General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What is your stance on burkinis or headscarves on French (or American) beaches (or streets)? [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)I am not the French police and the French police aren't locking anyone up. I'm simply someone who objects to the debasement of women and I won't back a right - wing, fundamentalist meme that characterizes women as shameful, filthy, slutty temptresses who must be wrapped up in a garbage bag, even if it is falsely packaged as "choice."
You weren't referencing the OP in that last post--you were in the midst of a convo with me about cooking, shitting, and men's clothing, among other topics.
As I've said, repeatedly, there are ways to comply with Islamic exhortations towards modesty (which are incumbent on men, too--though men ignore these rules) and not look like a walking-talking billboard for fundamentalist Islam. The French don't want to be subjected to these "billboards" -- particularly at a site where so many of their fellow citizens were mowed down in cold blood -- and, frankly, I don't blame them. If they lean hard on this, then women (and women's husbands/fathers, through the process of their "permissions" will be forced to adjust--or their husbands will be stuck doing a lot of outside child care, and that's not their thing at all.
Americans don't take this approach--they basically let the melting pot do its work. But America is not a secular nation like France, with laws that restrict religious advertisement in public life --we have "separation of church and state" but we do not prohibit expressions of religiosity within the confines of the state. That's why people can work for the government in religious clothing, that's why we provide "religious accommodation" for people of varying faiths, and it's why we have chaplains in the House and the Senate, and we PAY them, too (something I'm in favor of eliminating--but that's just me).