Just out of interest, with just how many burqa-wearing women did ABC newsreader and blogger Virginia Haussegger speak before writing her strident call to “Ban [the] unAustralian Burka“?
She calls the clothing “a tool of patriarchy used to subjugate women… [that] defies freedom… a symbol of control” – but, as a journalist, did it ever occur to her to – rather than simply stopping them to hector them – explore with these women who wear the veil why they do?
That’s certainly not in the Canberra Times piece she wrote.
Instead, she tells them what their clothing means, with the following the only sop she gives to the experience of millions of burqa-wearing women worldwide:
For a woman to argue she feels more comfortable hidden beneath her burka, away from the gaze of men, is unacceptable in modern society.
Oh, well, if you say so, Virginia.
NOTE: Virginia does not appear to have an easily-sourced email address, so I asked her on her blog whether she’d spoken with any burqa-wearing women, put her conclusions to them, and what their responses were*. Her response:
In answer to you “anonymouslefty”, in short yes. I have recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan, where I spoke with many women who wore a burka every time they left their house. I also experienced wearing a blue burka myself.
Apart from the obvious problem with her sample – an Afghani woman wearing a burqa because she’s forced to through threat of violence in an unstable country is somewhat different to an Australian woman making that choice – it’s all very well for Virginia to say she “spoke with many women”, but she hasn’t given us a chance to fairly assess their arguments. She just paraphrases one vaguely and calls it “unacceptable”.
*I asked her what their responses were in a subsequent comment which she has neither responded to nor published, although she’s published later comments from other people.
7 Comments
If a woman wants to wear a burqa why shouldn’t she?
If a husband is making his wife wear a burqa then the issue isn’t the burqa, it’s an issue of spousal abuse, an issue that isn’t confined to Muslims by a long shot. I wonder how many ‘western’ men insist their partners dress in a particular way? What’s the difference?
Now, whilst I maintain a womans right to wear a burqa I also beleive that she should remove it for a driver licence photo (I beleive this had recently been an issue in the US) or forego the right to gain a drivers licence.
I think it’s none of the govts business dictating what we can or cannot wear, then again such a populist reaction from Sarkozy doesn’t surorise me.
Burqa-wearing might be outdated and humiliating but having loudmouthed Westerners (decadent wine-swilling porn-loving Westerners!) giving finger-waving lectures is hardly the way to challenge it — in fact, it very likely drives people even deeper behind the barricades. And that’s something the Right just can’t get through its collective head.
Virginia first came to prominence a few years ago when she derided the ‘femo-leftist’ upbringing she had and how it has now cost her her child bearing years.
Lee is correct.
Banning is pointless, even harmful. We don’t ban ladies of the brethren, or christadelphians or any other church/cult from wearing long dresses and head scarves.
I dont like the Burka. I especially dont like seeing women wearing the Burka and sunglasses. I EVEN MORE ESPECIALLY DISLIKE seeing women wearing the Burka and sunglasses being escorted through dark areas by men.
But most of all I dislike being told what to do by somebody who is not in any way affected by what I am doing. Let them be is the simple answer to this. Eventually they will realise the foolishness of their ways and if they never do or if it disturbs you to see it then look the other way.
I will never understand the mentality of those who wish to impose their will upon people who are in no way at all affecting them. I think they pose a bigger problem to a peaceful society that do those who they seek to control.
The massive problem I have with this is that she pretends to have a vaguely feminist aim here. But wait…
“…designed to render her shapeless and inhuman…”
“Covering women like this, and rendering them sexless and shapeless…”
“For a woman to argue she feels more comfortable hidden beneath her burka, away from the gaze of men, is unacceptable…”
So, women should be shapely and sexy… kinda like… oh, the way a lot of Western women dress? Shapely, sexy and willing to put up with the gazes from men that dressing like this might bring… sounds so liberating! Nothing at all like ‘gender apartheid’. (Let’s see, do men tend to wear sexy, fitted garments most of the time?)
As for that stuff about disrespecting ‘our’ culture… ugh.
There was a massive barney on this article over at The RiotACT.