on the beach

I just love reading your regular comic-book-caricature feminism alerts.

Just where on earth do you get all this stuff from - the Heritage Foundation Almanac? Fox News Quarterly? Or do you just make it all up?

I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but the overwhelming majority of feminists are married or in long-term relationships with ... (gasp!) ... men. I've been happily married for over 25 years, as are many of my feminist friends.

Even the few I've known who are unmarried and/or lesbian are by no means lonely. Indeed, they live very full lives.

The loneliest and unhappiest women I've known over the years have been very traditional women who end up marrying very traditional men, who assume women were put on this earth to be their servants and playthings. Women who have some understanding of the politics of gender are very unlikely to fall into this kind of domestic trap.

Dear Killarney,

Should I write down the list of things that people do in public space which make me inconvenient? so much inconvenient even that I get uncontrollable convulsions? Yet I realise that I have no right to tell them to stop just because I suffer - that it's my problem and if I want to avoid seeing what they do, then I should simply stay at home.

If someone is uncomfortable with a woman wearing a burqa (or wearing nothing for that matter, the principle is exactly the same), then they should be able to disallow such women from entering their homes and businesses.

If the numbers are indeed as you state, then women who wear the burqa would find themselves unwelcome in 80-95% of homes and businesses and decide for themselves whether they wish to continue having this inconvenience.

Obviously, some current laws against "discrimination" would have to be repealed, which currently prevent individuals from legally barring selected others from entering their business or being employed there - but such laws should be repealed anyway.

Andrew Glover's article illustrates the fundamental contradictions and double standards of the "progressive" Left.

The first time I became aware of the contradictions and double standards of the educated caste I once aspired to join, was in the field of human equality. It was obvious to me, that the evangelical trendy lefties who endlessly preached the notion of human equality, were the biggest snobs around. They presumed to be the natural leaders of the working class and disadvantaged classes, while at the same time sneering with contempt for them, their values and their behaviours.

We are now witnessing the "social progressive" caste supporting the censorship of political speech under 18C. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

The burkha is just another example of the Left amazing ability to ignore their own stated core principles whenever it suits them. Feminists who once loudly claimed that brassieres were symbols of female subjugation suddenly develop acute myopia when confronted by the burkha. Instead of recognising the burkha as a very obvious symbol of Islamic male oppression, they suddenly think up every lame excuse to justify the wearing of it. This clear contradiction is screamingly obvious to everybody.

When people are confronted by self evident hypocrisy, the perpetrators of that hypocrisy had better explain their logic quickly, or they had better accept that most people will consider that they are loonies with no credibility at all. They Left can hardly claim to be the representatives of the thinking class when they are claiming to be the champions of female equality, when at the same time they are defending the burkha.

It is interesting to speculate why the Left is so insistent on displaying their hypocrisy here and making fools of themselves. I can only presume that their reflexive, compulsive need to always denounce their own culture which they consider to be "oppressors", and to be sympathetic of the cultures of the "oppressed", that they just can't bring themselves to see the obvious. To do so might bring up the uncomfortable fact that Muslims are poor not because of "oppression", but because of their own inappropriate cultural values .

Killarney –
You say that women who wear religious headdress do not appear to you as downtrodden and lacking in freedom. This may be true in relation to the Muslim men in their life but cannot be true in relation to their religion. Any woman who is dependent on religious behaviour is not free at all. Unless you can show that religious behaviour is reasonable and logical then you cannot claim that these women are free in the full sense of the word. They are emotionally dependent on religious behaviour.

Maybe it is this that people find confronting and it is not necessarily a ‘problem’ for them. It may well be a concern when they see someone so openly display their lack of personal freedom. We find vision of refugees locked up in prison like conditions concerning and disturbing too but this is not because we feel threatened by it. We just do not like seeing our fellow human beings being constrained by anything. It causes a reaction in us that wants to do something but without impinging on their rights.

Every woman who wears religious headdress is advertising to the world that she is not free. There may be many other women who are not free for a variety of reasons but they do not so openly display that lack of freedom. It is almost like the Muslim headdress is a cry for help.

'Every woman who wears religious headdress is advertising to the world that she is not free.'

I would say Phanto that very woman who needs to dress immodestly in order to attract man's eye is not free. It is probably easier to throw on one of the hideos burqa's than standing in front of the mirror for an hour a day.

Maybe so,runner,but that is not the topic under discussion here.