# Does France have a double standard on freedom of speech? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953 "2015-01-16T02:16:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/161 "2015-01-17T16:15:06Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > [Islam and Gender: The Hijab as the Solution to Rape?](http://islam-and-gender.blogspot.com/2010/12/hijab-as-solution-to-rape.html) I don’t see much difference between that quote and the declarations of Western women and feminists whenever Neanderthals tell them that hey maybe if you didn’t wear [whatever] you wouldn’t get raped, or catcalled, or harassed and what have you. Nor do I see a fundamental difference between Muslim women putting on a kerchief to try and shield themselves from male attention and non-Muslim women throwing on baggy pullovers and cargo pants for the exact same reason. Which, deplorable as it is, does seem like an easier and more immediate solution than teaching all men to stop being pigs. Four thousand years of patriarchy is a large mountain to shift. But it’s really about ethics in video-games journalism ! 😉 (And of course, in the West that opens them to the sterling behaviour of men attacking them or ripping away their headscarves because ISLAM BAD. I’ve often mused that, paradoxically, in our societies hijabs and overly modest attire in general seem to accomplish the opposite of their intended purpose : you get more attention, because you stand apart from the crowd.) I don’t doubt that men in Pakistan might be more uncouth than Western men, the same is true e.g. of rural India from what I understand (but then again, I’ve seen and heard Western men…). But even if that is the case, then why would that automatically be due solely to religion and not local culture, access to education and what have you ? I don’t know that Islam tells men it’s OK to be pigs nor encourages it. I’m given to understand the opposite is true. If it did, then surely we should observe a global trend, not just in Pakistan ? > [@](#): > > I know, you are the victim, you poor thing. Muslims all over the world are rioting and killing over a cartoon as we speak, Muslim women are abused and harassed and being killed and raped by their fellow Muslims, and it is all the fault of those horrible white men. How dare white men mention the over the top rape culture prevelant among Muslims, and exemplified by the burqa and hijab. The 50,000 Shias killed in Pakistan. Yep white guys, our fault too. Quran 4:34, which commands husbands to beat disobedient wives, white men again. Boko Haram’s thousands of dead and their slaves, ISIS’s thousands of dead and their slaves, all the white mans fault. It could not possibly have anything to do with the fact that all of these criminals fetishize the behavior of a prophet who slaughtered people and kept and traded slaves, nor the fact that their religion gives permission and detailed instructions to it’s followers on the killing and the keeping of slaves. Nope, nothing to do with any of that. Always the white man’s fault. The white man is always drawing those cartoons and discussing Islam on the internet, after all. And the Jews targeted and killed by Muslims, that’s the fault of the white man too. It has nothing to do with the antisemitic hate speech from the Quran which is spread like a poison all over the Muslim world, nothing at all. The mass rapes in Tahrir square, of Muslim women and Western journalists. Yep you guessed it, white men, not the rapists’ own culture that grants women partial agency over their own bodies only if they obey strict codes of conduct based on Iron Age notions of modesty. And not Islam. Anything but Islam. Just keep accusing anyone who mentions any of these things of bigotry and hatred, it’s working out well for you so far to misconstrue opposition to a horrible set of ideas as hatred of people. > > So yeah, anyway, as I have shown, women in Pakistan wear head coverings to avoid being targetted and attacked by men who have been taught that women who don’t cover are “asking for it”, and the problem is far worse there than anywhere in the West, regardless of what lies the propaganda from the Muslim world spins about the decadent West, and regardless of the false equivilencies spun by apologists. When you attack people with accusations of bigotry for mentioning these things rather than respond to what is actually being said, it only makes more obvious your inability to grapple honestly with these issues. Howley shit, dude. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/162 "2015-01-17T16:16:51Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Et voila, the perfect representation of the real motivations behind his posting, the grotesque hatred and bigotry. It was never any real concern. Criticism of a set of ideas is not bigotry, regardless of how completely your indoctrination has welded them to your identify. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/163 "2015-01-17T16:26:32Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > I asserted and have shown that one of the reasons that women in Pakistan wear head coverings in public is for safety from being harassed and attacked by men who feel that uncovered women are “asking for it”. I have Muslim female co-workers and acquaintances. I have orthodox Jewish friends (Strangely one really hears calls for bans on orthodox Jewish and Hasidic women’s head coverings). Some wear head scarves and other coverings. Some do not. I am not Muslim, but wear a head scarf or when outdoors a hat overtop of scarf for spiritual/cultural reasons. The one universal constant we all have experienced is that wearing a head covering does not prevent harassment or the risk of being attacked. In deed, in the West it may make a woman who covers up more likely to be targeted. