Why Liberals Don’t Support A Burqa Ban

August 19, 2009 / 9:57 am • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

It would make sense that Feminists would oppose burqas because they are a tool of oppression for women: that is, burqas are specifically made to make a woman persona non grata. A burqa’s very purpose is to hide the woman and make her invisible as an individual. She is just not there.

But feminists, and liberals in general support the burqa. The woman has a “right to choose”. Just as liberals support abortion even though it’s used as a tool for gender genocide (gendercide?) against women in places like India and China where boys are valued over girls.

In both cases, gender suppression is valued over a misguided notion of “choice”. The baby obviously doesn’t have a choice. And the women in the Islamist cultures have little choice. People who know the religion know this:

“We don’t want to see burqas in Denmark. We simply can’t accept that some of our citizens walk around with their faces covered,” Naser Khader, a Danish member of parliament of Syrian-Palestinian extraction who was recently appointed spokesman for integration issues for the Conservative Party, told the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
In comments published on Sunday, Khader said the burqa is un-Danish and oppressive towards women and should be completely banned. He and his party say that what people do in their own homes is their business, but as soon as they walk into the public domain, one should be able to see their faces.

And interestingly, supposedly chauvinistic right leaning politicians see the problem with burqas:

Denmark is not the only European country where politicians have proposed a ban on burqas. French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently said that the burqa was “not welcome” in France, while France’s urban regeneration minister, Fadela Amara, told the Saturday edition of the Financial Times that she was in favor of the burqa “not existing in my country.” The Netherlands has also considered a ban on burqas.

The logic that liberals employ to support abortion and burqas actually encourages oppression of the weak and helpless. And the weak and helpless are often women and children.

So, the “right” to abort, the right to wear whatever one wants, obliterates the rights of the unborn child and the Muslim woman. A non-existent right becomes a way to oppress the very ones liberals wish to liberate. Isn’t it always “for the children” and “women are 2nd class citizens”? With liberals, children are expendable and women against oppressive burqas should just shut up.

Posted in Isms • Not America • Political Animals
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  • teqjack

    If you see a man wearing a ski mask in ninety degree heat, what comes to mind? Perhaps that he is a Tuareg (among whom I believe it is the men who are reuired to cover the face, optional for women)? Or that he is probably a criminal?

    I am not sure I would ban the likes of the burqa outright. Maybe, but I’d worry about exceptions for those who wear something of the sort for cosmetic purposes (eg to cover scares-chldren scarring) or other reasons.

  • beth manley

    I am inclined to think that liberals/elites have ‘values’ only of convenience. The Anti-war movement was really an anti-Bush movement, other than Cindy Sheehan, we see no objections even though the war continues as it did. Women’s rights are only for American Liberal Elite women. Any woman who chooses a different path is really, really not welcome, like Sarah Palin as far as they are concerned. She isn’t respected for her choices and in fact her choices are seen as a threat to the choices of weaker women. It’s really quite ironic that the women’s movement started from a position of strength, thoughtfulness and independent thinking, has become the same establishment they fought against, with just as rigid rules and expectations for inclusion as before, they are just different ones.

    The women’s movement now ‘tolerates’ aspects of a very intolerant religion, especially towards women, as if doing so makes them somehow more civilized?, gentile?, intelligent? than the rest of us, but they are really just avoiding the issues; just as they change the terminology from ‘baby’ to ‘fetus’ to ‘fetal material’ to make THEMSELVES more comfortable with their choices. Burqas are seen as ‘choice’ rather than symbols of the extreme oppression they actually are, and so it’s more comfortable. I would suggest that a burqa is far more oppressing than a bra ever was.

    If the elites succeed in taking down our economy with their silly ideas, I suspect THEY are the ones who are in for a BIG surprise when it comes to basic survival skills, should, say, the electical grid fail. Sarah Palin’s family will be fed, no matter what.

  • brs

    “So, the “right” to abort, the right to wear whatever one wants, obliterates the rights of the unborn child and the Muslim woman. ”

    Wow. I really can’t find the logic, but it’s kind of funny at least…

    This just shows the authoritarianism that the right embraces, all the while claiming to be the party of liberty and less gov’t. I would not support a ban on the Burqa, anymore than I’d support the gov’t curtailing any freedom of expression I find repugnant (and I do find it repugnant). But then again, I don’t believe in authoritarianism as the center of a political movement, so go figure.

