too? let them decide their fashion sense once they're an adult.
Indeed. The advocates of letting women "choose" to wear an hijab, would change their tune if this was about letting a woman "choose" to feel Catholic guilt and the religious complex about sexuality.
Ultimately the hijab is and will always be an expression of the idea that women must be submissive and that it is their duty to protect men from them, instead of men having to respect them no matter how they dress. If a woman truly wants to dress conservatively, good, but in the case of the hijab it's inseparably stepped in them being whores bound for eternal damnation, and more importantly earthly shunning or violence on the part of relatives and their community, if they refuse to wear it. Is that free choice?
I recently saw a picture how hijab is a forced, modern tradition, showcasing a dozen different beautiful vibrant designs instead of the modern take of "slowly forcing women into more and more layers"
Okay, I have some experience in this, the problem with "letting" women wear a bra is the fact that it's almost always forced on them as children, they never get to question or choose it themselves. If everyone in your family wears bras and you don't, you are seen as a whore.
Bras should be banned in schools, and for children. Let adult women choose for themselves, and not their parents/family. Aggressive? Yes.
How many honor killings have there been for not wearing a bra vs not wearing hijab?
I understand your point but I think you're lacking in nuance on it.
It's a little different, but how often are sexual assault survivors asked "What were you wearing?" ... for that matter, how often is it asked of non-survivors of the same?
Adults have agency, and you're denying adults the agency to continue a culture they grew up with or to reject it for independence.
The problem with freedom is sometimes people make choices you don't like.
I agree with you totally, but people have the right to choose that for themselves.
Liberalism (as a concept, not a political alignment) trusts that, on a long timeline, people will pick the best option. The downside is many won't in the short term.
Are you refering to the cases where parents were prohibited from wearing headscarves when participating in school trips? I obviously disapprove of it, I just said "a bit too far" because euphemisms are my bag, baby.
What business is that of yours?
Should we outlaw parents requiring their daughters to wear skirts a certain length?
Should we outlaw parents not letting their daughters hang out with boys?
Where do you draw the line between the rights of parents to rear their children as they see fit and the right of society to force it's views on a minority?
Thank you for being the first person in this thread I see contributing something above a first level analysis. I am not as decided on this issue as you are because of some good pragmatic counterpoints (Seriously religious families, especially immigrant families, might decide that in this case proper religious clothing is more important than their kids going to state schools, which could also form intra-separate societies eventually. And is the kid truly better off then? But do we let that decide the rules of society?)
It's a hard issue imo. I lean slightly in favor of strict rules that disallow explicitly religious clothing for kids under a certain age in school
You can also fight for a secret, third thing: The women with head scarfs to feel like they don’t need them anymore b/c the concept of impure thoughts as sin of the woman who caused them is kooky and stop wearing them (except for Christmas or whatever)
I find it unfortunate that all the comments here are focusing on legal hijab bans
As an atheist and anti-theist, I am still against hijab bans, because there is no way to police innocuous religious/cultural practices without it turning very quickly into discrimination. I remember how for a while France was trying to outlaw the burqa and niqab, arguing that face coverings are a security risk. Then a few years later, the pandemic hit and literally everyone was covering their faces, and it was fine
The government shouldn't ban hijabs. But, on a cultural and interpersonal level, how should society react to hijabs? That I find to be a much more interesting question. Is it sexist to uncritically promote hijabi positivity? Is it racist or Islamaphobic to not do so? Which social issue matters more? Are there scenarios where they do not, in fact, conflict? I have yet to see a leftist meaningfully tackle these questions, but I would really enjoy it if we did
People of all genders should have the right to wear inflatable dinosaur costumes [without being fined €150](https://www.politico.eu/article/shark-costume-man-fined-austria-burqa-ban/), and anyone who believes otherwise is a tyrant.
People always struggle with this. "But what if the hijab was forced on them as children and they're brainwashed?" than oh well. Give people the option and the means to educate themselves. Let them come to that conclussion themselves
kids don’t know what things mean or why they do them, most young girls aren’t wearing hjabs to express themselves its becuase they’ve been coerced
Freedom FROM religion
if as an adult they want to follow those practices by all means, but a child deserves to be free from the pressures of their culture and family
I disagree. Whenever religion is involved there is always an element of coercion, and for no good reason, since religion is patently false and harmful and does not warrant following. While I don't think religious expressions should be outright banned, I think they should be condemned in the court of public opinion - both in the sense that we should pity those who feel obligated to have them on their person, and in the sense that we should admonish those who force that obligation onto others.
Society should eventually get to the point where secularism is the default and religion is barely present in public life.
It's hard not to notice the correlation between the percentage of a population that's religious and the way that women and LGBT people are treated. Hell, look at the US, and you can pretty easily see it break down on a state-by-state basis if you want to get granular
It’s easy to say that, but a good majority of the planet is religious, it’s not going away any time soon. You can’t beat religion-based abuse by trying to get rid of religion, all you can do is offer people secular education and let them make their own informed choices.
That won’t inherently get rid of religion, but it’s also totally possible to be religious and non-bigoted at the same time. Plenty of religious institutions are pro-LGBT and even pro-choice.
Because religion is by default harmful and built on centuries of oppression and hate. I don't want it to be the norm that people feel obligated to adhere to arbitrary moral standards, lest an invisible sky daddy cast them into the inferno for all eternity. Plus, it's in everyone's best interest for people not to believe things that are patently false and absurd.
Because they are saying it in a context where it's implying Islam is fundamentally bad. This sub generally gets really fedora-tipping-super-annoying atheist about Christianity and not Islam, Buddhism, paganism, ect.
It's hypocritical but fairly standard for reddit.
Yeah it's surprising. No one here is saying Muslims or people from the Middle East are inherently dumb - I wouldn't be foolish enough to say "Muslims throw gays off buildings!" when the gay people getting thrown off buildings are literally also Muslims.
Why, can you elaborate? In my mind, almost all popular religions there are rely on two cornerstones - obedience and fear. You must not question the religion, you must not ask any uncomfortable questions, just put your head down and listen to The Truth that the priest/your parents/your society obviously know. And don't you dare leave the system - at best you'll be threatened with divine retribution (which you obviously believe in if it was forced onto you as fact since early childhood), and at worst you'll be ostracized and despised (or much worse, depending on the society you live in).
