# The threat about niqabs **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 15, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839 "2020-05-15T05:32:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/41 "2020-05-18T23:11:46Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > This thread turned weird fast. That’s what happens when a resident troll realizes people are talking about women being mistreated, and has to remind everyone that MEN ARE MISTREATED TOO OK? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/42 "2020-05-18T23:19:54Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, I sure don’t have anything good to say about the innate sexism of mandatory veiling for women, or the abuses and tyranny that many veiled women are subjected to by rabidly patriarchal ideology. > > But I think we tend to forget that a lot of other gender norms are similarly rooted in “patriarchal display of backwards beliefs”, but we just don’t notice them because they’re so familiar. > > For example, suppose you saw a similar family walking out of a pizza joint on a hot day. The man and little son are dressed as you describe, in comfortable clothing with comfortable shoes, and utilitarian short haircuts. Hobbling along behind them is the wife, elaborately dressed with tight high-heeled shoes and constricting shapewear. She’s clearly had cosmetic surgery for breast augmentation and facelifting. She’s very hot in her fancy clothes and elaborate hairstyle and jewelry, but she can’t even wipe away the sweat for fear of messing up her carefully applied makeup. > > Would you feel angry with that husband? Would you feel like calling him out on his patriarchal backwardness in assuming that he and his son are entitled to live in public in their natural appearance with casual comfortable clothing, while he expects his wife to subject herself to constant discomfort (not to mention painful and risky surgical procedures) to look how she’s “supposed” to look? > > You’ll naturally respond _“Oh, that’s different! Our society isn’t **making** the wife do that to herself! It’s her own **choice**!”_ And you’ll have a point, to some extent: women in most liberal-democracy societies nowadays have a lot more latitude about what constitutes a socially acceptable way for them to present themselves in public than women in several Islamic theocracies do. > > But there’s never a totally bright line between an individual choice and a socially conditioned gender norm or expectation. A lot of veiled Muslim women living in western liberal democracies argue that they’re freely choosing to wear the veil and should be allowed to do so. Whose individual choice deserves to be respected? > > (And if we’re just looking at the sheer physical barbarity of the gender norms in question, I don’t think the contrast is necessarily very much in our favor either. Personally, all other things being equal, if I had to choose between being required to (1) always cover up in a big veiled garment in public, or (2) have cosmetic surgery and always wear high heels and makeup and hairspray and uncomfortable “fancy” clothing in public, I’d take that big ol’ _chador_ every time.) Yup. I, too, would rather wear the lumpy covering clothing than high heels and fake boobs with fancy makeup. To be clear, I think the niqab is offensively sexist. But that doesn’t mean I want to BAN it. And if a woman wants to dress like that in public so as to have a better life when she’s with her family and community, I think she should be allowed to do so. > [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > A niqab and a chador are very different things. Can I just wear a hijab? Because that always struck me as a happy medium between modesty and freedom. And some of them look attractive and comfortable. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/43 "2020-05-19T00:51:53Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Can I just wear a hijab? Because that always struck me as a happy medium between modesty and freedom. And some of them look attractive and comfortable. I support this position. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/44 "2020-05-19T01:02:26Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > For example, suppose you saw a similar family walking out of a pizza joint on a hot day. The man and little son are dressed as you describe, in comfortable clothing with comfortable shoes, and utilitarian short haircuts. Hobbling along behind them is the wife, elaborately dressed with tight high-heeled shoes and constricting shapewear. She’s clearly had cosmetic surgery for breast augmentation and facelifting. She’s very hot in her fancy clothes and elaborate hairstyle and jewelry, but she can’t even wipe away the sweat for fear of messing up her carefully applied makeup. The key difference in this scenario (which I’ve never witnessed) is that the woman in question would not be arrested if she did or didn’t wear such an outfit. The same cannot be said for a niqab. \*even in the American South, very very few men demand that their womenfolk get breast augmentation and facelifts before they’re permitted to go out to a Chuck E. Cheese for pizza. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/45 "2020-05-19T01:22:23Z")
But they must to go to Hooters, right? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/46 "2020-05-19T01:23:43Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > The key difference in this scenario (which I’ve never witnessed) is that the woman in question would not be arrested if she did or didn’t wear such an outfit. Yup. If you had read to the end of my post that you were replying to, you’d see that I already acknowledged that: > [@Kimstu](#): > > You’ll naturally respond “Oh, that’s different! Our society isn’t making the wife do that to herself! It’s her own choice!” And you’ll have a point, to some extent: women in most liberal-democracy societies nowadays have a lot more latitude about what constitutes a socially acceptable way for them to present themselves in public than women in several Islamic theocracies do. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/47 "2020-05-19T01:41:03Z")
OP: I’m curious if, before COVID-19 happened, if you thought hospitals were “racist fucks” for making surgical staff wear masks while in the operating room? ---
