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On Minority Rights and on Beliefs | 546 comments (546 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Dispassionate enough? (none / 0)

So this is all okay as long as children are indoctrinated into sex segregation (and taught to have pity of people who are not part of their community) from an early age?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:02:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Grr (none / 0)

Do you still propose to alter a consistent and complex style of raising children with a ban on headscarves?

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:08:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 1)

Okay, assume we allow headscarves. Do you think this kind of segregational indoctrination should be encouraged to persist? What prevents people from arguing genital mutilation is part of the culture or that it's okay because girls have been taught it is necessary from an early age? Are you okay with your Muslm neighbours pitying your daughter or granddaughter and despising you (respectively, your daughter) for raising them as whores?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:11:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

No, it should not be encouraged to persist. Emphasis on encourage (or discourage), not ban. It is a matter of public debate. I don't think any of our neighbours despise us or think we were whores, even though some let their daughters little freedom. I think you overrate how often behaviour or attitudes like that occur.
FGM is criminal behaviour, and the suspicion of a planned FGM would lead to the removal of the child from the family--rightly so. An approach of respect for different cultures is not the same as tolerating every behaviour. A conservative to reactionary attitude towards women's and girls' sexuality is not enough reason to remove a child.

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:36:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

So this is okay too? German court rules Muslim girls must join swimming classes (Reuters)

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:41:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

we have already had that

Don't you remember? :)

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:55:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

No, actually, I must not have been paying attention. But there you said

If parents want to keep things from their children--for religious or whatever reasons--the children lack independence when they grow up. I find the principle right to limit the rights of parents

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:58:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Yes. But enforcing that children take part in the normal lessons is something else than removing them from the family. And absolutely nothing positive happens if you ban headscarves. What do the children (or their parents) learn from such a ban?

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:04:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

That they can do what they like at home, but not in public.

Why is this such a problem for you?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:29:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Isn't that obvious? A ban on headscarves does not solve a single problem of doubtful attitudes in families towards girls sexuality. It just caters for the needs of authoritarian natives who feel uneasy with all these immigrants.

"they can do what they like at home, but not in public." Indeed. And authoritarian parents will take care that their daughters stay at home as much as they can enforce. It is a problem for me because it is a problem for vulnerable girls.

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 05:05:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Wait - so according to your logic, if authoritarians parents are allowed to force their children to wear headscarves at school, that's going to make them less authoritarian?

What?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 05:47:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (4.00 / 2)

Katrin was actually approaching the point that I feel is what really counts but was missing from the discussion so far. I mean, I don't buy that it is that much of a shock for girls to remain unveiled in front of classmates they grew up with at school, and I don't see why the family's attempts to force children to conform should take precedence to similar attempts by wider society (you live in both), but what does a veil ban at schools mean in practice? How is it enforced?

If (as it happened in France) the girl insisting on wearing a veil is fired, then the state most definitely didn't achieve conformity and didn't save the girl from her community's male-chauvinist authoritarianism. What's more, I think the message sent by those implementing such a ban has nothing to do with women's freedom, instead, the real intention is to send a message to Arab (men) that they should "go back home" where they are free to continue their alien cultural practices (including oppressing women).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 02:08:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Hmm, so what's the alternative? Physical coercion? I think not.

Those who consistently fail to conform to a school's rules end up getting expelled. This is universal (except in jurisdictions who go for physical coercion instead).

Sure, a little bit of negotiation, of give-and-take is advisable, but that requires a degree of leeway and flexibility on both sides (not an outstanding characteristic of either Islamic fundamentalists or of the Education Nationale... nevertheless, solutions have sometimes been found on a local basis)

Then, you get the problem of de-schooled children. Often contradictory with the obligation of education below a certain age. In the general case, this is fudged by an expelled student enrolling in another school, and hopefully changing their ways. In the case of headscarves, being a simple yes-or-no option, that isn't helpful (except as a way of getting around individual antagonisms or pride).

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 04:51:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (4.00 / 2)

Hmm, so what's the alternative? Physical coercion?

Ah come on. First, schools have a long list of possible measures, including calling on the parents. Second, how far you go should depend on the type of offense. The way I see it, wearing a veil is no worse than wearing long hairs in the sixties.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 05:01:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 1)

Well, you can guarantee that in every case of expulsion, they ran through the long list of measures, including discussion with the parents.

