EmmaS –
Banning the burqa does not mean that a Muslim woman can no longer leave the house. It just means that she can no longer leave the house in a burqa. There are no laws in Australia that prosecute Muslim women for leaving the house without a burqa. Such a statement dramatises the situation in order to make the person look more of a victim than she is. She is not a victim she is totally responsible for her predicament.

She probably will not leave the house because she is afraid of the consequences in her relationships with the men who she lets control her, the community that she is emotionally dependent on or the ‘god’ that she thinks is watching her every move. These are her real problems. Whether we ban the burqa or not makes no difference – she will still have these problems. Banning the burqa does not demonise Muslim women it forces them to take responsibility for their choices in life and to stop being a victim. They have the power like every human being to face their own emotional dependencies and to extract themselves from those relationships. Australia and other western democracies provide them with a safe haven for doing that which their sisters in fundamentalist Muslim countries do not have.

It is not the responsibility of feminism or western culture to protect these women from their real issues which have nothing to do with Islam. Feminism in the past has done a good job of liberating women in the west from real issues of discrimination against women but is sometimes tries to change society so that women can ignore their own responsibilities and blame others for their situation.

No one forces these women to be Muslims – they choose it for their own reasons and that means they have to suffer the consequences of that choice. What feminism should be doing is helping these women see that they do not have to be Muslims and that this is the cause of their problems. The burqa issue fixes nothing.

Killarney,
I think your comment "No wife of mine will go to work !"
Was true, not because of misogyny but because it reflected on them in that they
were unable to support their family.
Remember it was not a time of the entitlement.

What caused the change was not as you said, but the feminist movement forced
the government to change the law so that lending authorities HAD to lend on two incomes.
Like any market, double the amount of money in the market and the prices double.
Therefore borrow on two incomes you need two incomes to repay it.

It really was that simple.

You believe Islam will change. Sorry but I think you do not understand.
The Koran is unchangeable on pain of death.
The Koran, I have read this chapter, is clear it cannot be reinterpreted.
It is not like the bible, which has been worked on and is not considered the "Word of God".
Indeed, some parts of the bible is considered wrong in these days.
That will never happen with the Koran.

It should not be unexpected that the radical feminists, many of whom are lesbians anyhow and see themselves and their strap-ons as the replacements for men would want to shield other women from the gaze of men and reserved for their eyes only.

For the remaining rump of the dinosaur feminists who stagger about with their anti-male baggage, grey-haired into the new Millenium, the burqa also represents the feminists' war on other women, especially those women who made up their own minds and chose more personally rewarding alternatives and lives than the materialist careerism and sheer one-eyed bitchiness of the feminists. The feminists' dislike of men pales in comparison of their jealous hatred of young women especially, who represent all of their lost youth and the choices they never made.

Feminist wowserism that would encase all women in a cloth casket in order that free and happy women become the same as themselves, alienated and soured against the world around them and blaming all but themselves for the full lives lived by others.

To the feminists and soy latte political 'Progressives' aka International Socialists (who wouldn't recognise Left ideology if there was a neon highway sign pointing at it), the burqa is the iconic symbol of feminist 'liberation'(sic) and cultural tolerance (read as cringing self-hatred).

Any wonder the spin of the political 'Progressives' (a misnomer of course) and the feminists has worn thin.

Well said, Emma!

The colonialist mentality of Western culture yet again raises its ugly head. This time they test the waters against Muslims - and if they succeed, then they will continue to tread underfoot all other cultures.

Unless a woman stood up and explicitly asked you to save her from her oppressive culture and family, who are you to assume she wants your "help" to be liberated?

When I was 7, we had next door a monastery which was used as a catholic school. I constantly saw those terrible figures in black (nuns) terrorising the kids who were locked up there, so I decided to liberate them.

The monastery was surrounded by a high wall, towering above the street which was sloping up to level with the wall towards its far side where the entrance was, so I ran uphill brandishing a toy gun, shooting firecrackers and shouting to those children: "run away, you are free! I hereby free you, jump out and escape!"...

Instead of the appreciation for my heroism which I expected, those kids whom my bleeding heart went out to, threw a rock over the wall on my head. I ended up bleeding and taken to the emergency first-aid station to be bandaged.

I learnt my lesson: when they want to be saved, they will call you!

(by the way, I am neither progressive nor feminist... nor Muslim)

Problems of Western Feminists 2014

Problem No1: Mrs Amal Clooney

Newlywed Amal Alamuddin, a London-based British-Lebanese human rights lawyer has chosen to change her name professionally to Amal Clooney.
The move has made international headlines in feminist circles where there is shocked indignation, disbelief, that a career woman like Amal would change her name.

Is Amal letting the side down? Only close leading interrogation by some notable feminists and restorative spin might recover the situation.

It is not known if Mrs Clooney ever refers to herself as 'British-Lebanese' or simply British. That is being thrown in by the media to give a multicultural spin for more story lines. Any wonder celebrites read the 'news' and wonder why the public is so gullible to believe any of it.

Anyhow, the gun turrets of jealous and spiteful feminists are already swinging her way. Amal will get the attention of the big swinging clit feminists - the attention that the same educated middle class feminist warriors did NOT give to the Rotherham child sex trafficking. Feminists have their priorities and what they say goes.

Yuyutsu/Emma

I neither know nor care whether banning the burqa/niqab is neo-colonialist, post-colonialist, pseudo-colonialist or just plain colonialist.

However, there is a lot of weirdly colonialist thinking in all this 'concern' about the effect of such a ban on burqa/niqab wearing women. We are very quick to assume - no doubt, due to our subliminal colonialist thinking - that they are hapless victims of the control-freak men in their lives, and that such a ban will mean that they can never hope to leave the house again.

I've had exchanges with burqa/niqab wearing women, both online and in person, and I can assure you these women are NOT downtrodden, enshrouded little shrinking violets. I must admit I've been pleasantly shocked and secretly pleased to find they are often extremely articulate, strong-minded women who will gladly tell you to f*k off and that they will wear what they bloody well like, thank you very much.

What annoys me about these women is that they know - or should know - that roughly 80-95% of the population of Western countries, Australia included, report in opinion poll after opinion poll that the burqa/niqab makes them feel very uncomfortable. So burqa/niqab-wearing women living in Western countries must know full well that they are creating discomfort and cultural tensions by walking around in public dressed in a way that makes the overwhelming majority of the population uncomfortable.

However, because of the weird and wonderful vagaries of this multi-culti political environment created for us over the last 30 years, we must assume that it's the people feeling discomfort over the burqa/niqab who are the ones with 'the problem' and NOT the women who choose to walk around in public dressed this way.