Ban the Burkini

[abaris]

And who are you to say I am wrong and you are the arbiter of rightness?

Who am I to tell you that? Because at some point you might be at the receiving end of populous decisions. As soon as you ban items of clothing to satisfy populous opinion, you're no longer secular and you no longer give a shit over freedom of expression. You're just enforcing something. In most cases prejudices to satisfy the public. If you don't get that simple fact, don't bother replying.

[Anomalocaris]

And who are you to say I am wrong and you are the arbiter of rightness?

Who am I to tell you that? Because at some point you might be at the receiving end of populous decisions. As soon as you ban items of clothing to satisfy populous opinion, you're no longer secular and you no longer give a shit over freedom of expression. You're just enforcing something. In most cases prejudices to satisfy the public. If you don't get that simple fact, don't bother replying.

And are you handicapped in reading comprehension?  Or must you reflexively contradict what other say because that accenturates your own sense of particular self-righteous?

[abaris]

And are you handicapped in reading comprehension?

I read you just fine. The only distinction you're making are semantics. So come again on how dress codes are down to society or public opinion. Or don't. There's nothing on laws to be constructed. There's only something on how a society can dictate what you do or don't wear.

Freedom of expression? Not so much.

[Anomalocaris]

And are you handicapped in reading comprehension?

I read you just fine. The only distinction you're making are semantics. So come again on how dress codes are down to society or public opinion. Or don't. There's nothing on laws to be constructed. There's only something on how a society can dictate what you do or don't wear.

Freedom of expression? Not so much.

No, I hold equality before the law as more fundamental than absolute freedom of expression.  If law is so designed to bans equivalent expression by one group but not another, that's a much more fundamental, and potentially much more destructive, problem than whether the threshold for impartially judging whether some expressions are harmful and should be banned is exactly appropriate.

[abaris]

No, I hold equality before the law as more fundamental than freedom of expression.

Which is an entirely different matter. And it's got nothing to do with secularism or freedom of expression. You can't have both. Unless you consider Saudi Arabia or Iran beacons of both.

[Thumpalumpacus]

When in Rome, do as the Romans. If you want to enjoy a public beach with most everyone around you wearing swimsuits and scanty clothing in the sunshine and surf (don't forget your sunscreen!) why not do the same? Muslim men do but their women can't. It's a double standard purely based on an archaic religion.

Also, am I being an immodest and tempting infidel by wearing a beach swimsuit instead of covering myself from head to toe? I don't think so, but Muslims who believe in covering their women up say different.

I don't see that the state paternalistically instructing a woman on how they may and may not dress at the beach -- or anywhere else -- is one whit better than her imam paternalistically telling her how she may or may not dress.

In both cases the message is, you are a woman, you need a male-dominated structure telling you how to dress.

[Regina]

"When in Rome, do as the Romans" is just a fashionable term people have suddenly revived again in response to this. It's also being said as a double standard, because you wouldn't be saying "when in Rome..." if you were in Tehran being scolded by the religious police for showing too much hair. You'd be complaining then, and you'd be pissed off if the locals were talking about some "when in Rome...".

We're not ancient Rome, nor are we Saudi Arabia or Iran. We're societies who (pretty constantly) talk on and on about how we value "freedom of expression" and womens' rights. That's a modern democratic concept.

Freedom of expression and womens' rights includes the right of an individual Muslim woman to not be told how to dress by anyone other than herself. Whether you're another Muslim who wants her to cover up, or someone else who wants her to strip down, it's not your decision to make and you need to let it go.

It's so petty.

[CapnAwesome]

It's despicable in both directions. Forcing someone into wearing something they don't want to wear. And forcing them to undress. As it happened at Nice these days. That's not what a liberal or secular society is about. Again, in both directions.

Although I don't support any sort of government enforced dress code, I do wonder how many women really would be dressing in a burkini on a hot day on a beach without pressure from husband/family/community. 9/10 the poor woman's husband is just in swim trunks enjoying a hot day like a normal person. The burkini is another symbol of extreme Islamic sexism.

[CapnAwesome]

Freedom of expression and womens' rights includes the right of an individual Muslim woman to not be told how to dress by anyone other than herself. Whether you're another Muslim who wants her to cover up, or someone else who wants her to strip down, it's not your decision to make and you need to let it go.

It's so petty.

That woman probably grew up in a fundamentalist Muslim community (which is most of who wear burkinis). Her whole life: She's been told that she'll burn in hell if she disobey's Islamic law, she's been told to always obey her father as part of that law, then told to always obey her husband. She's been told (in the best case scenario) that her family and community will disown her if she leaves Islam. She's been forced by her family to dress a certain way since puberty and before she was 18. Probably married extremely young.

Choice being made by herself is only is only in the very loosest of sense. Meanwhile how is her Husband dressed? Islam supposedly mandates modesty from both sexes, but 9 times out of 10 her husband is in western clothes, able to enjoy himself on the beach like a normal human. Although I don't believe in banning it, I can thoroughly say 'fuck the Burkini.'

[abaris]

Although I don't support any sort of government enforced dress code, I do wonder how many women really would be dressing in a burkini on a hot day on a beach without pressure from husband/family/community. 9/10 the poor woman's husband is just in swim trunks enjoying a hot day like a normal person. The burkini is another symbol of extreme Islamic sexism.

It may be. But enforcing them to undress in public as that despicable video shows, isn't helping the cause. And that's the whole point. It's adding insult to injury, so to speak. Degrading and shaming them, if they are of that culture.

And let's never forget that not even a century ago our own women wore similar garb at the beach. You can't enforce liberation, if that even is the goal, which I put in doubt, since, as I said, it's only enforced on muslim women. Also, the burkini inventor announced record sales after (the now invalid) regulation. That kind of backclash is to be expected by enforcing something as stupid as a dress code.

If anything the regulation had the opposite effect. Turning the burkini into a sign of liberation.