But it's a binary decision at the end : either covered hair is allowed, or it isn't; either the parents are prepared to countenance uncovering, or they aren't. There is no "he promises to be good from now on" type leeway.

What's more, organisationally, schools don't have autonomy to fix local rules. Certainly, short-term permissive fixes have been tried, in some cases; but if anybody (teachers, parents) object, the hierarchy will intervene to enforce strict application.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 05:33:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (4.00 / 2)

you can guarantee that in every case of expulsion, they ran through the long list of measures

Really?

France and the veil - the dark side of the law

"When the headmistress saw that I was wearing a veil outside school she told me that I couldn't wear my long skirt. She said I was to dress properly, with jeans and a top, or to leave school. So I left." Nineteen-year-old Aurélie, from Paris, knew that there were no grounds to expel her from school - the 2004 law that bans wearing "conspicuous religious symbols" in French schools only applies to headscarves, it doesn't extend to long skirts - but she couldn't face the confrontation. "She [the headmistress] was telling me all sort of things, that I wouldn't find work, that God wouldn't feed me. A counsellor told me she was saying nasty things about Muslims in the staff room. I thought it was unfair", she says, "Why could I not be free to practise my religion and go to school?"

...

Following the 2004 law forbidding religious "conspicuous religious signs at school" (of which 3 Sikh boys were the collateral victims during the first year of application), Tevanian and others decided to make their own assessment of the law. They counted the girls who had been expelled for wearing the veil but also those who had resigned or failed to show up at the start of the school year and interviewed those who had agreed to take their veil off. Very quickly, they found numerous abuses of the law: cases where veiled girls had been denied the right to sit at an exam or to enrol at university, cases where veiled mothers had been barred access to a school when they had come to pick up their child's end of term report - or barred from accompanying a school outing. And also cases where banks and gyms had refused access to veiled women. Actions against the veil had multiplied in higher education, in the workplace and in in public spaces

But it's a binary decision at the end : either covered hair is allowed, or it isn't

I would dispute even that. The same way you can hide your cross in your shirt you can also wear a bandanna other girls wear as purely a fashion item, but even this wasn't acceptable in the Islamophobic craze.

What's more, organisationally, schools don't have autonomy to fix local rules

What local rules do you mean? Are you speaking about the pre-2004 situation, or some rules above the ban pushed for and enacted by the conservative national government (with Socialist support) in 2004?

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 06:13:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Well. In the case you cite, the girl was not expelled -- she left school because she couldn't face the confrontation. Not a good outcome, but not a counter-example to what I said.

With respect to the 2004 law, at the beginning of the 2005 school year Tevanian enumerates 45 girls expelled (plus three Sikh boys), and around 60 who dropped out of the public system to either go to private schools or follow correspondance courses. And an uncounted number of girls who took off their hair coverings and went back to school.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 07:13:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (4.00 / 2)

the girl was not expelled

Your claim was about the process, not the end result. And the headmaster didn't "run through the long list of measures" but crossed several lines: attacking on the basis of head-scarves worn outside school and long skirts. You didn't react to the bandanna point, but it's the same with long skirts.

Tevanian enumerates

And what do these numbers mean to you? The point is "numerous abuses of the law", as a counter to your claim of due course.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 07:54:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

hmm... what was my claim again?

Well, you can guarantee that in every case of expulsion, they ran through the long list of measures, including discussion with the parents.

Not an expulsion. The reported attitude of the principal is, of course, deplorable.

"numerous abuses of the law"

I sort of feel I've covered this territory in this post. I have sort of implicitly apologised on behalf of the Education Nationale, but I don't feel I can assume personal responsibility for its deeply dysfunctional nature (in general, you should avoid asking the EN to implement any policy, because they will fuck it up).

I wish it would be possible to evaluate the result, ten years after, of the law banning religious dress in schools. Perhaps the effects were negative overall; perhaps a permissive attitude would have brought better outcomes (but who defines what are desirable outcomes?) It would be hard to find objective investigators; everyone has strong opinions on the subject. But I wish it were possible to measure, qualitatively and/or quantitatively, changes in attitudes towards Moslems, or changes in behaviours among Moslems (particularly between boys and girls). Because this is the big unspoken, unmentionable corollary to the debate about Moslem girls and why they must remain modestly dressed : the extreme assymetry in rights and expectations between the sexes.