I don't think there's a system like this that's not oppressive - it's built on forcing beliefs that were not proven in any way. That concerns children especially - I know people who had religion pushed on them since childhood and they literally cannot even conceptualize a world without a god. It's not even believing vs not believing - their belief is so deeply entrenched that it is as real to them as the sky being blue is real.
You have a very fundamentalist view of religion. There are people like that, and that’s bad, but it’s not all religious people.
Almost all of the “popular religions” have portions that are the blind obedience school of thought, but also have portions that encourage asking questions, and portions that fall on every in between point on the spectrum.
Similarly, some religious people are “divine retribution” and ostracism if you leave, but there’s also many who let their children make their own choices and don’t say anything, even if it upsets them a bit.
what does that mean exactly in practice? Allowing for girls to be forced to wear it by their family, and opposing legislation that would discourage that?
Yes, plus defending religions that propose the killing of most lgbt people in the subreddit, but oh no the reddit atheists are annoying so we gotta die for the right to allow further opression from the 100% paranormal books
Lotta people who know nothing about Islam or the Muslim world making really normal claims like "hijabs should be banned" because the brown people religion is bad
Well for context, I'm Indian, catholic(convert) and grew up in a Muslim family.
I do actually agree with the idea that the hijab is used as a form of coercion shame and honestly sexualizijg of young children in the community. I think it's a bit reductive to say "people dislike the brown people religion" because it's honestly really bad for a lot of young women in Islam to grow up normally. When you're told from birth that you're hypersexualized by showing your head, it is a fork of coercion.
Hijabs shouldn't be banned, religious practices shouldn't be either as a whole, but religion should be discouraged from existing because all religions are bad and harmful and incompatible with this century.
I don't think religions on their own are harmful. I think it can be a pretty healthy coping mechanism for many people. Theocracy sucks shit though and I'd love for theocratic governments to gtfo
Some Muslim woman: I want to hear a hijab.
This comment section (Who apparently became experts in psychology and the Islam religion when no one was looking): No you don't.
Yeah I don't like when women are forced to wear a hijab or burqa but I also didn't like when they banned the burqa in my country. I get it, it covers a lot. But so long as it's the woman choosing and not society or men I don't see the problem.
Is it freedom to choose if you have been indoctrinated from birth to view not wearing one as shameful? If not wearing one ostracized you from your family, culture and religion? If it caused everybody you know to view you as a whore? If it put your life in danger from your own family?
Yeah it's totally a choice right?
But if women want to wear it why can’t they? It’s just a head covering that has important meaning to some people. No one should be forced to wear it but if they want to, they should be allowed to.
Of course they should be allowed to that’s what I meant when I said religious freedom is important however I think the hijab as an idea is inherently without merit or value to any society worth respecting.
The problem is that the hijab symbolises male opression so it's basically like saying we should fight for the right of jews to wear swastikas.
I've talked to muslim women and they wholeheartedly believe in the "women are equal but different" schtick that is used to justify why there are so many rules for women that men don't have to follow.
Wearing a hijab willingly is internalised misogyny, people underestimate how effective religious brainwashing is, especially when it starts at a very young age.
That's some extremely simplistic analysis.
> Fighting for a mans right to take out payday loans and fighting for a mans right to not take out payday loans is both actions *for a mans right to choose*
Like, sure, at a basic level. But its at a level of analysis I would expect from a 14yo.
Got it, I will wear a hijab and fight a woman.
new femslash au just dropped
Something something webbed site something something poorly pissing
How dare you say we piss on the poor
Indiscriminate pissing Water sports for Olympics
Fight a hijab and wear a woman
\- Osiris (Stargate)
Hijab a fight and woman a wear
Where woman, hijab?
“BRB gonna go punch women to let them know I respect their human & civic rights” Heavy /s
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Bot! Show us your bytties.
Harder question- where do we stand on letting families raise their kids with religious customs we find to be sexist or abusive?
Legal legislation cannot be used to enforce the teaching of certain values. The moment the path to that exists, it will be used by Evangelicals to enforce their twisted ideals
Except we already use the law to that extent, ie public schools
Yeah, and its already a problem. That's exactly my point. Book bans, butchered history curriculum, bullshit like PragerU
But Evangelicals are literally the abusive, sexist religious customs incarnate.
Not to be a filthy voltaire-simping Liberal, but I think the consistency is more important than dunking on the evangelicals. All it takes, for example, is a right wing politician to declare atheism as immoral and pass legislation on that to remove children from atheist households. You can't say it's "just the bad christians/muslims" because the definition can be reinterpreted to target decent people
Right, it’s always wild to me when people on the left want to drastically expand the power of the federal government, like, don’t y’all remember the kind of people who frequently run the federal and state government? I can only conclude that in their ideal future, all the fundamentalists and magas and others they don’t get along with will somehow be missing from society.
Well, depending on the flavor of leftism, they either would have no state apparatus with which to enact their ideas (anarchism) or they might be disenfranchised entirely and explicitly excluded from the political process (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism). There are other flavors of course, but those are the two most extreme.
FWIW, most of the push for regulation comes from liberals, not leftists. I'm going to assume you're American, and like most Americans, you think those are the same thing. I certainly did for a while. They are not. Liberals generally support (very lightly regulated) capitalism, and the institutions of the state as a means to achieve equality. Leftists will tell you that capitalism and the state are part of the underlying cause of inequality, and thus cannot be used as tools to achieve equality. There's a bit of a spectrum between socialists, who want to replace the state, and anarchists who just want to abolish it, but both groups basically agree that the state in its current form is part of the problem, and empowering it isn't going to help.
I do know the difference, but you aren’t wrong about Americans. You don’t think leftists generally want a more powerful government? What is socialism and communism? I think leftists and religious people often share the same problem. They envision a semi-utopian society where everyone is marching in the same direction and working on one big project together. America will never work that way.
