The Egyptian government has announced a ban on the wearing of the face-covering niqab in schools from the beginning of the next term on 30 September.
Education Minister Reda Hegazy made the announcement on Monday, adding that students would still have the right to choose whether to wear a headscarf, but insisted it must not cover their faces.
He also said that the child’s guardian should be aware of their choice, and that it must have been made without any outside pressure.
This might prevent a lot of women from going to school or work if their male guardians don’t let them step out without Niqab or Buqra (which is the real problem).
I wish people would just leave women the fuck alone when it comes to their choice of dress and put this much needed focus into ensuring that all women are able to make their own choices.
You can’t even write 2 sentences without contradicting yourself. It’s their choice, but their male guardian wouldn’t let them out without it?
It should be their choice, but with guardians they’ll just grow up abused and school-less.
Force kids to have to go to school? That’s what western nations do. Parents get in huge trouble for not making sure their kids are in school.
Not sure what the situation is in Egypt, but seems like that would be a great way to get these people to pull their daughters out of regular schools and start homeschooling them, giving them the absolute bare minimum education they can get away with, and further cut them off from the world.
And possibly a few would go full psycho and do some honor killing bullshit “I’ll be damned if I let my daughter out of the house with her face uncovered, I’d rather kill her”
I am not aware how this is in Egypt, but I grew up in Jordan and in the early 2000’s people were still sending their boys to private nice schools and their girls to crappy public schools and sometimes pull them out before they could get the national diploma (called tawjihi). I also know for a fact that a lot of the women I worked with in the same workplace were only allowed to do so because they wear hijab and it’s a teaching job with a gender-segregated teacher’s room. It’s sad, it’s heartbreaking, it should never happen, but when something like their dress code is banned from their workplace, then you’re just setting life for them on Difficult. They are vulnerable and are in more need of direct intervention and help than they are in need of a change of law.
Homeschooling isn’t allowed in the majority of places, although i’m unsure about Egypt.
I think it might still happen even if it’s illegal. They can do it at schools that don’t care about attendance or say that the children have some kind of learning disability or mental problem preventing them from coming to school. As long as they go to exams, I’m assuming it can happen.
Looking at the other comment, the status of homeschooling seems somewhat ambiguous.
However, in my country where children must attend school until they’re 18, what you described doesn’t work. No child is exempt from this rule, save for those with extremely severe learning disabilities. And schools are extremely strict when it comes to non-attendence of minors. For instance, after 10 missing days each further missing day must be accompanied by a doctor’s notice (or other proof if it’s unrelated to health, such as attending a funeral of a family member during school hours). If there is no valid reason why the child was missing for so long, the parents will either receive a fine in the low thousands of dollars or a criminal investigation will be started.
According to Wikipedia the status isn’t quite clear in Egypt.
Information seems kind of sparse at least on the English language parts of the internet that I can easily search but the gist I was able to get (not that I’m super confident in this being correct) is that children need to be enrolled in a school between the ages of 4 and 14, but some schools allow homeschooling as long as they take the required exams in school. And of course some parents just do what they want to anyway regardless of the law.
Based on that, I could imagine some parents begrudgingly allowing their daughters to go to school up until they turn 14 and then not allowing them to continue beyond that due to this change when otherwise they might have.
I found this in Arabic that explains it quite well. In some situations, parents are able to home school their children: if schools are bad and students don’t perform as well (or lose their “morals”), if they need assisted learning, or if they are high school students they can take some school courses online and only attend the exams (such as doing the IGCSE). Also seems like there are some institutions that help parents home school children.
https://nooun.net/اولادنا/different-options-to-educate-your-children#i-3
We had a building guard in the apartment who was an Egyptian national had a daughter and a son and refused to send his daughter to school even though it was illegal in Jordan to not do so. However, most likely due to shitty beliefs + bad economy + Jordanian law for foreigners means that his daughter never made it to school and was just “married off” as soon as possible. My parents pleaded with him right and left but he would not budge. Reporting it to the authorities would most likely mean the girl would have been mistreated. I’m in no way saying this is a normal thing in Egyptian society based on this one perdon, but I’m trying to say that it happens a lot with a certain demographic and those kids need our help as adults around them.