It is no accident that the recent scare campaign against the proposal to introduce "gender studies" in primary schools provoked such a strong reaction from Moslem parents in particular. Questioning gender identity and the associated rights and duties of the sexes does not go down well among working-class Moslems. In the whole question of the integration/insertion of Moslems in French society, in my opinion this is probably the toughest nut to crack.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 09:28:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

I don't buy that it is that much of a shock for girls to remain unveiled in front of classmates they grew up with at school,

No? How would you feel if your clothes became banned, and after the ban comes into force you had to face the people who know how you dressed while you were free? Not humiliated?

by Katrin on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 04:59:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 1)

I wrote remain unveiled, you try to equate that with the removal of a previously worn cloth.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 05:16:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (4.00 / 2)

Some further points.

From what I read on the situation in France, family pressure was by far not the only motivation for girls to want to wear a veil in school: some saw it as a way to reduce sexual harassment from aggressive boys, and (paradoxically) as a fashion item. While I see these as weak reasons to change dress codes, at the same time, you can't say that the state saves these girls from oppression (or, less grandiosely, shows them the possibility of and practices them in a different way) by enforcing the ban.
School dress codes are one thing, but burqa bans are much worse: those really only lead to oppressed women getting even more oppressed by always staying home.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 05:24:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Wrong answer.

- That they can do what their parents like when under the authority of their parents, and do what the school requires when they are at school.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 04:37:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Good article on that judgement (in German)

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:10:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

So the Burquini is the solution in Germany, but banned in France?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:34:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

A bit unimaginative, all these bans, aren't they?

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 05:08:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 1)

Just as imaginative as the religious compulsions and familial slutshaming.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 04:22:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Why does my link not land in the exact spot it should land? I clicked on the "time -stamp" of the post I wanted to link to.

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:00:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

I don't know: link.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:03:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (4.00 / 2)

I think it needs the #number (#13 if you were aiming for dvx quoting from BBC) on the end (shown if you hover over the timestamp). Test without and with. Yes, that is it.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:06:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

Thanks

by Katrin on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 04:08:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (4.00 / 2)

I don't know if you have ever noticed, but children are able to accomodate vastly different contexts, environments, value systems, etc and switch effortlessly from one to the other, without analysing the contradictions.

For example : bilingual children (including those whose parents don't speak the local language but learn it at school); those whose home environments put no value on learning or reading, but acquire these habits at school; battered children who learn to feel safe and empowered at school; children of divorced parents who have very different lifestyles; and so on.

Some people imagine that children will be confused by such differences. With respect to bilingualism, for example, people with no experience of the question are often convinced that it must slow children's development. In fact, it helps if one is consistent, using one language or the other with certain people or in certain situations, rather than mixing arbitrarily. But "religious" with the family, "secular" in school is exceedingly clear, and not a source of confusion for the child.

I have always considered this capacity to manage differences a very positive thing : enriching for the child when the different environments carry positive things; and giving the child an alternative when one of the environments carries bad stuff. It empowers the child to recognise that there are alternatives in life, and helps them choose between them when the time is right, or to determine their own path.

If, on the other hand, you find it important that your children should understand that there is only one valid value system or path in life, then it is important to limit exposure to the alternatives, and/or to forbid the child from experiencing them.

So, yeah, for my part, I propose to propose an alternative, in the school environment, to a consistent and complex style of raising children with a ban on headscarves in schools.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 03:47:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Grr (none / 0)

So, yeah, for my part, I propose to propose an alternative, in the school environment, to a consistent and complex style of raising children with a ban on headscarves in schools.

If that, A BAN, is a proposal for you, I shudder to think what you might mean when you consider force.

by Katrin on Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 05:21:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Dispassionate enough? (4.00 / 4)

You mean if it is ok to shame us into believing that we need clothes even in a tropical paradise? No, I don't reallly think so, but I also think that banning clothes is an ineffective way of changing values.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Feb 5th, 2014 at 03:11:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

On Minority Rights and on Beliefs | 546 comments (546 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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