[#bemorelikeeurope] EU Allows Employers To Ban Non-Sensical Religious Garb

What "different form of dogma"? Simple: Keep your religion out of the workplace. End of story.

 

Which doesn't really provide exposure for people that there are other options when they've been conditioned to an oppressive lifestyle.

 

Yes, there is another option: Break out of the oppressive lifestyle - protected by the law. Men who think they can force women into wearing something are breaking the law. This behavior should not be tolerated, but sanctioned. You, on the contrary, want to keep allowing, enabling, and supporting that oppressive behavior, and accept it as the new normal.

 

So . . .we are PRO-"LESS FREEDOM" now?

Rocket River

 

Yes, that's what I said. I want to support oppressive behavior and accept it as the new normal. You caught me! Great job. Because that's exactly what I was hoping would happen.

 

It is what you are de facto promoting. I am not saying you support the result, but you don't think it all the way through.

 

I love how not once you have addressed me regarding my experiences. Your thinking is nothing but wishful. The ONLY thing your logic would entail if you actually rationally drew it out with nuanced knowledge of how conservative religious families operate is Muslim women in conservative households will be pushed to live more insular lives. That is quite literally the only thing you will accomplish by banning the hijab.

 

I did address you.

These families need to change, not the world around them. Again, I empathize with people like you and your family and I understand that it creates friction, but you and your family need to go through the friction of accepting change, when necessary imposed by law, rather than everyone else accepting the norms imposed by the oppressive ideology. I understand that from a personal perspective, you prefer avoiding the friction, but what that does in effect is that the rest of the world has to accept the rules imposed by the oppressive ideology.

 

Always been the case? They don't understand how someone could possibly choose to do what they do out of their own choice. Or if they do, that's not important, because they fear an "oppressive ideology". But then they are doing the exact same thing. Oppressing someone else choice.

 

Why put oppressive ideology in quotation marks, is it not oppressive to you?
And again, you really think these females would wear it if there was no lifelong pressure and brainwashing? What's the sense in wearing something with pride that explicitly is introduced to decrease your freedom and rob you of choice?

 

Hijab as a symbol of oppression is subjective. Some see it as so, others do not.

Not to me personally. I'm not a follower, so I'm not subjected to the religious requirement of wearing a hijab. I'm sure it's oppressive to some that do have the pressure to conform. As I'm sure it's not oppressive to some that wear hijab for religious, cultural, or whatever reasons.

What I think isn't so important. Why must my idea of what someone should or should not wear hijab be placed onto others? Someone freedom to choose something as simple as essentially a head scarf is fundamentally much more important to me than my ideas of that choice, even if it's something I very much disagree with. Hijab being a sign of religious devotion makes it that much more important to not impede on others religious freedom - because devotion and faith are very strong emotion and impeding on it can cause much suffering.

Faith and religious devotion wouldn't make sense in a logical and reasoning framework, and that's how you are approaching it. I don't think you can make logical sense of it, but you can understand the impact to someone. With your feeling against a decrease in freedom and less choice, consider why you are ok with law that explicitly decrease someone freedom and rob them of their choice to wear a hijab?

 

The thing I don't understand about a law like this is how do you even distinguish a clothing choice made for religious purposes vs personal preference? Is a non-Muslim allowed to wear a head scarf, because she likes the look of it? Is a Muslim allowed to wear a head scarf, not because she feels she needs to, but because she wants to as a personal choice?

 

I once worked with a Muslim colleague who wore a head scarf. She was from a Muslim country, but one that is not fundamentalist in that regard. I learned eventually that she wore the head scarf without her family, who lives back in her home country, knowing about it. Apparently, her family would not have wanted her to wear it. She wore it because she wanted to -- her choice.

So your assumption that such garb means you're being robbed of a choice is not not necessarily true.

In my view, the goal should be to maximize personal autonomy and the ability to make personal choices, without trampling on the rights or welfare of others. I don't see how a law like this would really help in that regard, in practice (not as a "symbolic" gesture, which I don't really care about).

 

This is how I know what your true motives are. This is how I know you lead with a desire for hate rather than an actual desire for change that actually works. You make posts chalk full of normative 'ought' statements with no bearing of what actually tangibly happens. This is about how human minds are wired. Waving a magic wand and stating "They ought to change their ways" is silly and exemplifies your lack of desire to actually solve problems for Muslim women.

Your first giant misconception is the method in which Muslim families 'force' their female children into wearing hijabs. It seems as if you and Yung-T have this perception that these families force their children at gun point/acid spraying point.

That is not how it works for VAST majority of cases. Majority of the time the parents will ingrain(brainwash) the notion of purity and humility. Most of these women by age 13-15 believe whole heartily that it is their responsibility to wear these things. Also, the other large portion of Muslim women in the States that wear hijabs are subject to family/peer pressure and there is absolutely zero ways to legislate that. You can't legislate making it illegal for a father to not pay for their child's med school because she refuses to wear a hijab to school. It's as if you have forgotten that parents hold power especially monetarily wise. The fear of being shunned or not having your future education funded is powerful.

In effect, banning the hijab will do nothing more than isolate these women. Like I said in my example, that Muslim female pediatrician who wears a hijab... well, she has children. Now imagine if we followed your problem solving tactics and banned the hijab to be worn out in public. So now, the father would be less compelled to allow her to pursue her MD. Now she lives an insular life with hardly any interaction from the outside western world. She's still going to have children because her father will find someone for her and she will produce offspring.

So please tell me what will help the Muslim community more in Western societies. A future Muslim child raised by a Muslim women with a MD who hangs out with her white western co-workers attending Zumba and yoga classes religiously or a future Muslim child raised by a Muslim mother with no education who only knows Islam? What actually is tangibly a better solution?

You are also confusing my argument as emotional when it is nothing more than pragmatic. It seems as if you are the emotional one here who strives for the lowest common denominator solution because you aren't actually here with a desire to solve actual problems. You're here because you enjoy being on a high horse. There is nothing more to it. I can't believe it took me this long to peg you. Shame on me.

Your last statement doesn't even make any ****ing sense? How is a Muslim women wearing a hijab imposing on anybody? WTF? Talk about a safe space.

 

Those families might change eventually. Culture changes slowly. You can't expect things to change overnight. Some women may not see head scarves as oppressive. They may like the look, or prefer more modesty. You can't legislate free will unless it can affect others.

Banning things for no good reason will only lead to more disdain for the imposers, who are now seen as oppressive through other eyes.

 

This thread is about employers setting rules for their workplace. I realize I confused the issue a bit myself, but that's not banning it everywhere, it is a collision between employer rights and religious practices.

 

I will leave the personal insinuations aside and will say that I fully understand the logic of your argument. It is still wrong, though. I do feel sorry for the women who would be affected, but the solution is simple - if you live in a Western country, you better let your child/daughter/wife live freely, or you go back to wherever you came from and where it is A-OK to oppress women.

 

Good for you. You are great at making normative statements that have no tangible means to an actual solution.

 

1. The only "forcing" or "obliging" is being done by the employer in this case.
2. Western normalcy is a pretty damn weak argument. Slavery was normal, until it wasn't normal.
3. What you think is silly does not determine policy.
4. Mormons, like Mitt Romney, wear their special protective underwear, and it probably meets your criterion of Western normalcy. So why not hijabs?
5. You ought to define "Western society," because you seem to think it does not include Muslims, and you may well be wrong.