I found this in Arabic that explains it quite well. In some situations, parents are able to home school their children: if schools are bad and students don’t perform as well (or lose their “morals”), if they need assisted learning, or if they are high school students they can take some school courses online and only attend the exams (such as doing the IGCSE). Also seems like there are some institutions that help parents home school children.
https://nooun.net/اولادنا/different-options-to-educate-your-children#i-3
We had a building guard in the apartment block where my parents lived who was an Egyptian national and had a daughter and a son and refused to send his daughter to school even though it was illegal in Jordan to not do so. However, most likely due to shitty beliefs + bad economy + Jordanian law for foreigners means that his daughter never made it to school and was just “married off” as soon as possible. My parents pleaded with him right and left but he would not budge. Reporting it to the authorities would most likely mean the girl would have been mistreated. I’m in no way saying this is a normal thing in Egyptian society based on this one perdon, but I’m trying to say that it happens a lot with a certain demographic and those kids need our help as adults around them.
Wherever there is poverty and lack of trust in authorities, there will be a shit ton of kids out of school and unaccounted for until they slip through the cracks.
So, in order to not provoke their moronic parents, we should let them be oppressed. Got it.
I guess being from the middle east myself and having experineced this shit firsthand, yes - it is better for them to still have access to the workplace and school. Nothing in what I said supports guardians treating their children like shit or thinking they have any way in the live sofnwomen aged 18 and above. Ultimately the problem is women having less freedom, and I don’t see how restricting that further with bans will do anyone any good.
Problems where the symptoms are fixed will still have root causes that run deeper and deeper. If you want these women out of these horrible situations and life, this is a bad way to do it.
Yea, cuz they’d get more oppressed if provoked. I’m not sure if I believe in that but that’s what they’re saying.
Well that a feature if personal choice. You just ignore all the influences all the bad things that happen you make the wrong choice
I feel like you misread my statement. Sorry if the English was wonky (I doubt it though).
My reading was they expressed concern that the guardians who imposed face coverings on these girls would deny them education rather than give up the garment, then frustration that some people, like those guardians feel they have the right to impose such rules. Seems consistent to me.
Learn to read. The 2 statements that were written are not contradictory.
if their male guardians don’t let them
when it comes to their choice of dress
Their choice huh
You think you’ve found some logical inconsistency, but you haven’t. They’re talking about IN GENERAL, people need to stfu about women’s clothing. Including the men in an unapologetically patriarchal country.
Yeah rhis is what happens when you take phrases out of context. I meant they should have the choice to not wear it if they don’t want to. I explained a bit more about my position in other comments under this discussion.
Both options happen and both are good reasons to not do this.
Good thing in the US we all have complete freedom in how we can dress. We would never persecute people for not dressing in the way our society says they should be dressing based on their genitals. Er… Wait.
(Yes I know it’s not the same, but it comes from the same place of ignorance, and this is exactly where we are headed if we allow it to continue to escalate)
Why are you talking about the US to me?
🤣 What the hell is this comment? You honestly believe women want to wear black beekeeper suits?
I can’t believe how blind people are to the suffering and degradation of women brought on by the Muslim fate.
Imagine they required, instead of women, all black people to wear this shit? Would you be here telling people “jUsT lEt bLaCk pEoPlE wEaR wHaT tHeY wAnT!”
These outfits, and forced make guardianship are inhumane vile bullshit and needs to be eradicated.
I’m an ex Muslim and wore hijab for 5-6 years.
What were your feelings about it at the time?
At the time I wore it out of “choice” but in retrospect it’s clear that I was indoctrinated. I got religious purely from wanting to be a “good kid”, ended up hearing that women should wear hijab when they get their periods. I got it at 12 so I put it on. My dad was encouraging and to him it’s a mix of religious reasons and feeling like I look like a decent girl on a society with little respect for women, I think he was protective and worried, not religious and dominating. He didn’t have a “choice” either: you cover your women or you risk appearing as an immoral person (even if you understand that these things are not really related).
It felt bad for the first year because I was the only student in my class for a headscarf on from grade 6 to 8. In the middle east, women wearing hijab at younger ages + having darker skin is associated with poverty and ignorance, so people looked down on me but others were happy I was covered. After that it felt like shit, but I didn’t see what I could do because “god said so”. A year later I was reading the Quran and hated the verse about husbands told to beat their wives, I called a friend on the phone and cried as I talked about this. She agreed at the time and later became an atheist too. My faith started to turn into hate and resentment for god who made me “less than others”. A year after that, I discover Slayer, I’m on the internet more often, and finally decided to take the hijab off. It was not a pleasant experience.
Learn to read, my g.
I know alot of women who do love to wear it
I wish people would just leave women the fuck alone when it comes to their choice of dress and put this much needed focus into ensuring that all women are able to make their own choices.