**Author:** ![saucywench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/48 "2020-05-22T18:14:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Here’s what I [opined](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12188086&postcount=41) on the subject, minus the pandemic-mask issue, about ten years ago: > > Quote: > Originally Posted by Kimstu > But if they are wearing veils out of deference to religious prohibitions against women participating in the public sphere, then ISTM they should not be attempting to participate in the public sphere. > > This is the “burqa = pardah” argument that I’ve made before in threads like this one. Namely, the requirement in some Islamic cultures for women to cover their faces in public is part of the general principle of pardah or “purdah”, the idea that women should stay “behind the curtain” of private and family life. > > Cultures that practice pardah are maintaining the principle that women do not belong in the public sphere, and in particular should not interact with male strangers in any way. > > Total veiling of women (wearing combinations of garments variously known as burqa, niqab, chador, abaya, etc.) outside the home is intended as a practical compromise with the pardah principle. It recognizes that the necessities of life compel women to leave the house sometimes to go shopping, go to the doctor, etc., and allows them to symbolically take the privacy of the house with them. The veil for pardah-nishin women isn’t just a modest garment, it’s a symbolic cloak of invisibility signifying that they’re not really “in public” even though they have to be outside their private home environment temporarily. > > **And I’m totally fine with that** practice and think that Western societies that pride themselves on freedom and religious tolerance should accommodate it… What a bunch of hokum! Do the women get a vote on whether or not they have to wear the death shroud? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/49 "2020-05-22T18:45:08Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > OP: I’m curious if, before COVID-19 happened, if you thought hospitals were “racist fucks” for making surgical staff wear masks while in the operating room? I don’t think you’re understanding my point. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/50 "2020-05-22T19:39:23Z")
> [@saucywench](#): > > What a bunch of hokum! Do the women get a vote on whether or not they have to wear the death shroud? In many cases they don’t. But whether or not it’s legal for adults to wear a certain type of clothing in public is not determined by whether some of those adults are being privately coerced by their families or communities into wearing it against their will. Yes, we should absolutely take action against illegal coercive measures used in many patriarchal communities to force women into compliance with their sexist norms. And yes, we should absolutely welcome noncompliant women from those communities into a safer and more open larger culture if they choose to leave their oppressive situations. But we’re not going to achieve any of that by imposing unconstitutional absolute bans on any particular style of traditional clothing. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/51 "2020-05-22T22:19:16Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Yes, we should absolutely take action against illegal coercive measures used in many patriarchal communities to force women into compliance with their sexist norms. And yes, we should absolutely welcome noncompliant women from those communities into a safer and more open larger culture if they choose to leave their oppressive situations. And yes, according to you we should drum up a silly scenario about American women culturally compelled to get breast augmentation and wear high heels so they can go to pizza joints with their families. Because one must never never find fault with a repugnant practice mandated in other countries without trying to turn it back on the U.S. Kind of a reverse _tu quoque_. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/52 "2020-05-22T23:02:39Z")
I keep thinking of “nattering niqabs of negativity,” to paraphrase Spiro Agnew. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/53 "2020-05-23T01:22:58Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > People with iPhones set up for face recognition to unlock their phones do, in fact, have to uncover their faces to pay for anything with their phones, or basically use their phones at all. No they don’t. My phone uses facial recognition. When my face isn’t recognized, I wait a half second and enter my passcode. Annoying, but not a hardship under these circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/54 "2020-05-23T02:05:22Z")
I wonder how many people who use facial recognition for their phones are actually and actively aware of that, **Yookeroo**. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/55 "2020-05-23T02:13:33Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I wonder how many people who use facial recognition for their phones are actually and actively aware of that, **Yookeroo**. On iOS, it’s not something you need to be aware of - if face recognition fails, it automatically brings up a keyboard and asks for your numeric password. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/56 "2020-05-23T03:39:54Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > And yes, according to you we should drum up a silly scenario about American women culturally compelled to get breast augmentation and wear high heels so they can go to pizza joints with their families. :dubious: Touched a nerve? Of course I have not at all been trying to argue that gender norms for dress restrictions are anywhere near as restrictive or as oppressively enforced in mainstream American society as they are in many radical Islamist societies. And I explicitly pointed that out right when I made that analogy. My point was just that it’s really easy to take a completely prohibitionist attitude to sexist gender norms in “alien” cultures, which tends to run roughshod over people’s right to individual choice. What are you going to say to the many Muslim women in supportive families who voluntarily **choose** to wear burqa or niqab even though nobody’s forcing them to? “No, we outsiders inevitably associate that custom with widespread oppression and abuse so we’re going to disregard and disallow your choice about what clothing you want to wear?” > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Because one must never never find fault with a repugnant practice mandated in other countries without trying to turn it back on the U.S. Wow, that **did** touch a nerve, apparently. What on earth is wrong with using our reflex reactions to “exotic” sexist expectations in other cultures as opportunities to reflect on ways that we’ve become desensitized to “normal, everyday” sexist expectations in our own? Sounds to me like more of a feature than a bug, tbh. Now, if I were trying to argue—like the typical tired strawman liberal that so many people get so angry at in these discussions—that cultural expectations about women wearing makeup in mainstream American culture are **just as pervasive and just as draconian and just as harmful** as cultural expectations about women wearing niqab in radically patriarchal Islamist societies, you’d have a legitimate point of criticism. As it is, though, you’re just flailing at that old strawman again. