Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Burka



From Atheist Media, the Big Question discussing whether the burka should be banned in Britain.

First of all I want to say I am disgusted by the things the woman in the Burka is saying.

My biggest problem is with her insisting it is about freedom of choice, and her right to wear what she wants.

BULL! I'd like to hear her say that to all of the women in the world who have NO freedom of choice and are forced to wear the burka for fear of death.

I think her silence when asked why men shouldn't wear burkas was very telling. She kept insisting it wasn't about the subservience of women, but she had no answer for that.

I also think it is incredibly ridiculous to let women wear these costumes in public places. If a man wore something concealing his entire face and identity, the cops would be called on him!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the video. I agree that it was very revealing that she couldn't answer why men don't wear burkas; it was almost as if she had never asked herself the question. It's clearly sexist and takes away a woman's personhood, in my opinion (I also posted on the issue at http://www.iamtheblog.com/wordpress2/?p=88.)

    I don't know though if you can ban burkas if a woman is truly choosing to wear one. The problem is that some women are forced or coerced to wear one. I think you should not be allowed to force a woman or anyone to wear something as dehumanizing as a burka. But telling between women who really are making an informed choice (even if I disagree with it) and women who are shamed into it would be nearly impossible.

    So I honestly don't know if they should be banned or not.

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  2. I am normally a huge individual freedom person. But I must admit, there is something in the face.
    A huge part of the human brain is devoted to face recognition and emotion recognition by looking at faces. This is because humans developed cooperation as a survival tool. But for cooperation to work, we need to be able to catch cheaters. Part of the face recognition hardware in our brains is for that. Another part is for recognizing those in our group.
    Hmmm, complicated.

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"The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with." -Eleanor Holmes Norton