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/164 "2015-01-17T17:47:28Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I don’t see much difference between that quote and the declarations of Western women and feminists whenever Neanderthals tell them that hey maybe if you didn’t wear [whatever] you wouldn’t get raped, or catcalled, or harassed and what have you. The difference is the degree, and the fact that some of those supposed feminists, out of a perverted and suicidal notion of tolerance, invoke cultural relativity and fail to defend Muslim women and other victims of abuse when it is justified, motivated, and enabled by Islam. To my understanding, there is no where that these sorts of pseudo-feminists get as much opposition from their genuine counterparts as they do in France, so we may see this aspect differently. > [@](#): > > Nor do I see a fundamental difference between Muslim women putting on a kerchief to try and shield themselves from male attention and non-Muslim women throwing on baggy pullovers and cargo pants for the exact same reason. No, there is not, in the same way that there is not a fundamental difference between a grain of sand and a boulder which both came from the same mountain. > [@](#): > > Which, deplorable as it is, does seem like an easier and more immediate solution than teaching all men to stop being pigs. Right, and if a woman feels she needs to cover her head for safety, who is blaming her for doing so? Who possibly could? The point is that she should not have to. > [@](#): > > Four thousand years of patriarchy is a large mountain to shift. Correct. And we have shown it is possible to make massive progress in time that is short in comparison to the 4k years. There is no practical or moral reasons that we can possibly allow this progress to continue to be slowed and halted at the borders of Dar al-Islam. > [@](#): > > But it’s really about ethics in video-games journalism ! 😉 Good to see it is a game to you. That explains a lot! > [@](#): > > (And of course, in the West that opens them to the sterling behaviour of men attacking them or ripping away their headscarves because ISLAM BAD. Yes, assaulting women is bad, no matter who does it. I have never seen this happen, but if I did I would immediately and furiously intervene. > [@](#): > > I’ve often mused that, paradoxically, in our societies hijabs and overly modest attire in general seem to accomplish the opposite of their intended purpose : you get more attention, because you stand apart from the crowd.) Yep. In fact I have known Muslim women who factored this into their decision not to wear hijab. Not that they feared being assaulted for it, they just wanted to blend in and avoid stares. > [@](#): > > I don’t doubt that men in Pakistan might be more uncouth than Western men, the same is true e.g. of rural India from what I understand (but then again, I’ve seen and heard Western men…). Have you seen crowds of Western men gang raping women on camera? I dare say that in any Western crowd outside a penitentiary, the non-rapists would outnumber and overwhelm the rapists to such a degree to make such an assault unlikely. Unless you insist, I am going to refrain from posting the videos of the women being mass raped in Tahrir Square, it is not something I care to see or hear right this second, it causes me vicarious trauma more than any other kind of violence. > [@](#): > > But even if that is the case, then why would that automatically be due solely to religion and not local culture, It is not due solely to religion, it is due largely to religion. Why is this the knee-jerk response to any assertion that Islamic indoctrination is problematic? Why this unprecedented prerequisite that Islam alone must be proven to be solely responsible, lest the willingness to have the discussion be labeled bigotry for not extensively detailing any and every other possible contributing factor instead of Islamic doctrine? > [@](#): > > access to education and what have you ? I don’t know that Islam tells men it’s OK to be pigs nor encourages it. Um, what? Islam has conditions within which sex slavery is LEGAL! And you don’t know that Islam encourages men to be pigs? > [@](#): > > I’m given to understand the opposite is true. Unless you are Obama or Merkel let’s cut the public relations charade and really discuss this, mkay? ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/165 "2015-01-17T17:57:51Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I have Muslim female co-workers and acquaintances. I have orthodox Jewish friends (Strangely one really hears calls for bans on orthodox Jewish and Hasidic women’s head coverings). Some wear head scarves and other coverings. Some do not. I am not Muslim, but wear a head scarf or when outdoors a hat overtop of scarf for spiritual/cultural reasons. The one universal constant we all have experienced is that wearing a head covering does not prevent harassment or the risk of being attacked. In deed, in the West it may make a woman who covers up more likely to be targeted. [I’m sorry, dear Muslimaat](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/04/22/comment/columns/im-sorry-dear-muslimaat/) > [@](#): > > I’m also sorry for not realising that the right way of countering foreign protests against a burning issue is by citing your own example and how it’s not an issue that affects you personally. I shall now be looking forward to seeing all the women who haven’t been raped protesting against foreign rape activists. I shall also be looking ahead to Western poverty awareness campaigns being dubbed capitalistic and imperialistic demonstrations by everyone who can afford two meals a day. And I’ll personally demonstrate against any movements against bombings because I don’t think that I’ve ever been killed. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/166 "2015-01-17T18:54:18Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Of course street harassment of women is extremely rare in New York, London, and relevant to the thread… Paris. So are you saying that respect for and status of women are the same in Islamabad as in New York? ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/167 "2015-01-17T19:11:43Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Unless you are Obama or Merkel let’s cut the public relations charade and really discuss this, mkay? Here is an example of what, IMO, is honest dialogue with a possibility of leading to improvement: [“WE COULDN’T SEE THAT COMING” - The Inevitability of Charlie Hebdo-Mullah Liam ad-Deen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxZzEFi3i7Y) (YouTube) ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/168 "2015-01-17T20:00:16Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > It is so lucky that we have the internet white knights who hate us to save us from ourselves so we can be cat called by good white christian heritage people who are not scary to them. > > he will never admit he made lies and exagerations for justification, it is too important to the fake solicitude which is nothing but a politically convenient excuse to dress the bigotry in. > > of course since he reads a thing on the internet that matches his bigotry this means he knows reality better the people who live in a place and better than what the real photos of markets shows, oh yes he knows even better what is in the minds. Are you in a contest to see how many times you can call other posters bigots because they disagree with you? Mods, is this allowable? There’s some rather vociferous personal attacking going on. