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Having your period? Then go to the back of the class and sit by yourself

Skwim

Veteran Member
"A school should be a safe space for all children. Not a place where 12-year-old girls are treated as second class citizens, and certainly not a place where menstruating girls are ostracized as "unclean" and sent to the back of the "prayer-cafeteria" as third class citizens!

Yes, you read that correctly. Valley Park Middle School in Toronto allows Muslim students to use the cafeteria for Friday prayer, but has decided to segregate their students based on gender. Seventh and eighth grade girls pray behind the boys, separated by tables, while participating girls who have their period must sit on their own in the back of the room, not partaking in the prayer."

Please sign this petition to call up the Toronto School District Board to respect gender equity and not shame girls for menstruating.
source
And they need a petition to stop embarrassing discrimination? :facepalm:
 

horizon_mj1

Well-Known Member
Wow! Is it not incredible that certain religions tell you when you can and can not pray (which I always thought it was a form of communication and praise). What if the boys "touched" a girl that was menstruating (a son's mother giving him a kiss before going to this school) what then? According to their religion, they should not be allowed to participate in prayer either. (By the way Skwim, I tried to sign, but every time I hit "sign" nothing happened; I will however keep trying.)
 

Otherright

Otherright
"A school should be a safe space for all children. Not a place where 12-year-old girls are treated as second class citizens, and certainly not a place where menstruating girls are ostracized as "unclean" and sent to the back of the "prayer-cafeteria" as third class citizens!

Yes, you read that correctly. Valley Park Middle School in Toronto allows Muslim students to use the cafeteria for Friday prayer, but has decided to segregate their students based on gender. Seventh and eighth grade girls pray behind the boys, separated by tables, while participating girls who have their period must sit on their own in the back of the room, not partaking in the prayer."

Please sign this petition to call up the Toronto School District Board to respect gender equity and not shame girls for menstruating.
source
And they need a petition to stop embarrassing discrimination? :facepalm:

Skwim, you've got to be ******* kidding me man. So this is where we are? This is precisely why the rational hate religion. When you use dogma to humiliate and scorn others...

Hell yeah, I'll sign it. My wife said she will also.
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
It's the sort of thing that goes with the territory of allowing a public space for prayer in a public school. Not all the tenets of a religion are going to be sunshine and flowers for all people, and people will get separated for different reasons.

I wouldn't say to keep the prayer and end the segregation. I'd say either stop providing the cafeteria space, or let Muslims run their prayer meetings as they see fit.
 

Levite

Higher and Higher
What Poisonshady says.

Personally, I think this is just precisely why public schools should not be places of religious services. I would be all for not allowing students of any religion to hold organized prayer services in a public school.

But if we're going to be fool enough to permit religious services in public schools, then we have no right to tell people how they can pray, and what their religious practice ought to look like.
 

Draka

Wonder Woman
Um, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought that was the basic set up when it came to prayers in a Mosque? It's Muslim tradition for the men and women to be separated during prayers and I even believe there is something to do with menstration as well. While we may not agree with it, if the space was granted for Muslim prayer then shouldn't it be set up as the Muslims want to pray? In the manner to which they are accustomed? Which would be how it appears they are doing it. Again, if a Muslim would care to correct me then ok, but I thought separation was very much a part of how their prayers are done.
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
As far as I have been told by the local imam, Muslim females do not pray during menstruation. I have no idea why this is, though. From what I have heard (but do not buy) it is to make it easier on the menstruating woman as 'she is more liable to feel weak' or something.

I feel that schools should encourage the multi-faith room to be mixed gendered: no women and men on opposite sides or women at the back or anything.

However, I do not know how long it would be until this would happen again. If people think that men and women are supposed to be separate, or that menstruating women should be at the back, then chances are it will happen even in a multi-faith, mixed area.

I have no idea what can be done to combat this. Not allowing prayers in schools doesn't seem feasible to me, either, considering some people have religious obligations to pray at set times and all..
 

Marble

Rolling Marble
Why should menustrating make a girl/woman unclean?
After all those who believe in God must know that it was he who designed women to menustrate.
 

Marble

Rolling Marble
One could in fact argument that men are more unclean than women because the do not menustrate.
That would work like that: Every month a woman's body cleans itself from accumulated impurities.
Men have no such cleaning system, therefore they are mor unclean than women and need to clean themselves through fasting.
 

Draka

Wonder Woman
Children are being indoctrinated with misogyny and superstition at a public school funded by tax payers. I sure as hell wouldn't want my money going towards filling children's heads with garbage.

First off, it's not like non-Muslims would be showing up to the Muslim prayers. These would be Muslims doing what they already were taught to do according to their faith. It's not like the school is teaching them to do this, it is just allowing them to do it as they already do.

Secondly, I didn't see anything about any other religion mentioned so we don't know if that very same school doesn't allow other groups of students to pray as they please as well. Unless one can prove that they are not allowing other groups of students access to their method of prayer then one really can't go off about it allowing the Muslims access to theirs.
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
As far as I have been told by the local imam, Muslim females do not pray during menstruation. I have no idea why this is, though. From what I have heard (but do not buy) it is to make it easier on the menstruating woman as 'she is more liable to feel weak' or something.

I feel that schools should encourage the multi-faith room to be mixed gendered: no women and men on opposite sides or women at the back or anything.

However, I do not know how long it would be until this would happen again. If people think that men and women are supposed to be separate, or that menstruating women should be at the back, then chances are it will happen even in a multi-faith, mixed area.

I have no idea what can be done to combat this. Not allowing prayers in schools doesn't seem feasible to me, either, considering some people have religious obligations to pray at set times and all..

I see... you're all for religious obligations, until those obligations take a form you're uncomfortable with.

The fact that they're obligated to pray is something you're sensitive to... but the fact that their religious tradition (I say it that way because from what I can tell, there's nothing explicit in the Quran about this sort of thing) obligates them to have a prayer area where men and women are separated, that's where you draw the line?

If you're going to provide a space for religious activity, you have to be willing to deal with everything that comes with it. If you can't do that, then you have no business providing a space for religious activity.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
Wow! Is it not incredible that certain religions tell you when you can and can not pray ...
Far, far better that it be done by the State at the behest of self-righteous liberals who feel best suited to tell Muslim women how to pray as Muslim women. I mean, how dare those girls practice their religion! :slap:
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
I see... you're all for religious obligations, until those obligations take a form you're uncomfortable with.
Not at all, so please don't claim something I did not say.
obligates them to have a prayer area where men and women are separated, that's where you draw the line?
Again, see above.

Thank you in advance.
 

HiddenDjinn

Well-Known Member
It's My Birthday!
I'm not sure about Muslim thoughts on this, but the reason given for a menstruating woman being unclean under Judaism: The course of menses was a life that could have been, leaving the woman in contact with death, making her ritually impure. In the day of condoms and chemical means of birth control, I can see how this doesn't make much sense to you, but from a perspective of "be fruitful and multiply", it makes a lot of sense to me.

We have an entire set of laws concerning what is called Niddah. A man may not touch his wife during this period of separation(from time the courses start until a week after, provided she gets to a mikvah.
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
This sounds very much like a varient of "white man's burden" condescension.
You wish.


Simply, I do not feel that if there is no doctrinal support for women sitting at the back of congregation, then cultural customs do not necessarily need to be practised in such a hard-and-fast way.

Religious practices =/= Cultural practices
 
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