That clip cracked me up Proxy, nice one.

And the article….as a reaction to Saudi we want to ban the burqa now? Is banning the burqa really us sending a message to all Muslims about how we have judged their religion?

To me it looks like an idea that has come from a place that doesn’t have a lot to do with the women or what choices we believe they have or do not have. To me it looks like using the women under the disguise of “freeing” them. Are we trying to make ourselves feel better in some way?

Awhile ago I went to the supermarket (here in Aussie) in the middle of the night wearing my pajamas expecting it to be pretty empty of people. I’m standing in an aisle and round the corner walks a lady in a burqa and her hubby (wearing the male equivalent). I felt embarrassed but now I’m wondering if they felt the same way.

Loudmouth:”Then let's not impose more burdens on them by somehow blaming them for their own oppression.”

Story for you Joe… I caught my young children being rude to a servant. I began to tell them off when the servant interrupted with “it is okay ma’am”. No it isn't I say and he again told me it was and it went back and forward for awhile like this as the children stood there wide eyed and jaws dropping. Finally I shouted at him that it was not okay for anyone to be bloody rude to him.

I’d have to go do some reading about the genetic stuff, I just know they they limit their gene pool for financial reasons.

Like when the Vatican fully embraced celibacy thereby being able to deny their offspring the right to claim any inheritance, it was a perfectly sensible decision to protect wealth but zero to do with religion.

No matter how or why the burqa became important, it is to many of the women who chose to continue to wear it and I agree that we shouldn’t run around assuming they are oppressed.

Maybe the radical feminists need the burqa to show they are at war with white men.

Or is that war against religion, but only of the Christian kind. Hold on, that would be the Green Left at it again. "Youse are all Islamophobes and racists if you don't support the burqa". Yep, Green Left snorting green ink again.

The radical feminists lock-stepped with the Green Left?! Doesn't bear thinking about. At least no children can come of the union.

So, returning to the Australia context that is the subject of this thread, it would be most unfortunate and regrettable if anyone encouraged vulnerable women to believe that our laws and law enforcement are inadequate to the task of protecting them, or that the reasonable demands of citizens such as themselves cannot be achieved through community consultation and support mechanisms and our democratic political processes. The simple act of joining a school P&C or a community mothers' group can be enormously empowering, serving to build contacts and remove the feeling of isolation. That is very different to building more walls and more misunderstanding.

Australian women have choice and any limitations are self imposed.

There is nothing healthy nor liberating in being shrouded from top to toe. Honestly, who would encourage it anyhow if it weren't for a secondary agenda that suits them, not you.

“I love the notion that the wearing of the burqua represents the oppression of women by their husbands - who are (allegedly) forcing them to wear it and thereby removing their freedom of choice. The solution? Make the State pass laws to force them NOT to wear it, also the removal of another freedom of choice.”
Posted by wobbles, Monday, 6 December 2010 1:26:50 AM

This comment raises a few questions or assumptions.

Firstly, what motivates people to wear what they do?
Secondly, several here so far seemed to have worked on the premise that “freedom of choice” is the highest goal or value in the game.

Freedom of choice is no ultimate value or measure for anything.

Freedom of choice is not what we’re trying to teach our kids when we buy them their school uniforms. Freedom of choice is not what goes through the minds of soldiers (or any number of other professional people) when they get dressed in the morning. I’m guessing that the burqa is also some kind of uniform that adds to a sense of safety, identity or belonging that is valued above some unfamiliar ideal that is 'freedom of choice'.

Neither could freedom of choice be the ultimate guiding principle for any legislator. For any law must naturally infringe upon freedoms (if your idea of freedom is to do what you want, where you want, when you want [not forgetting the obligatory cliché, 'so long as you don't hurt anyone else']).

@DAN S - I agree! A woman from the middle east asserts,that the mothers of the young women who are wearing the burqa didn't wear it, even in their home country. In some ME countries, it's only a recent dictate - Iran since their revolution; Iraq after the US?Allies invasion and Afghanistan first with the Taliban and then with the other fundamentalist/war lords. These 3 countries used to have western values re clothes. Not having the ocean at their doorstep hasn't engendered a strong desire to swim, so who knows what that would've involved. It was only 80 yrs ago when men in this country wore those woolen costumes, and women were covered from neck to knee - at first, women weren't even allowed to swim?

I'm amazed at the response to this, when probably less than .o1% of women in the country wear a burqa. The hysteria by the govt people over this only reinforces their misogynist and fundamentalist christian views. How they claim the rights to christianity with their views amazes me. Fred Nile pronounces Muslim as 'muzzlim'? Even that grates on my nerves. I reminds me of the americans pronunciation of Moscow as 'mozcow'with a nasally emphasis on 'cow'? It was meant to be demeaning, and it succeeded!

I do not have a problem with the burqa. I DO have a problem with the sexualisation of women and girls though! I'd have more respect for Bernadino and Nile if they showed some concern in this area, or child abuse or domestic violence! Not a word passes their lips on these issues?

Liz,
You throw around terms that I'm not convinced you would even have definitions for. I think that's what Pip calls 'dog whistling'.

What is a Christian fundamentalist?
What is a Muslim fundamentalist? I understand that fundamentalist is not even a category within Muslim theology.  

"fundamentalist" are those who have radical views about their religion. Fundamentalist catholics adopt the Opus Dei dialogue and dogma, fundamentalist Muslims are those like the Taliban and others in Afghanistan who think that killing a woman is no differnt to killing a bird; that the Laws they introduced re women were just too radical and appalling for words. Such as, 'women must not be heard while walking; women must not speak, laugh etc where they could be heard outside their home; that there's only two places women should be, at home or in the grave. Go and read, 'Raising My Voice' by Malalai Joya, or go on the website of www.rawa.org or read 'Veiled Courage' or lots of others. It's not the ordinary men who practice their Islamic faith who oppress or are violent to women, it's the 'fundamentalists' who do it!

Another name for fundamentalists are the neo-cons who practice extreme right wing philosophies and promote them, like those who believe that Julian Assange should be executed?
You need to read more mate!