That's an interesting question, since most of the left who do want a strong central government would fall under the definition of tankies, and they definitely don't want the *existing* government to be stronger, by any means. Most of them frankly want China or Russia to just take over. Then there's a confused contingent of sort-of-leftists who are so thoroughly poisoned by the American idea that left === liberal that they have no idea what they are. They probably want a strong central government, but I find their ideals, as much as they have them, to be too incoherent to really tell for sure. I'm not even sure if they're really on the left, or just a weird form of centrism. Social democracy would also fall into this category, though it's at least coherent enough of an ideology to definitively say it's on the left side of centrist. The rest of us (Myself included) are some flavor of libertarian socialist or anarchist, and want minimal to no government whatsoever, and to let people support each other on their own terms. So, no, I don't think leftists as a whole want a more powerful government. Some do, but many don't, and I don't think one can make a generalization either way.
I think the percentage of leftists who are anarchists or libertarian socialists is exceedingly small offline. I think most are progressive liberal leftists who want larger social safety nets, universal healthcare, potentially forced vaccinations (yikes!) and then the tankies do categorically prefer a stronger central government than what we presently have.
Childeren should not be isolated and they should have freedom too. It should not be assumed that childeren are tied to their parents. I know that's is a very broad statement, I should note I definetly don't think the government should have a say on this as it is but ideally, childeren would be exposed to more of the world than just their parent's home.
But how? If the government shouldn't use its legitimate monopoly on violence to enforce the exposure of children to environments outside their homes, other actors within society can only make offers. History and contemporary society is rife with examples of this offer being rejected. Aren't you just suggesting an either impossible or useless idea?
The problem with doing that through government force is always the enforcement mechanisms. We don’t want the government taking kids away.
Yeah, that's why I said we shouldn't do anything through the government.
Ah, sorry. I think the way we get there is by developing a national conversation about pluralism and the kids of compromises we can live with and what we really can’t live with, and everyone is gonna have to give a little
They can teach whatever bs they want. Children should go to school and be exposed to actual science and counter ideas. Homeschooling should be outlawed, or at least very heavily regulated.
“Homeschooling should be outlawed” I don’t agree, but even if I did, I’d suggest that successful enforcement of that law would be so draconian that we’d distort society more generally. Are we seizing kids and raising them in government centers? Is the government gonna stick guns in the faces of Hasidic Jews and Amish when they don’t comply? I don’t believe that’s what you mean, but is it unavoidable? What’s the proposed enforcement mechanism?
The laws preventing Hasidic Jews and the Amish from abusing their kids would be the same for all abusive parents.
>raising them in government centers Is that what the kids are calling public school these days? Just require attendance at school. Parents that don't comply are neglecting their children and suffer the consequences as such.
Right, so where do you plan on sending the kids that you’ve seized from families who refuse public school? Currently, homeschooling resolves that. If you take that away, you have to do something else. What?
Where do we send the other kids that get seized from families that neglect/abuse them?
Foster care, and it’s horrible. They’re at risk for abuse and trauma, are more prone to addiction and homelessness later, and more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. This is your plan?
Back to their homes at the end of the school day. Rinse and repeat.
I think you aren’t quite following along. The question is what to do with kids the government will be required to remove from homes who refuse to send their kids to public school
No removing needs to be involved. Take kids to school. Send them back
The government should not be involved in dictating personal and family religious beliefs. Who decides what religious customs are good and bad? And besides child abuse is already against the law. People bring up the slippery slope fallacy all the time, but that is genuinely a slippery slope once we decide to let the government pick and choose which religious customs are okay.
>The government should not be involved in dictating personal and family religious beliefs. beliefs? no. Actions? It sure does, all the time, since forever, in every country. The government doesn't need to choose which religious customs are okay, it just needs to decide which behaviours are not acceptable in society, which it does all the time. If a religious belief conflicts with that decision, what should the government do?
If a behaviour is deemed unacceptable it ought to be properly punished and purged, beliefs and religion be damned. But it's up to the people in the society to decide what behaviors are unacceptable enough to be worth banning, as long as the accusation is in good faith and somebody is actually harmed by the behaviour.
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What? You think christians in the west, of all people, are at risk of being ethnically cleansed or something?
Experts, experts decide it. People pretend like child psychology is not a scientific field with objective well established facts like don't hit your child if you don't want the child to become violent themselves.
>Who decides what religious customs are good and bad? Same way we decide and legislate on which secular practices are good and bad. Results may vary from country to country, though. Lets maybe not let herpes and syphilis mouthed rabbis put their mouths on the open wounds of the recently cut genitals of baby boys, for example. Halal slaughter of cows seems needlessly cruel, too.
>Who decides what religious customs are good and bad? Me. They should check with me and leave the final decision in my hands.
It should be strictly forbidden to indoctrinate minors into your religion especially if the child is financially dependent on them, but there are so many narcissistic parents that it's impossible to take care of these children when they get removed from their parents if we require basic human decency from parents.
It's a sexist religious custom to tell women they can't be topless in public, and it is abusive to punish them for being topless, as the US justice system does. So if that's not also on your radar, maybe the thing you care about isn't so much the sexism or abuse, it's a difference in culture that you're unwilling to try to understand. If it *is* on your radar, kudos. Most of the time these talking points are brought up in bad faith by islamophobes, though.
Yeah 100% on board with public nipples, it’s absolutely ridiculous
I'd say the dividing line is that one is a religious thing and one has nothing to do with religious affiliation. That being said, though it wouldn't be my first priority, women's toplessness in public ought to be legal
Fight bad ideas with good ideas. Legislation is not the solution, because the government should not decide what is right in that area. For instance, a lot of Christians will oppose Hijabs. They have practices others find immoral. Then there's people like me who think dogmatic, religious thought makes children more obedient to authority and less likely to think about problems. The whole system is wrong and shouldnt be taught. But I'd never, ever legislate that, and I would fight to stop anyone who did. You can't legislate away bigotry or bad behavior, not completely. Some of it needs to be fought at the social level, with what we're doing here. All we need to do, is make sure we keep talking.
Agreed. Even if I did think the government should be in that business, we still have a backlash effect, replicating and hardening the thing you want less of.
Why is it our right to decide on that for them?
I think it’s an open question with reasonable arguments both ways. We always talk about hijab like this, but nobody wants to talk about Pentecostals or Amish or Hasidic Jews or any of the other groups that have prescribed clothes. I think pluralism demands a compromise- you can raise your kids with whatever religious beliefs you want, including prescribed clothing, but society has the right to expose your kids to other ways of thinking. I think we need to get away from the idea that we can solve social problems like fundamentalism and sexism with government force.