    Whatever happened to trying to change you fellow citizen’s minds instead of reaching for gov’t bans? If a women is being held (or dressed) against her will, the gov’t should of course intervene.

    But let’s be clear: you’re for the GOV’T dictating to private citizens what they can and cannot wear! What’s the punishment, BTW? Lock ‘em up?

    Big gov’t conservatism: the worst of all worlds…..

  • Steve

    Unfortunately, there is no right to common sense, just the right to remain ignorant.

    It would be nice if the ignorant would also remain silent. In other words if you know nothing about something, then say nothing.

    All those persons who believe that women who wear burqas do so because of “choice” are exercising their right to be ignorant of Islam.

    Further, anyone who believes that women wear burqas by choice in 34 celsius weather, not only want their heads examining, but should be made to wear a burqa during the examination.

    Anyone who knows anything about Islam also knows that women in burqas are religious captives being “held against their wills”.

    I would not, however, ban burkas outright. I would give businesses the “right” to choose whether or not to have a burqa clad individual enter their premises.

    After all, if entering a bank, for example, wearing a ski-mask or a helmet is against the law in some places, why should an unidentified spectre be allowed in a public place? Who knows what is under a head-to-toe covering burka? Who is to say it is not another terrorists.

    Some one said “a breach of common sense is a breach of some law”. In this regard the burka has little going for it.

    Sometime ago in Pakistan during the seige of a mosque by soldiers, two wanted males inside the mosque were discovered trying to escape from the mosque dressed in, you guessed it, burqas. Many acts of terrorisms have been committed by burqa clad persons, simply because, I suppose, these women are less suspected than men. Why, I am not sure.

    Burqas, in my view, defy common sense, since they are ugly, obviously uncomfortable in hot climates, being usually made of dark, heavy materials, and potentially dangerous, since one can never say for sure who or what is under one of them.

  • fuster

    The usually-idiotic Melissa hasn’t failed to live down to her standards here.
    How a proponent of individual liberty would support a coercive intrusion into matters of personal clothing is of course idiotic.
    But if there’s a chance to use hypocrisy in support of arguing that other people are hypocrites, she’s not going fail to fail.
    Dumb and dishonest as ever.

  • anti-burqa, pro-choice

    As a Liberal, I am against the concept of the burqa. However, I am equally against any laws telling me how I can practice my religion – remember the First Amendment???

    Furthermore, punishing the women who are forced to wear the burqa will only relegate them to the confines of their homes. Banning the burqa will not eradicate the real problem of oppression in certain Muslim communities, just put a facile band-aid on it for all the xenophobes and right-wingers to feel comfortable with.

  • watcher

    The problem, fuster, is that this is not by any means a matter of choice by the women involved. Often it is imposed by people (men) who choose to be as unclothed as they want to be and behave as they like.

    A ‘society’ that insists on women being less valued than men isn’t to be admired, especially when that ‘society’ does not want women to do anything but bear children, may not go out without permission (in a burqa or not) and seeks to reduce them to objects who may never make a contribution to the world.

    The burqa is not personal clothing; it is a requirement of a male-dominated (and often misogynistic) religion, and a requirement that has often been enforced violently. I am sure that, once you rest your I-am-a-liberal-so-I-don’t-understand inflexibility and acknowledge your inability to understand larger issues, you may begin to see that having women scared to be themselves isn’t very good at all.

    But liberals have always been notorious for not facing up to issues. Their intellectualizing (usually pretty juvenile) is rooted in blame rather than solutions. It seeks to narrow opportunities in the name of some unproved ideals. Truth must never be revealed in case all their cheap idols fall down.

    Feminists themselves will only rail against the things they can cope with; better for them to pretend the world is at fault than look at matters that need real attention or show concern for oppressed women. Which is why they never speak out against the Islamist thugs who throw acid at schoolgirls wanting an education, never question the rituals of forced marriages of young females to old men and the ever-present ‘honor killings’ to protect the supposed shame of men.

    Remember, when a liberal speaks it is no more than the passing of hot air from swallowing half-digested dogmas and regurgitated bile.

  • fuster

    The problem, watcher, is that Melissa is FOS. Not speaking out in favor of government-imposed sanctions on wearing burkhas doesn’t make liberals hypocrites. In this country, you don’t use government to override religion without an overriding public interest.
    Are you old enough to remember when Catholic nuns wore similar garments?

    You also might consider that anyone using that last sentence of yours is likely as simple-minded as the other side.