Bullshit! In all the free countries of the world where women can dress whatever they want, you see face tattoos, extreme body modifications, hairs of every color and not once you see women actively deciding to cover their head and faces like you see in Muslim countries, so fuck you with that rhetoric that this is what “women want”
Okay, let me explain my position better since it seems like people think this was badly worded.
For me, the one thing that should be protected is the absolute choice to wear what you want as a woman, and since hijab is forced on a large number of women, be it in psychological or physical or emotional, there should be all sorts of programs and help and support they can get especially as teens or children. I don’t think banning it is helpful in this way, as in I don’t think it’s effective. The real issue is that control is being exerted on these women. Putting more control over them from the opposite direction is giving them more shit to deal with. What Egypt or France should have done was have a long conversation with the parents and girls who wear hijab and make it easy for these girls to get support to stop wearing it. That’s how you get good results. Banning a piece of clothing is often more of a political gesture.
Edit: I also want to say that that position is not what I meant to convey in the paragraph. Sorry if it was badly worded but I feel like when read alongside of the first paragraph above it, it’s more clear that what I mean is that women are forced to wear it by their guardian and parents and that this should not be the case. I didn’t think I had to explicity say “ofc many women are forced to wear it and this is wrong” because I thought that was obvious. My mistake, I guess I should be more explicit with such controversial topics.
I didn’t think I had to explicity say “ofc many women are forced to wear it and this is wrong” because I thought that was obvious. My mistake, I guess I should be more explicit with such controversial topics.
Lemmy is filled with ADHD addled reactionary wannabe communists with critical thinking issues, trust me you have to explicitly say everything you mean or they’ll take any gap in your well meaning argument and assume you’re a racist conservative and downvote you into oblivion because thinking is too hard for them.
I’m not sure about the prevelance of ADHD on Lemmy or any such platform and don’t know how it would affect one’s ability to understand and respond. But beyond that, yeah point taken! I will make sure to do so in the future.
For reference I’m 30F and was raised and born in a Muslim family, became an atheist around 16/17, wore the headscarf for about 5/6 years and was both scrutinized for wearing it at an early age (12) and then for later taking it off in highschool, punished twice by society with my own personal choice becoming painful to take, no matter how I choose to dress.
People talked shit about me for years for taking it off, it fucking sucks, but one thing I really would have appreciated as a hijabi teen was some support to allow me to take my own choices. One adult around me who offered such a thing was my physics teacher, bless his heart, he looked at me the day I took it off and said, “You’re as old as my children, this is your choice as a grown up and I respect it.” my biology teacher, on the other hand, did not speak to me for at least a semester, and another lab assistant teacher chased me to the bathroom to guilt trip me about taking it off. It was not a fun ride. What I needed was freedom to experiment, not a ban.
Edit: added spacing between paragraph
It was more just that they can’t seem to focus on a comment long enough to engage with it and understand what someone actually trying to say. If it’s not just shitting on someone immediately people don’t know how to respond so they just assume a hostile stance and cherry pick your argument to misinterpret you into being the bad guy.
You’re correct, banning things just makes the issue societal and authoritarian which feeds into the conservative POV that “they’re trying to destroy our faith” and polarizes the problem. This makes meaningful change difficult or impossible. The truth is that even if no one would ever choose to wear a burqa on their own in an objectively neutral society, it’s still a culturally ingrained thing that has no negative value outside of the requirement that it he worn.
Saying it’s a problem is like a feminist claiming being a stay at home mom is a problem, as long as everyone in the situation is happy and not being forced to do anything, buzz off and let people live their lives.
Now of course because I have to cover my own ass cause apparently not spelling this out means I don’t understand it or I support religious fascism…
The moment that society forces a group to do something, like making women cover themselves and designing society so that they can’t function outside of marriage(servitude) and motherhood, yes that’s a problem and objectively against the freedoms of women in a systemic sense. You’ll get no argument there.
Learn to fucking read holy shit.
Agreed. I don’t understand why this is so difficult a concept for people who claim to be trying to help women. Banning certain head garments because they’re “symbolic of women’s oppression” is just another way of restricting women’s choices and doesn’t promote their independence at all. Just let women choose how to dress themselves, same as men, it’s really not that complicated.
Problem is while other hijabs might be voluntary I don’t think anyone voluntarily wears a niqab
I agree that this aspect of it makes this issue very complicated. I wore a hijab aged 12 (out of choice, but really it was religious indoctrination) and took it off at 17. Almost every other Hijabi and Niqabi I know doesn’t really want to wear it or wishes it was not part of their lives or a religious obligation. A large number of said women eventually took it off. And of course a handful wanted to wear it and enjoy the look of modesty.