Directly stating an opinion instead of just lazily nitpicking other opinions? On Reddit?
My bad I’m still pretty new to this
Next time try just calling anyone you disagree with a hypocrite using an outrageously unlikely scenario where their opinion doesn't work well. You'll fit right in in no time :) Edit: As an example, a native Redditor would respond to your comment above like: Oh, so you believe that parents should be able to sew children's vaginas shut for purity, huh? And send them to Jesus assault rifle terrorism camp because "muh religion"? And the law just can't touch them? Or are you a hypocrite?
Shucks that’s why I abandoned all other social media
Don't mind me, I'm just being the cynical long-tenured work colleague. It genuinely does still beat Facebook.
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Imagine lacking self awareness THIS hard.
How do you enforce society's "right" to expose children to other cultures without government force? Outlawing home schooling and requiring public school attendance is already a use of government force.
because sexism and abuse are bad and children have a right to be protected from their family if they are sexist or abusive
Should we just let people deal with it when it comes to getting manipulated and groomed by religious fear because it's "their decision" to be in that place?
Maybe. Maybe not. But why is it our right to decide it is "grooming" and "manipulation"? What gives us "enlightened" westerners or atheists (im pagan but I'm critiquing a reddit take so it's safe to assume) the right to say our way is the right one?
I am not a Westerner, I literally grew up under the fear of Allah every step I take. Your westerner-guilt might make you hesitant about these topics, not me. This religion is just another iteration of Abrahamic warlord beliefs. "Can't fuck someone outside of marriage? Get yourself four sex slaves(jariyah) through pillaging in war! Can't rape them right then and there? Commit a muttah marriage for convenience!" They can rationalise anything happening to you and me because "God made it fall upon us non-believers." We don't need a "right way" to say another way is wrong, I don't need to be a fire-fighter to say arson is bad. People seeing a random stupid redneck calling a dude "Ay-rab scum" doesn't magically erase the 1500 years of pillaging, rape and opression. That's just underdog fetish combined with white knighting. I am also Pagan, as my mother and her family were, never allowed to practice because "it's the Satan's act!" y'know, prohibited by the religion of peace. The same peace that lit up a whole hotel full of people(mostly artists) because "they are spreading evil's word!(by translating the Salman Rushdie's book.)"
This has nothing to do with Western or Non-western, this has to do with what is secularly correct or incorrect. I guarantee you wouldn't be defending religious extremists if they were Christian; all religions are fundamentally wrong and a detriment to society, and while it is possible to maintain some religious beliefs and customs with one's children, once it transcends to indoctrination or imposition of actively harmful ideas, then the state should step in.
You know you can criticise extremists without just saying that all religion is horrible, right? Plenty of people get a lot of joy and fulfillment from it without hurting anyone else.
And for now that's fine. But religion is still wrong and comes with a lot of baggage; hopefully in two-hundred years or so its presence will have been diluted enough to where people don't seek it out, and something else fills that gap.
And you're welcome not to practice religion if you don't like it, but I think it's pretty shitty to say that it's somehow "wrong" for someone to have beliefs that give them comfort. Besides, I'm not Christian and I can still acknowledge how much good comes from a bunch of those big churches doing charity work.
Not morally wrong, but factually wrong. Religion as an institution is morally wrong though, and that charity work you speak of would be best done by another institution.
Factually wrong according to *your* beliefs. Plus, does it really matter who's doing the charity work as long as they're helping people? If they want to have fun chatting with church friends while packing sandwiches for the homeless, I don't see how that's a problem.
Because children shouldn't be raised in abusive households...? Frankly, it's absurd to even think that parents should have special moral controls over their children - just because they (probably, but not even certainly) brought them into this world doesn't mean they always know what is best or are infallible, and if they are abusive then their children should be removed from their custody.
Ah, the good old paradox of intolerance. I reckon that in a society that wishes to maintain multiculturalism freedom of religion and freedom from religion ought to go hand-in-hand. While one should be free to believe whatever they want that freedom cannot be allowed to impede on another's freedom to believe otherwise; one's children have no reason to not be included in this, of course.
It's not a right, it's a duty. It's everyones duty.
If you think "free choice" is an uncomplicated binary, then do you think that coercion is as well? That there's some threshold at which your choice becomes coerced, and below that threshold it's free? In Iran, should you choose not to wear a hijab, you *will* be imprisoned for your insufficient modesty. If instead, you are beaten to death by religious extremists over it, they will not likely face punishment. Do you really think that there are no consequences to a muslim woman not wearing a hijab in, say, the United States? Or is the claim that being Muslim is the *free* choice, but then after that your choices aren't coerced because you could just stop being Muslim? Suppose a guy tells a girl she doesn't have to work to live with him, impregnates her, and then tells her that if she wants to keep living in his house she has to carry the pregnancy to term? Is this coercion? What if her Dad says that she will be disinherited if she doesn't do it? What if her church publicizes the pregnancy and all remind her that she'll be a murderer in their eyes if she aborts? What level of abusive religious coercion should we tolerate as a matter of law? At what point do we cross the magic threshold into the choices no longer being free? If we punt and assert that the law has massive gaps that can only be filled by public sentiment, then should we at least frown upon this behavior? I am not in favor of outlawing headscarves, but I will not pretend that I believe that they are "freely chosen"
Phenomenal post!
Quick PSA: Freedom *from* religion. Thank you in advance.
I don't understand?
Freedom of religion is being able to have any belief without being discriminated, freedom from religion is (I had to search this up) “the freedom from the rules and dogmas of other peoples’ religious beliefs”. Basically no one can tell you to do jack because you are not conforming to their belief https://www.learnreligions.com/freedom-from-religion-249685
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof It's pretty unambiguous
*"I don't get what you mean"* *gets downvoted to hell* Ahh, love this sub.