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/169 "2015-01-17T20:01:42Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > So are you saying that respect for and status of women are the same in Islamabad as in New York? I’ve forgotten what relevance either Islamabad or New York is supposed to have to freedom of speech in France, actually. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/170 "2015-01-17T20:15:53Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Drawing a distinction between legal consequences and social consequences is hardly schizophrenic. Right. I think what’s being missed is the principle of the line drawn. That is, we all agree that there must, of obvious necessity, be some line drawn that limits what can be “said.” But the question is whether that line is drawn with the intent of being as permissible as possible or drawn with the intent of protecting a certain group’s sensibilities. I will not claim to be an expert, but from what I have read it sounds like France is happy to go with the latter, while (IMO) the US generally the former. Personally, I like the US approach. And actually I think the headscarf and Burka are great examples. Society can reasonably accommodate the headscarf. IDs should be reasonably effective. The Burka, however, renders for instance the driver’s license pointless. That said, I wouldn’t ban the Burka (though I will say I consider it barbaric, like many religious practices), but I would say a wearer can not perform certain functions like driving, and banks would be within reason to refuse entry of a wearer. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/171 "2015-01-17T20:38:29Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > And actually I think the headscarf and Burka are great examples. Society can reasonably accommodate the headscarf. IDs should be reasonably effective. The Burka, however, renders for instance the driver’s license pointless. That said, I wouldn’t ban the Burka (though I will say I consider it barbaric, like many religious practices), but I would say a wearer can not perform certain functions like driving, and banks would be within reason to refuse entry of a wearer. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_legality_of_Nazi_flags#France) > [@](#): > > In France, it is illegal to display Nazi flags, uniforms and insignia in public, unless for the purpose of a historical film, show or spectacle. Like a Nazi uniform, a burqa is a symbol of a totalitarian and oppressive ideology incompatible with French values, with the added insult of being, in many cases, a direct physical implementation of the oppression, rather than merely an icon. So I don’t see how banning it is necessarily a double standard there. Now, in the US, where the First Amendment protects peoples rights to implicitly advocate racist totalitarianism by marching around in Klan hoods, banning the burqa _would_ be a double standard and an injustice. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/172 "2015-01-17T21:07:50Z")
… Yes, nazi uniforms and burqas are absolutely equivalent, in the sense that people in nazi uniforms and women in burqas both were instrumental in the violent, industrialized death of millions of people with the active, knowing and even enthusiastic consent of the French State and the French population. As well they are both unmistakeable symbols of people who agree with these violent deaths or consider them justified. Or, you know, not. FTR, I’m against banning Nazi or Holocaust-denying speech (or symbols, though AFAIK that’s more Germany’s thing). I think their ideas are for the most part self-defeating and that while masked, tactful, careful, subtextual, dogwhistle-y xenophobic/antisemitic messages can seduce the masses, because they’ve got shit to do and usually don’t think much ; in this day and age brown shirts get instinctive ostracism when they show their real colours and trap themselves in their historical swastika trappings. As well, most of the people who are fine with insinuation, and dogwhistles, and innuendo wouldn’t dare actually standing for their septic tank ideology, but hide just fine behind the flags of freedom of expression, and anti-racism, and “being politically incorrect” and so forth. Let them put on the Reich. Do let’s. If nothing else, it helps figuring out who to kick in the knees with reinforced Doc Marten’s. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/173 "2015-01-17T21:33:59Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > … Yes, nazi uniforms and burqas are absolutely equivalent, in the sense that people in nazi uniforms and women in burqas both were instrumental in the violent, industrialized death of millions of people with the active, knowing and even enthusiastic consent of the French State and the French population. As well they are both unmistakeable symbols of people who agree with these violent deaths or consider them justified. > > Or, you know, not. To have it’s symbols banned, does a violent, racist, and totalitarian ideology have these sorts of effects directly on French soil, seventy years ago? Because Islamism is having it’s way with some of your former colonies right now. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/174 "2015-01-17T22:17:38Z")
This seems to be an example of positive liberty ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953/175 "2015-01-17T22:30:11Z")
Should the fact that they’re our former colonies mean that we have a say in what the people in our former colonies say or do or feel or want ? 'Cause I know they’re all still paying reparations for their own colonizations (Yup. Look it up. We know no shame), but I’m pretty sure the “former” bit isn’t ironic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-france-have-a-double-standard-on-freedom-of-speech/709953.md?page=8)