However, how does banning the Niqab help any of these women? 😬
One argument my partner made while discussing this is that it could help some women forced to wear it to be able to take it off… But I doubt that is the situation in Egypt given the culture, traditions, and law.
I know several women who wear the niqab by choice, and in the face (pun not intended) of social pressure.
That completely misses the point. The issue is that women should be allowed to wear whatever they want, same as men do. Banning a garment, even when no woman elects to wear it, serves no purpose except to restrict women’s choices.
not trying to shit stir, but can men really wear balaclavas anywhere they want?
I’ve seen plenty of delivery people wearing them during the colder months in my city. Since they aren’t worn for religious reasons, I suspect most men don’t wear them indoors, but I’m unaware of any law that prohibits them from doing so. Sure, maybe there are some high-security places where you wouldn’t be allowed to wear anything that covers your face, but that applies equally to men and women.
I’m not sure what your point is, as the bans in question were clearly sprung from concerns about Islamic face coverings in particular. They may have used generalized language in the laws to mask that focus, but it’s clearly there. Am I missing something here?
If their guardian decides, its not “their choice”'. How are you even agreeing with the statement above?
I’m talking about women, not their guardian. I don’t think parents should be able to force their children to wear restrictive clothing, unless there’s some sort of medical reason for it. Certainly not for religious reasons.
The statement seemed to me to say it should be their choice and not a “guardian”. How are you confused by the response above?
Exactly. No one is saying those women should be forced to wear a Niqab by society. We are actually saying the exact opposite, Egyptian women should be more free to take the hiajb or niqab off if they like, and not have to live with legal or societal consequences.
There are feminist organizations already working on that. It’s not like the only two choices are a ban or no ban.
That’s one way to solve the issue in a method that works, rather than going around to destroy all “symbols of oppression”. Like go ahead and bash at all these symbols, but make sure you don’t bash women along with it.
There are feminist organizations already working on that.
My understanding is that feminists themselves are split on this, sad as that is. At least with respect to the ban in France, I know some feminists have argued in favor of a ban on the hijab, exactly using the “symbol of oppression” argument. I don’t pretend to know what the divide in opinion is among feminists, percentage-wise, but clearly a significant contingent of them are supportive of this bullshit.
Again, I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept, but it apparently is. That, or my standards for human intelligence are just too high. Probably the latter.
One reason may be that Hijab and Niqab are politicized. Culture wars are happening on the expense of these women who just want a normal life and basic human rights.
Edit: I also just read the news article on Aljazera Arabic and one thing I did like is that they emphasized that all female students are free to wear Hijab as long as it’s their choice and they are not being forced by parents, but there is a full ban on face covers for school-aged girls. This changes my view on a bit, I think up to a certain age it should not be okay to come to school with a totally covered face (unless it’s for some reason necessary). However, once you get to high school level or bans in the workplace, it gets problematic.
I would still have much rather seen schools take a bigger active role in the lives of students who wear the Niqab and discuss the issues with the parents.
This is the beauty of the French system, it’s all religious paraphernalia banned in schools.
I feel like France is whacko. Religion is a normal part of human existence. Why would I prevent children from displaying these sentiments or developing parts of their personality that have a spiritual or religious connection? What kind of jerk would I need to be? 😬
That’s like saying slavery is a normal part of human existence because we’ve been doing it for thousands of years.
Why would you want children indoctrinated into a system of beliefs that reject reality? Only a jerk would want that.
Is it really the same? Slavery vs spirituality and following a religious path? 😬 Does it cause the same type of harm? How are these comperable?
But yeah, I do agree that just because people have done soemthing for X years does not make it legitimate.
The problem isn’t any spiritual or religious connection the children form. The problem is that most monotheistic religions are very rigid in their exclusive prerogative of interpretation concerning all things fundamental and truth-related.
Having more than one exclusively-dominant religion represented in any one space must lead to unsolvable conflict. Contradicting absolutes cannot tolerate each other.
Given that a functioning state must necessarily assume the role of a sovereign, banning religion from public spaces is pretty much the only solution for preventing religious conflicts.
I agree with what you say about religion. However, I don’t agree that bans are useful or effective. Doesn’t seem to be “preventing religious conflicts” all that much imo.
It’s not about preventing religious conflicts. It’s about not giving those conflicts a forum at school, the place where children learn to be tolerant from people who aren’t their potentially fundamentally religious parents.
But that was the last sentence in your previous comment.