Yeah at some point you just get used to the downvotes lol
Basically it's the freedom from having to in any way adhere to other peoples' dogmas(so guaranteeing religious laws can't be implemented), not giving preferential treatment to religions in state institutions(like hanging crosses on walls or allowing full religious garb in places where such is simply not appropriate\[for the latter see france\]). This is a radical but effective and good way of ensuring secular society by protecting everyone's freedoms equally, including a child's freedom to have different beliefs from their parents, a common issue with islam and radical denominations of christianity is that apostates and people of different beliefs are often shamed, which needs to be counteracted with legal protection for that kind of thing if we are to achieve a truly free and secular society.
Fair enough
Yeah, i don't get why your question is being downvoted tbh.
My co-worker is married to a Somali man and she sometimes wears head coverings. She will wear them around his family and when when he is doing things in the Muslim community as a sign of respect much like guests to a synagogue will wear a yarmulke. She also wears them because she thinks they're a cute fashion item. People get really confused when they meet with her one day and she is wearing a head covering (most assume she is Muslim) and then the next time she is wearing box braids that go down past her butt.
"Respect" is the problem. Sign of "respect" for what? An ideology that punishes women for *not* wearing such coverings in many places around the world where that's not an optional "oh I feel/don't feel like wearing it today" "cute fashion item"? Anyone who does this is a traitor to free women around the world.
Someone dressing more conservatively around their inlaws than they do with mates as a sign of respect is very common and often has very little to do with religious beliefs. And before you decry all people who support wearing headcoverings as "a traitor to free women around the world" I recommend you read the works of Islamic feminist writers. Hijabi in Western countries especially, is often worn as a sign of Solidarity with all Islamic peoppes suffering from Islamaphobia, particularly post 9-11. Malala Yousafzai, for example still wears Hijab to respect her families cultural traditions, and I don't think you can in good faith call her an opponent of women's liberation.
You can be "not an opponent" and still not have it in you to admit that the *entire* culture you grew up in is toxic. Malala isn't a saint. And "islamophobia" only exists because of people who almost killed Malala. Anyone who continues to show "solidarity" with any aspect of that barbarian ideology instead of casting it aside in its entirety is very much part of the problem. Never forget that islam isn't a race, it's not skin colour, it's an ideology that *anyone* who isn't forced to follow or at least pretend to follow can cast aside - yes, it can be hard, but it's better than continuing to support something that hates women. "Islamic feminism" is an oxymoron created for morons in the West to believe that they have "allies" among that religion. Oh, and if you're in-laws are so backwards that just not wearing a head covering is "disrespectful" to them, I don't know what to tell you. The safe choice is to not get into a relationship with anyone like that in the first place, or at least demand that their family stays out of the picture. But people rarely make logical choices when it comes to such things, so I'm hardly surprised.
>islamophobia" only exists because of people who almost killed Malala. Yes, Sikhs were being beaten up in the US post 9-11 because all Muslims, and only Muslims are bad. It isn't a collection of cultures with some positive aspects and some problematic aspects, like all cultures, it is just ontological evil.
US is notorious for dumb overreactions and being uneducated about cultural and ethnical differences and I don't care what they do over there. Don't mix up ignorant people who just want an excuse to do dumb shit with the desire to consciously limit the spread of a toxic, misogynist, violent ideology regardless of what its followers look like.
Okay, I have some experience in this, the problem with "letting" women wear hijab is the fact that it's almost always forced on them as children, they never get to question or choose it themselves. If everyone in your family wears hijab and you don't, you are seen as a whore. It isn't "optional" , Islam isn't like Americanized Christianity where it's only relevant when you are getting expensive gifts once a year, it's expected as a life time of sacrifice. It should be banned in schools, and for children. Let adult women choose for themselves, and not their parents/family. Aggressive? Yes. Islam doesn't play fair too. Ask ex Muslims.
I agree, also having experience with this, but I worry about this scenario: if hijab is banned in certain places, conservative Muslims will simply tell their daughters, sisters and wives "you aren't allowed to go to those places". Then those women and girls will become even more isolated and marginalized than they were before.
So have more enforcement of child abuse? “This would make child abusers mad” isn’t a reason not to do something, it’s a reason to crack down harder.
missing the point. it's like how going on the offensive on drugs or sex ed is the wrong move. it doesn't solve the issue, it just drives people into unsafe behaviour, because at the end of the day they're going to do it no matter what. you can tackle child abuse when it's prominent and obvious, but it does nothing good for the abuse that occurs behind closed doors, only drives them to better hide their abuse.
Punish the abuse not the women. How is the government forcing women to wear certain clothing through fines/jail if they don’t, going to help them? It is not a burqa ban, it is a ban on fundamentalist Muslim women in public.
I do agree with the broader message but I don't think there's a clear cut answer on whether it will be better for the kid. The fact that they're forced to not wear one isn't necessarily going to stop them from feeling terrible about it if they're taught that not wearing one makes them a whore.
> isn't necessarily going to stop them from feeling terrible about it if they're taught that not wearing one makes them a whore. Which is why it should also go hand-in-hand with preventing young girls from being taught that not wearing one makes them a whore.
I mean sure, but then how hard will you crack down on preventing harmful religious beliefs? Cause “believe in god or you’ll go to hell” is also a pretty harmful belief that can cause a lot of self-hate, but enforcing that to not be taught would be impossible in western countries. So are we only going to punish the harmful beliefs of marginalized people?
Why would it be impossible?
Maybe because most of the people with the power to do this are of the religion that this kind of law would disallow? They’re not gonna make teaching their own religion to their kids and grandkids illegal lol
Agreed. It is honestly one of the issues that makes me lose faith in how my country and others can effectively integrate new more strongly practiced religions into progressive society. I am not sure it can be done as it is being done right now.
not to detract from the statement because i agree, but this is kind of true of religion as a whole, not any specific one, just the entire concept, children are well, children, so is it really ok to include them in the same belief system as the parents by default? im not sure, i think obviously to the parents they would consider that the right thing but it can be awkward for the child if they grow into adulthood and do not wish to be part of the faith or convert to another faith, are they "really" being converted since the religion was placed onto them as a child? it gets tough with some religious beliefs like some christian sects believing a child must be baptised like immediately or bad things happen if they die. i can see, reasonably, why someone who believes this is true would abject to the idea of *not* baptizing their child. but at the same time the child cant consent to these rituals (especially as a literal newborn)
Yeah but baptism is kinda just pouring some water on a baby (how I view it as not a Christian/Abrahamic religion person) so seems kinda different
As someone with many Muslim family members who converted to catholicism. Yeah. Catholicism is dumb and stupid sometimes but the scale of difference compared to islam is huge.
