I feel for them in the heat of Sydney and Brisbane.

Women the world over want to feel attractive, even if they would prefer not to be ogled for it. Some Muslim women in Western countries say they want to wear the equivalent of a Scout tent because they want to be treated as an individual, now why doesn't that ring true?

Still, if anyone has seen the Absolutely Fabulous episode where Eddy ends up looking like a large piece of fruit because she cannot find anything else that fits her, you can understand why sometimes it would be convenient to have a troop tent to expand within.

Then there are the savings on Mum, make-up and trying to control wayward pillow hair. Makes clothing sense when you put every minute into HIS kids and have no time left for yourself either.

Lighten up folks, the simplest explanations are so often the most likely and you will go crazy listening to the convoluted rhetoric either way on this from multiculturalists, feminists and xenophobes. Some women are devout, some have ego problems, some are lazy and others are just not into tarting up the bod to go out. Their menfolk would miss out for a fortnight for a thoughtless comment (your bum looks how big in that?), as would a Western man.

Now the pill-box with the mesh or slit, well that is another matter entirely and I would like to see its use discouraged in Australia. For a start it could be some hairy bloke under there. Then again it could be a thatched, wax-hating woman (joke, Joyce).

I don't see that it's politically or morally possible to ban the wearing of the burqa or niqaab in a free society. If women choose to submit themselves to the wearing of these ridiculous garments, then I don't see that other people's concerns about their status or religion is sufficient to trump their freedom of sartorial expression.

However, that is not to say that people who wear any clothing that obscures their face should have to be admitted to banks and other cash businesses where armed hold-ups are a risk, or on public transport which is susceptible to violence and terrorism, or indeed any other public venue where the concealment of identity can facilitate crime.

If you want to ban the burga because it's a specifically Muslim religious symbol, then you'd have to ban all public displays of religious symbolism - which would be inequitable, unworkable and incompatible with individual liberty.

'There's only one answer in a truly secular society, ban the wearing of all religious clothing and viewable paraphernalia in public.'

Yea we will all run around naked like many of the earth worshipers do or even better dress like whacko Jacko.

C J Morgan

That is a reasonable approach. The limits you mention are sufficient 'discouragement' from my point of view. There is nothing to be gained from a ban.

I am sure some of these 'issues' are made more complicated than they really are.

There is already far too much intrusion by government into the private affairs of ordinary citizens.

Still it is funny to think that Gran's flour bag bloomers might be de rigeur under a bolt of blue or black sail cloth. The hair could be as wild as Germaine's and no-one would notice. Who knows, burqas could be liberating for some.

razz4189,

You ask, "are we to ban nuns from this practice also ?."

"We" are not going to ban anything. Australia has avoided the violence and other extremes of Islam so far and, hopefully, for ever.

Nuns, apart from the fact that most modern nuns wear the same clothing as other women and, apart from a small cross, look no different from other women. The other fact is those nuns who still wear the traditional garb, do so as 'officials' of their religion; just as do priests with their clerical collars; just as imams do.

Sancho and his black overalls and balaclava is a good example of double standards. If he were to appear in public disguised like that, he would be arrested in no time flat. He couldn't enter a bank. Nobody would want anything to do with him.

Most Westerners, in their own countries, probably feel the same way about a fully disguised Muslim female. How do we know it isn't Sancho about to do a bank job? Rather than overalls, he would be better off wearing a burqa. Who's going to check his gender? "Muslim woman wanted for holdup. No description possible."

Well meant defence of overt and aggressive shows of religious faith is foolish. Muslims are the only immigrants to the West who are trying to force the host communities to accept different public and legal behaviours. Other immigrants have always kept their culture and religion private, and accepted the mores of the host culture. Muslims must do the same, for their own good as well as that of the rest of us.

'If you want to ban the burga because it's a specifically Muslim religious symbol, then you'd have to ban all public displays of religious symbolism - which would be inequitable, unworkable and incompatible with individual liberty.'

What an illogical exaggeration CJ.

As stated previously, the burqa is a corruption of Islamic theology. It is therefore more specific to the culture of sexism rather than religion. The burqa is also dehumanising if we assume that facial expressions are fundamental to being human.

And so, the only people likely to get upset at prohibiting the burqa are right-wing religious conservatists and left-wing post-modernists.
The same people who defend the right to female circumcision and all the other sad religious practices that are more to do with brainwashing than humanistic values.