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The problem is, you know most (80-90%) of these girls are forced by their parents to wear religious clothing. Not doing so will result in beatings or, when they’re older, being kicked out of the house.
How are you, as a society, going to protect these children? Just sitting behind your keyboard philosophizing that you shouldn’t restrict their free choice does not protect them at all, as history proves.
Just sitting behind your keyboard philosophizing that you shouldn’t restrict their free choice does not protect them at all, as history proves.
Stop being cheeky, it’s not that cute. I am not society and it’s not my job to protect these folks. I have always been of the opinion though that Western nations should not be taking in immigrants from Islamic countries that practice these strict religious codes that are incompatible with our mores. For the families that are already there, they’ll have to deal with them via the same CPS systems they currently have in place. The parents will have to learn to assimilate and adopt Western morals surrounding child rearing or lose custody of their children. Maybe the French government could run adverts encouraging people to adopt Muslim girls so they don’t all wind up in group homes. It’s a shitty situation, born of a culture clash that could have been avoided.
Baby steps.
Will this receive the same amount of outrage as the similar news from France?
France has banned Hijabs and Abaya robes in schools not just Niqabs. Egypt is preventing people from hiding their face in school, France is doing a lot more. I don’t think it’s directly comparable considering the Niqab bans at least have a safety component. Whos safer because school kids cant wear head scarfs?
Devils advocate here: isn’t the reasoning behind the hijab bans that it’s sexist, not a safety issue?
Not really. It’s a secular issue. France bans all religious displays in schools.
Yeah, that’s what I mean there’s no aspect of safety there. I don’t think it’s less sexist to legislate that no girls or women in schools can wear them them than it is to choose to wear one though. And if we just assume it’s sexist anyway, who is it hurting? It seems like over reach to use sexism as the reason to ban something that only effects the person who choses to do it. Does France ban any other sexist clothing, or just the ones muslim women wear? That may be a good insight into their decision making.
I agree in most cases. However it is an issue when it’s no longer a choice.
Anecdotal, but a church/cult where I grew up and went to school, forbid women and girls to wear anything but skirts. Now a lot of them maybe preferred skirts over pants, but it was never their choice.
Gotta say I’m on the fence on this one. Women should be allowed to wear whatever the hell they want, but it is a problem when a garment is occasionally forced on only them. I have no good solution
In France I imagine it’s a choice more often than not, but if its an issue when it’s no longer a choice, then a blanket ban on them in school poses the exact same problem as now many women who want to, no longer can or they face legal punishment. This ban likely applies to teachers too who are clearly old enough to make their own decisions.
Hope you’re right. Nice chat :)
Yes, but would it have helped to ban skirts?
I think there are a handful of solutions, none of them include a ban. Give women more autonomy over their lives, spread awareness, give help to those stuck in a shitty household forced to wear a niqab or hijab, get schools to actively discuss this choice of garment with parents and the child of it is problematic, allow girls to speak up without fear in schools, etc.
Stuff like this will cause gradual change (that is already happening). It may not be a big flashy bang like the news of a ban, but it’s actual gradual change.
Oh I absolutely agree. I have no idea how to give women more autonomy when they are stuck in these repressive households.
What you’re speaking of is how it should be, how to get there is not easy.
Hijab and niqab aren’t the same. The latter completely covers the entire face other than eyes. Hijab is just the scarf.
I think they were saying that the niqab ban could be justified for safety reasons, while you can’t really do that for hijab.
I recently learned that this ban on France doesn’t really including everything. Small crosses are okay. Some Turbans are okay. Jewish kids can go to Jewish schools. At least that’s what the wikipedia page said. I found the one about the cross interesting.
My initial reaction is the same as to the recent abaya ban in France. Opposition. I’ll need to read more about it though, because I think the motivations and outcomes will be different.
I was looking for that exact same thing.
Something tells me this news from Egypt will get a lot less press even though it probably is even more Important.
Again, we see the same male dominant governments, decide, for absolutely no necessary reasons, what women should and should not ware. While people respond with the same; deciding on behalf of other what is good for them. Saying hijabs, nigab, and othe religious clothing is oppression, is by itself a personal opinion. Making rule based on that, is oppression.
Instead of focusing on education itself, social support and protection, they put out laws that devide people further and distract them from major issues that’s going on.
Disgusting…
Yep, but worse of all it seems that some people would respond to any criticism of the ban as one being okay with oppressing women. Bans are shit, usually poorly motivated, and often motivated by politics and xenophobia. No one likes the slow way of social change, and people sometimes ignore the efforts already done by women in these communities (in other words, they are already liberating themselves with their own hands)