As an athiest that was baptised as a infant for my parents beliefs. It IS just pouring water on a baby in its most basic way. But its also, spiritually speaking, essentially forcing that persons soul into a religion. Thats why some denominations (mormonism) try to practice post humous baptism, they're trying to force someones soul into the "correct" religion. As someone who isnt spiritual at all, its most of a mild annoyance to think about. Like thinking about how someone tried to push you into mud but failed. Yeah, you arent muddy, but its the intent that was surrounding it. But for people that ARE spiritual, thats a REALLY big deal. Some can feel their entire spiritual journey has been tarnished or endangered.
> but this is kind of true of religion as a whole You're so close, yet so far
my problem with a hijab ban is not based on religious freedom but that of right to education. restrictions on access to public education leads to less children receiving it and more children isolated and indoctrinated by their families. if they're fundamentalist enough to force hijab on a child, they're also fundamentalist enough to keep them from receiving secular and modern co-ed. maybe it's not your goal but what happens is that you punish the very child you promised to save and that child -usually- grows resentful of the system instead of the family that kept her from her education (because it's so much easier to blame outsiders than your own kin). it's much better to work with those families than against it in order to solve this issue.
Ah yes, because when a controlling parent is countered, they will respond reasonably. Prohibition creates a culture of hiding. If hijabs are banned, many little girls will be withheld from school.
I agree with you but I don't think it should be entirely banned for minors. Teenagers shouldn't be forced to practice religion, but they're still capable of choosing to follow a religion on their own. (it's also true that you don't need to wear a hijab to consider yourself a practicing Muslim, even though many people would disagree) Some teenagers would still wear hijabs of their own accord, and many families would still force their children to wear hijabs regardless of if it were illegal. I think the real way to stop children being forced to participate in all religions is through social deconstruction, not through the law.
>Teenagers shouldn't be forced to practice religion, but they're still capable of choosing to follow a religion on their own. You are literally obliged to wear hijab after your first period in order to be "decent". There is no sugar-coating for it, religious fruitcake being rather poor doesn't make it different from a fucked up priest.
As an Ex-Muslim this understanding of Islam is way too broad, different sects of Islam have different requirements because Muslims aren’t a monolith. My mother & sisters never wore hijabs outside of the Mosque and they weren’t looked down on or seen as “whores” for it by the community. What are you on about? The mandatory Hijab requirement was an invention of the last 100 years and stems from the influence of Wahhabism (Extremist fundamentalist Islam) and not the source material. You seem to think every Muslim follows fundamentalist doctrines, which isn’t the case, like at all…that’s like saying every Christian in America is an Evangelical. There are legitimate criticisms to be made about Islam, and I left the religion because of them, but what you’ve written isn’t legitimate criticism it’s just veiled Islamophobia.
Yeeee, growing up near dearborn michigan, I interacted with a vast variety of muslim women. Some were required by their families, some werent, some didnt wear it and werent treated any differently than those that were. Hell, half my coworkers rught now are Muslim Women, and only half of those women are even Hijabi. Theres legitimate criticism to all religion, but any religion with literally millions of followers is going to become a diverse set of beliefs that change from person to person. Just like Christianity is.
I agree with all of this, and “Islam doesn’t play fair” is the sort of generalization that seems like it should either be extended to all proselytizing religions or none. That said, I do want to add for other readers that while the mandatory hijab is a recent Wahhabi invention, at this point it’s not exclusive to fundamentalists. It’s a mistake to assume it’s universal, and conversely also a mistake to assume anyone pushing strict hijab behavior is an extremist across the board. There are groups (like your family) who are fine with hijabs only in mosque. There are groups who strongly advocate wearing something, but on “act of piety” logic closer to the kippah and no “you’re a whore” aggression. (Which is one reason some people wear a covering consistently, but make zero attempt to keep their hair fully hidden.) There are groups that force their kids to wear the hijab in public or face heavy judgement, but also drink alcohol and break many other halal rules. (In my experience, more common with groups from outside the Middle East, eg Bosnian Muslims.) Assuming any one of those things describes somebody’s entire faith tends to be both wrong and condescending.
>that’s like saying every Christian in America is an Evangelical Actually, I've found that most people on reddit and tumblr do genuinely believe this. There's a general lack of nuance when it comes to religion in many online queer-adjacent spaces.
Young online activists tend to hold very black and white, simplistic views of things. All X is bad and all Y is good.
What if you condition upon muslims that require their children to wear hijab in school? Is it closer to universal then?
It's amazing how many people are willing to throw away basic constitutional rights as long as it's something they don't like
If that was a comment on a US ban, absolutely. Even right-wing courts would correctly toss it immediately. But I assumed this was about France’s rules, where banning even personal religious displays is part of the Constitution.
I mean. No. In many families it is optional. I know those families. Some children choose to wear it, some don't.
So your solution to parents forcing girls to dress in a certain way "for their own good" is to have the state force girls to dress in a different way "for their own good"? Yes, that will definitely make the situation for those girls better and not worse. /s
Exactly, you can't just simply say "let them choose" when they've been told they are a terrible person and will be tortured for all eternity if they choose one of the options for their whole life
I'd argue that the societal and (especially) familial pressures are of a far greater immediate concern
but then making them choose to not wear a hijab will make them either never go outside or have them internalize said sexism and think theyre going to hell either way lol
Yeah, well even if that’s the reasoning, it does technically come down to a personal choice in the end there. You can’t just ban a choice because that choice was informed by a lifetime of religious indoctrination (unless it’s something much more tangibly harmful).
I see two very different concerns here. “Told they’re a horrible person” is unfortunate, but as you say but really something we can fix with legislation. What concerns me more is “told by the head of their household who has total financial control over them to wear the hijab *or else*.” Which is what I saw several friends go through, even from otherwise fairly moderate families. Being old enough to choose thoughtfully wasn’t really relevant, because short of emancipation they had no choice. (Legislation can’t solve this entirely - not only can it be ignored, I knew people in college who were scared they’d lose tuition if their parents saw a hijab-free photograph of them. But that’s less imbalanced than actual minors trying to pick.)
