Would you ban the Burka and Niqab? (Feminists Only)

A very simple question: As a feminist would you ban the Burka and/or the Niqab?

This came up in another thread and My initial reaction is "no". The reason is because I believe in religious liberty (except at my most meglomanic moments anyway) and think women have the right to chose what they wear.

However, I realise there is another view that the burka and the niqab are considered oppressive to women and that they should be banned to defend women's rights and the norms of secular feminism. I haven't heard this view presented in depth though so it seems worth discussing.

What is your view? (Islamic feminist views especially welcome.)

No. As a feminist, I wouldn't ban any potential way people could choose to express themselves. If a woman chooses to wear these forms of clothing, she ought to be free to do so. To take away that choice is to disempower them from expressing themselves in the way they choose.

On top of being quite imperialist, colonialist, and potentially racist.

From The Problem With Banning the Burqa:

Masquerading such bans as a defense of egalitarianism is xenophobic deceit.

No. People should be able to wear what they like, although I do view them as oppressive and sexist. It makes me sad when I see women wearing the niqab in my neighborhood, because it seems like a form of erasure and really limits communication (much of communication is done through facial expressions). I do think they should be removed for official purposes, like for IDs, in banks and such, but not banned. I'd rather debate about these things and change minds that way.

It would be like banning bras and shirts for women in hot climates or in the summer or at a pool - sure, forcing us to cover our boobs when men can go shirtless without anyone caring is bull****, but since I've been conditioned to feel uncomfortable and ashamed of having boobs, if I wasn't allowed to cover them, I'd feel self conscious. I shouldn't have to wear a shirt, but I should be allowed to if I want to.

Why not just make it illegal to force anyone to? That might be impractical but it makes more sense to think along those lines.

Laika said:

A very simple question: As a feminist would you ban the Burka and/or the Niqab?

This came up in another thread and My initial reaction is "no". The reason is because I believe in religious liberty (except at my most meglomanic moments anyway) and think women have the right to chose what they wear.

However, I realise there is another view that the burka and the niqab are considered oppressive to women and that they should be banned to defend women's rights and the norms of secular feminism. I haven't heard this view presented in depth though so it seems worth discussing.

What is your view? (Islamic feminist views especially welcome.)

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Substituting one type of oppressive rule about how to dress for another rule about how women should dress isn't going to solve anything, and it certainly isn't going to solve the problem of thinking that it is the government's business of dictating how women should dress!

No I would not. Whilst I consider the Burqa to be oppressive, I find it just as oppressive to ban an item of clothing. For identification purposes, then I support methods to resolve such issues (like having a woman identify the face of the burqa wearing woman in question or whatever.) But I find it hypocritical to say, well I think your clothing oppresses you, you must now follow these guidelines of non oppressive clothing choices.
Although I agree that it causes a lot of low level security issues, in some scenarios.

The burkah and niqab are protective from the male gaze. Men want women to think that they're wearing what they want. This is part of the patriarchy. It is part of capitalist society. And it is part of engineering consent, the idea of using mass marketing techniques to make people think they organically want things that society actually wants them to have. Women in the west are bombarded with images of other women -- perfect, idealized women -- scantily clad, receiving benefits from doing so. They are told they will be wanted, and accepted, if they are placed into this sexualised role. Of course, that's part of how the oppressive system of patriarchal late-stage capitalism works: It makes you want what it wants. You are trained to service it.

Modesty is actually a radical act in western society, and a large subset of Islamic feminism, as well as some other feminist strains including that I belong to, acknowledge and champion that fact. In a hostile world, armour creates freedom of action. I insist on wearing flats professionally, and ankle to mid-shin skirts with sharp button-up blouses, and usually a hat of some kind. This protects from the male gaze and provides me the freedom and confidence to engage directly in a highly masculine profession and workplace. It creates respect, too. I've never been harassed. It shows that you aren't there for them, and that forces them to look at your professionalism. At its best, Islamic social theory allows that same extremely powerful space for women. The issues in the Islamic world are not associated with covering. Customs of the hijab in particular are ones of female empowerment in the Islamic cultural sphere -- and it might bear serious consideration about whether or not we are any better off in the west. Does anyone really want to dress scantily? Or has mass marketing simply told you that you do? Engineered consent has been used to start wars, and the patriarchy certainly uses it to engineer and maintain the subjugation of women, as well.

Sartre said:

I think that's the issue that really needs to be dealt with.

Women shouldn't have to hide themselves to show that they aren't dressing for men. That's the issue.

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"You may not be interested in War, but War is interested in you" -- I can't quite recall the origin of the quote right now, though I believe it was that charming Bolshevik, Trotsky himself. I would be quite glad if the male gaze would not be an issue in society, but it is absurd to say that simply because you hold a moral conviction that it should not be an issue, that it is not an issue. In doing so you empower men and dis-empower women, because you are playing into the desires of the male gaze and male objectives for compelling women to wear absurd, revealing and demeaning clothes (especially in entirely impractical women's business attire) while not actually accomplishing any kind of feminist statement, because men feel themselves rewarded by your attire. That is why I contend that it is actually modesty in the modern world which is revolutionary.

Yes.

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Are you confident that every woman who wears revealing clothing does so because she make a conscious choice, and not because of the influence of mass market capitalist media, i.e., essentially patriarchist propaganda?

I don't understand what you mean by this in the context of your post.

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I was trying to explain what a powerful tool the concept of engineered consent is. Perhaps "The Conquest of Cool" strikes home more familiarly? The intersection of media, psychology, and popular culture to use marketing to make people think they want things spontaneously -- it all goes back to engineered consent, which was the term used by the Creel Commission to engineer popular support for the United States to enter WWI. Ever since then, marketing firms have explicitly used the same technique to sell beliefs, ways of living, objects, everything, to consumers.

And, in fact, to sell the patriarchy to women. That's the point.

Sartre said:

Trot was more of a menshevik.

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That's a little odd to say when he was the Commissar of War for the Bolsheviki in the Civil War.

Every woman is a ridiculous standard.
Women generally make the conscious choice to wear what they want where I live and are also influenced by the capitalist media.
These are not mutually exclusive in anyway.

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I don't think those choices are at all conscious, and since society is patriarchist, that means that the choice of women is really being influenced by the patriarchy. I suspect our point of disagreement is on the influence capitalist media has decision-making and whether or not that alters one's independent decision-making. I'm not saying that without capitalist patriarchy you'd make an independent decision -- but I am saying that because it's a patriarchy, it can't be a feminist decision and that if we lived in a really equitable society the outcome in terms of decision-making from that outside influence would be different because the sources of influence would not be engineered by the patriarchy.

I don't see how they are selling patriarchy or how consumer/capitalist/market/whatever interests sell patriarchy to women as you have proclaimed.

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Because they speak with a male voice, use imagery designed for the male gaze, and have the objective of getting women to engage in behaviour which services male interests and desires.