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/57 "2020-05-23T14:24:57Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > What on earth is wrong with using our reflex reactions to “exotic” sexist expectations in other cultures as opportunities to reflect on ways that we’ve become desensitized to “normal, everyday” sexist expectations in our own? Such “reflex” actions become a sickness when it becomes impossible to delineate evil without someone trying to inflict guilt on those who point it out. Your comparison of Muslim societies forcing women to wear niqabs with Western women supposedly being culturally compelled to have boob jobs and wear high heels to accompany their families out for pizza, just happened to be an especially ludicrous example of this phenomenon.\* \*maybe you have examples of vigilantes in flyover communities corralling women outside the Pizza Hut to harass and berate them for makeup deficiencies and wearing comfortable shoes, in which case I stand corrected. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![saucywench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/58 "2020-05-23T16:23:20Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Speaking as somebody who’s always supported the right of individuals to wear niqab but also the right of decision makers in certain specific societal contexts to prohibit face-coverings including niqab, I don’t see how the emergency practice of universal mask wearing as a public-health measure in response to a dangerous pandemic changes the merits of my position at all. > > Yes, if anybody in the current situation is objecting to niqab but not to other kinds of face-coverings, that’s hypocritical and bigoted. If this pandemic ends up fundamentally changing social customs in western societies so that public use of face-coverings becomes an acceptable societal norm, then objecting specifically to niqab will also be hypocritical and bigoted. > > But if we return to a non-emergency situation where the wearing of face coverings in ordinary social/professional contexts is once again not considered an acceptable societal norm, then I’ll resume my position of supporting the right of individuals to wear niqab but also the right of decision makers in certain specific societal contexts to prohibit face-coverings including niqab. I don’t see anything bigoted or hypocritical about that. More gobbledygook! Does your “supporting the rights of individuals,” (women in this case) also include the women getting a choice, as to whether or not they want to wear these contraptions? Or are you speaking for them? ---
**Author:** ![saucywench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/59 "2020-05-23T16:48:48Z")
Quote: Originally Posted by Kimstu But if they are wearing veils out of deference to religious prohibitions against women participating in the public sphere, then ISTM they should not be attempting to participate in the public sphere. This is the “burqa = pardah” argument that I’ve made before in threads like this one. Namely, the requirement in some Islamic cultures for women to cover their faces in public is part of the general principle of pardah or “purdah”, the idea that women should stay “behind the curtain” of private and family life. Cultures that practice pardah are maintaining the principle that women do not belong in the public sphere, and in particular should not interact with male strangers in any way. Total veiling of women (wearing combinations of garments variously known as burqa, niqab, chador, abaya, etc.) outside the home is intended as a practical compromise with the pardah principle. It recognizes that the necessities of life compel women to leave the house sometimes to go shopping, go to the doctor, etc., and allows them to symbolically take the privacy of the house with them. The veil for pardah-nishin women isn’t just a modest garment, it’s a symbolic cloak of invisibility signifying that they’re not really “in public” even though they have to be outside their private home environment temporarily. And I’m totally fine with that practice and think that Western societies that pride themselves on freedom and religious tolerance should accommodate it. Pardah-nishin women should indeed be allowed to wear veils while riding buses, shopping at the supermarket, using gas station restrooms, whatever they have to do while being outside their home environment. Very few people find it practically feasible to stay in their own houses all the time, even if they believe in principle that they ought to do so, and I’m happy to follow the convention of letting veiled women go about their most necessary errands while visually pretending that they’re not really there. HOWEVER. I think that open democratic societies have a right to make their own rules about expectations for people participating in their public spheres. It is not unreasonable to expect that a person who is, say, applying for a job requiring them to deal with strangers, or enrolling in a class with other students, is tacitly consenting to participating in that society’s public sphere. And if that person insists on wearing a veil or following some other practice that is fundamentally based on the principle that they DON’T participate in the public sphere, then I think that’s somewhat disrespectful to the society they’re living in. If you want to be pardah-nishin, then be pardah-nishin, but if you’re going to voluntarily participate in society’s public sphere, then you can’t be pardah-nishin. * * * You speak of freedom, yet your gobbledygook never includes said women having the “freedom” to choose whether or not, they want to wear these hot, ugly, evil-looking, antiquated garments. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839/60 "2020-05-23T18:43:26Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I don’t think you’re understanding my point. Ah…I see. You have the “in public” qualifier in there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-threat-about-niqabs/853839.md?page=4)