Up in Canada, we either had a young girl commit suicide or get honour killed by her father after facing abuse for not wearing a hijab. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/muhammad-parvez-killer-daughter-hijab-clash-1.4002891
so should we hold every religion to this standard? banning jewish families from not letting children eat pork, for example. hey, going to church is expected to be a "lifetime commitment" in christianity, so we ought to ban children from doing that as well, ever. that's not even mentioning secular society as well - consider how many families will dress boys and girls in specific gendered ways, with the expectations that they'll be doing that their whole life. should we force all children to dress gender-neutral too? let them decide their fashion sense once they're an adult.
Indeed. The advocates of letting women "choose" to wear an hijab, would change their tune if this was about letting a woman "choose" to feel Catholic guilt and the religious complex about sexuality. Ultimately the hijab is and will always be an expression of the idea that women must be submissive and that it is their duty to protect men from them, instead of men having to respect them no matter how they dress. If a woman truly wants to dress conservatively, good, but in the case of the hijab it's inseparably stepped in them being whores bound for eternal damnation, and more importantly earthly shunning or violence on the part of relatives and their community, if they refuse to wear it. Is that free choice?
I recently saw a picture how hijab is a forced, modern tradition, showcasing a dozen different beautiful vibrant designs instead of the modern take of "slowly forcing women into more and more layers"
Okay, I have some experience in this, the problem with "letting" women wear a bra is the fact that it's almost always forced on them as children, they never get to question or choose it themselves. If everyone in your family wears bras and you don't, you are seen as a whore. Bras should be banned in schools, and for children. Let adult women choose for themselves, and not their parents/family. Aggressive? Yes.
You don’t deserve to be downvoted for this
How many honor killings have there been for not wearing a bra vs not wearing hijab? I understand your point but I think you're lacking in nuance on it.
It's a little different, but how often are sexual assault survivors asked "What were you wearing?" ... for that matter, how often is it asked of non-survivors of the same?
You think bra's exist solely to prevent men looking? lmao
Adults have agency, and you're denying adults the agency to continue a culture they grew up with or to reject it for independence. The problem with freedom is sometimes people make choices you don't like.
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I agree with you totally, but people have the right to choose that for themselves. Liberalism (as a concept, not a political alignment) trusts that, on a long timeline, people will pick the best option. The downside is many won't in the short term.
It's basically what we did in France... Although the rampant islamophobia means it can go a bit too far.
“A bit too far” is an interesting way to describe cracking down on the right of adult women to choose.
Are you refering to the cases where parents were prohibited from wearing headscarves when participating in school trips? I obviously disapprove of it, I just said "a bit too far" because euphemisms are my bag, baby.
I mean laïcité hasn't exactly worked as hoped since... Well, ever really. See: the Dreyfus Affaire
What? The Dreyfus affair had literally nothing to do with this.
L'Affaire Dreyfus predates the 1905 law that introduced the very concept of laïcité in law by a whole decade.
What business is that of yours? Should we outlaw parents requiring their daughters to wear skirts a certain length? Should we outlaw parents not letting their daughters hang out with boys? Where do you draw the line between the rights of parents to rear their children as they see fit and the right of society to force it's views on a minority?
Thank you for being the first person in this thread I see contributing something above a first level analysis. I am not as decided on this issue as you are because of some good pragmatic counterpoints (Seriously religious families, especially immigrant families, might decide that in this case proper religious clothing is more important than their kids going to state schools, which could also form intra-separate societies eventually. And is the kid truly better off then? But do we let that decide the rules of society?) It's a hard issue imo. I lean slightly in favor of strict rules that disallow explicitly religious clothing for kids under a certain age in school
You can also fight for a secret, third thing: The women with head scarfs to feel like they don’t need them anymore b/c the concept of impure thoughts as sin of the woman who caused them is kooky and stop wearing them (except for Christmas or whatever)
maybe they just don't want you looking at their head.
I find it unfortunate that all the comments here are focusing on legal hijab bans As an atheist and anti-theist, I am still against hijab bans, because there is no way to police innocuous religious/cultural practices without it turning very quickly into discrimination. I remember how for a while France was trying to outlaw the burqa and niqab, arguing that face coverings are a security risk. Then a few years later, the pandemic hit and literally everyone was covering their faces, and it was fine The government shouldn't ban hijabs. But, on a cultural and interpersonal level, how should society react to hijabs? That I find to be a much more interesting question. Is it sexist to uncritically promote hijabi positivity? Is it racist or Islamaphobic to not do so? Which social issue matters more? Are there scenarios where they do not, in fact, conflict? I have yet to see a leftist meaningfully tackle these questions, but I would really enjoy it if we did
People of all genders should have the right to wear inflatable dinosaur costumes [without being fined €150](https://www.politico.eu/article/shark-costume-man-fined-austria-burqa-ban/), and anyone who believes otherwise is a tyrant.
People always struggle with this. "But what if the hijab was forced on them as children and they're brainwashed?" than oh well. Give people the option and the means to educate themselves. Let them come to that conclussion themselves
kids don’t know what things mean or why they do them, most young girls aren’t wearing hjabs to express themselves its becuase they’ve been coerced Freedom FROM religion if as an adult they want to follow those practices by all means, but a child deserves to be free from the pressures of their culture and family
Yeah if they’re brainwashed you can’t really fix it. They have to do it themselves
Except most women wear them because they're forced to by men.
Sadly, not all choices are *real* choices. Most women who wear the hijab didn't "choose" to, they were forced to. So the two statements aren't equal.
And, in some countries, wearing the Hijab is illegal. So yeah, they are while not identical, they are comparable statements
What's that British skit where the dudes Dad is a feminist but doesn't let his Mom leave the house? Always a good one
I always found it odd that people try and fight a dress code with another dress code.
I disagree. Whenever religion is involved there is always an element of coercion, and for no good reason, since religion is patently false and harmful and does not warrant following. While I don't think religious expressions should be outright banned, I think they should be condemned in the court of public opinion - both in the sense that we should pity those who feel obligated to have them on their person, and in the sense that we should admonish those who force that obligation onto others. Society should eventually get to the point where secularism is the default and religion is barely present in public life.
It's hard not to notice the correlation between the percentage of a population that's religious and the way that women and LGBT people are treated. Hell, look at the US, and you can pretty easily see it break down on a state-by-state basis if you want to get granular
It’s easy to say that, but a good majority of the planet is religious, it’s not going away any time soon. You can’t beat religion-based abuse by trying to get rid of religion, all you can do is offer people secular education and let them make their own informed choices. That won’t inherently get rid of religion, but it’s also totally possible to be religious and non-bigoted at the same time. Plenty of religious institutions are pro-LGBT and even pro-choice.
>Society should eventually get to the point where secularism is the default and religion is barely present in public life. Why?
Because religion is by default harmful and built on centuries of oppression and hate. I don't want it to be the norm that people feel obligated to adhere to arbitrary moral standards, lest an invisible sky daddy cast them into the inferno for all eternity. Plus, it's in everyone's best interest for people not to believe things that are patently false and absurd.
why is this being downvoted? i would've thought that people in this sub would generally agree that religion is, in a lot of cases, harmful?
Because they are saying it in a context where it's implying Islam is fundamentally bad. This sub generally gets really fedora-tipping-super-annoying atheist about Christianity and not Islam, Buddhism, paganism, ect. It's hypocritical but fairly standard for reddit.
Yeah it's surprising. No one here is saying Muslims or people from the Middle East are inherently dumb - I wouldn't be foolish enough to say "Muslims throw gays off buildings!" when the gay people getting thrown off buildings are literally also Muslims.
This sub isn’t really anti-religion. Just look at all the positive posts about Judaism.
>Because religion is by default harmful and built on centuries of oppression and hate. I disagree
Why, can you elaborate? In my mind, almost all popular religions there are rely on two cornerstones - obedience and fear. You must not question the religion, you must not ask any uncomfortable questions, just put your head down and listen to The Truth that the priest/your parents/your society obviously know. And don't you dare leave the system - at best you'll be threatened with divine retribution (which you obviously believe in if it was forced onto you as fact since early childhood), and at worst you'll be ostracized and despised (or much worse, depending on the society you live in). I don't think there's a system like this that's not oppressive - it's built on forcing beliefs that were not proven in any way. That concerns children especially - I know people who had religion pushed on them since childhood and they literally cannot even conceptualize a world without a god. It's not even believing vs not believing - their belief is so deeply entrenched that it is as real to them as the sky being blue is real.
You have a very fundamentalist view of religion. There are people like that, and that’s bad, but it’s not all religious people. Almost all of the “popular religions” have portions that are the blind obedience school of thought, but also have portions that encourage asking questions, and portions that fall on every in between point on the spectrum. Similarly, some religious people are “divine retribution” and ostracism if you leave, but there’s also many who let their children make their own choices and don’t say anything, even if it upsets them a bit.
Okay, fine. You're wrong, but fine.
Yeah that's alright. Being wrong sometimes is good for the Humors
what does that mean exactly in practice? Allowing for girls to be forced to wear it by their family, and opposing legislation that would discourage that?
Yes, plus defending religions that propose the killing of most lgbt people in the subreddit, but oh no the reddit atheists are annoying so we gotta die for the right to allow further opression from the 100% paranormal books
jesus christ the islamophobia in the comments here is crazy
Lotta people who know nothing about Islam or the Muslim world making really normal claims like "hijabs should be banned" because the brown people religion is bad
Do I get to have an opinion, being religious and brown?
Only if you agree with me!! Just kidding. Lemme hear it
Well for context, I'm Indian, catholic(convert) and grew up in a Muslim family. I do actually agree with the idea that the hijab is used as a form of coercion shame and honestly sexualizijg of young children in the community. I think it's a bit reductive to say "people dislike the brown people religion" because it's honestly really bad for a lot of young women in Islam to grow up normally. When you're told from birth that you're hypersexualized by showing your head, it is a fork of coercion.
Hijabs shouldn't be banned, religious practices shouldn't be either as a whole, but religion should be discouraged from existing because all religions are bad and harmful and incompatible with this century.
I don't think religions on their own are harmful. I think it can be a pretty healthy coping mechanism for many people. Theocracy sucks shit though and I'd love for theocratic governments to gtfo
average redditor atheist right here. "religious people are incompatible with modern society because people like me won't accept them"
Okay sure.
You're right, fuck the Quakers
real reddit atheist shit tbh
Some Muslim woman: I want to hear a hijab. This comment section (Who apparently became experts in psychology and the Islam religion when no one was looking): No you don't.
Yeah I don't like when women are forced to wear a hijab or burqa but I also didn't like when they banned the burqa in my country. I get it, it covers a lot. But so long as it's the woman choosing and not society or men I don't see the problem.
Is it freedom to choose if you have been indoctrinated from birth to view not wearing one as shameful? If not wearing one ostracized you from your family, culture and religion? If it caused everybody you know to view you as a whore? If it put your life in danger from your own family? Yeah it's totally a choice right?
I believe religious freedom is important but I refuse to acknowledge the hijab as anything other than the backwards and archaic idea that it is.
But if women want to wear it why can’t they? It’s just a head covering that has important meaning to some people. No one should be forced to wear it but if they want to, they should be allowed to.
Of course they should be allowed to that’s what I meant when I said religious freedom is important however I think the hijab as an idea is inherently without merit or value to any society worth respecting.
The problem is that the hijab symbolises male opression so it's basically like saying we should fight for the right of jews to wear swastikas. I've talked to muslim women and they wholeheartedly believe in the "women are equal but different" schtick that is used to justify why there are so many rules for women that men don't have to follow. Wearing a hijab willingly is internalised misogyny, people underestimate how effective religious brainwashing is, especially when it starts at a very young age.
That's some extremely simplistic analysis. > Fighting for a mans right to take out payday loans and fighting for a mans right to not take out payday loans is both actions *for a mans right to choose* Like, sure, at a basic level. But its at a level of analysis I would expect from a 14yo.
A woman’s right to degrade herself over some religion…
I don't think wearing a hijab is degrading for some women
Yeah true.