It's just that currently that decision exists within a culture where oppressive [forces are] prominent. — Kenosha Kid

To a lesser or greater extent, this applies to any choice people make anyway.

It's not like it would be acceptable for, say, a male bank teller to come to work wearing a bikini. He probably wouldn't be stoned for it, but it would certainly not be good for his reputation and his CV.

Oppressive social forces are always at work, in every culture. The only difference is in how they externally manifest.

In the oh so civilized West, people can get fired for trifles. How's that not bad?

He probably wouldn't be stoned for it... — baker

A key distinction.

it would certainly not be good for his reputation and his CV — baker

But we're not talking about whether it's good for a woman's CV: we're talking about whether it would result in her having acid thrown in her face, or restrictions of freedoms, or domestic abuse, or loss of life. The man in a bikini example is directly comparable to a nun choosing not to wear her habit, not to a Muslim wearing a chador for fear of death or disfigurement. I find the false equivalence of these quite alarming.

Oppressive social forces — baker

I didn't have social forces in mind. I was referring to the oppression of an individual by another, e.g. her husband.

From Amnesty International:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2019/05/iran-abusive-forced-veiling-laws-police-womens-lives/
------------------------
".... This may sound like a fictional dystopia, but it is not. This is the reality for millions of women and girls in Iran, where the state heavily controls women’s bodies.

Under the country’s compulsory veiling laws, women and girls – even those as young as seven – are forced to cover their hair with a headscarf against their will. Women who do not are treated as criminals by the state.

Iran’s “morality” police place the entire female population – 40 million women and girls – under surveillance. These state agents drive around the city and have the power to stop women and examine their dress, scrupulously assessing how many strands of hair they are showing, the length of their trousers and overcoats, and the amount of make-up they are wearing.

The punishment for being seen in public without a headscarf includes arrest, a prison sentence, flogging or a fine - all this for the “crime” of exercising their right to choose what to wear.

Even when women cover their hair with a headscarf, they could still be deemed as having fallen short of forced veiling laws if they are, for example, showing a few strands of hair or their clothes are perceived as being too colourful or close-fitting. There are countless stories of the “morality” police slapping women across the face, beating them with batons and throwing them into police vans because of the way they are dressed.

But the policing of women’s bodies is not confined to the state. Iran’s abusive, discriminatory and degrading forced veiling laws have enabled not only state agents but also thugs and vigilantes who feel they have the duty and right to enforce the Islamic Republic’s values to harass and assault women in public. Consequently, on a daily basis, women and girls face random encounters with such strangers who beat and pepper-spray them, call them “whores” and make them pull their headscarves down to completely cover their hair." [italics added.]
-------------------

Just one of many such articles and references. I am at a loss to account for just how you-all can be as ignorant and stupid as you're being with the arguments you're presenting here, and disgusting. That there exist women who might choose to wear certain clothing is not in question - although one might very well wonder just exactly how they came to make that decision.

But we're not talking about whether it's good for a woman's CV: we're talking about whether it would result in her having acid thrown in her face, or restrictions of freedoms, or domestic abuse, or loss of life. The man in a bikini example is directly comparable to a nun choosing not to wear her habit, not to a Muslim wearing a chador for fear of death or disfigurement. I find the false equivalence of these quite alarming. — Kenosha Kid

It's not an equivalence. I'm saying those repercussions are on a spectrum.

The repercussions that someone in the West will face for not living up to dress standards are, of course, far milder than elsewhere in the world. However, even those repercussions can end up having lasting and even fatal consequences, such as becomnig homeless due to job loss and dying in the street.

My point is that we in the West are not free either, and we make many choices out of fear of repercussions.

exercising their right to choose what to wear — tim wood

Really? The constitution of Iran states that people can wear whatever they want??

I am at a loss to account for just how you-all can be as ignorant and stupid as you're being with the arguments you're presenting here, and disgusting. — tim wood

I'm not going to defend stances that you merely imagine I hold.

I've been polite to you so far, but you're abusing it.

The repercussions that someone in the West will face for not living up to dress standards are, of course, far milder than elsewhere in the world. — baker

They're not just milder, they're qualitatively different. If you accept a position at a firm with a dress code then, like a nun, you have weighed up whether conformity is something you're willing to adhere to get something you want.

However when weighing up whether or not to wear a headdress in public, you are weighing up whether or not the risk of insane and hateful punishment is worth taking.

Wanting a particular job is not on the same spectrum as not wanting acid in your face. That's the troubling aspect about this.

My point is that we in the West are not free either, and we make many choices out of fear of repercussions. — baker

There are milder, broader issues around things like dress and oppression. Transvestites are often attacked by homophobes. However a) it's comparatively rare, not systematic, and b) the victim has recourse to the law. The same coersion that forces women to wear particular clothing in public (which is far more totalitarian than just in the workplace) will typically either place them outside of the protection of the law, or else under a law that supports that mode of oppression. We're talking the kinds of countries that stone women to death for being raped. Even in the most comparable cases, it's qualitatively different.

I've been polite to you so far, but you're abusing it. — baker

And you're a seeming apologist for some of the worst practices in the world. My bad if I misunderstand. Please correct me. But being confirmed by lack of correction, I shall respond as I see fit, and the standard you're setting abysmally low.

Taking Iran as example, and there are many other countries in addition to Iran we might consider, what do you say? Does Iran suppress, oppress, and persecute women? Or do women in Iran enjoy the rights, freedoms, and liberties that are generally considered to be sine qua non in the rest of the world?

When those that choose not to are free from coersion and violent consequences, then coersion and violent consequences will cease to be factors in their decision about what to wear. There is a natural priority here. No one is saying that no woman would choose to wear chador. It's just that currently that decision exists within a culture where oppressive and violent misogyny is alarmingly prominent. — Kenosha Kid

I do agree with what you’ve said. My issue is with those in Western cultures telling Muslim women that they shouldn’t wear the chador, or who claim to be offended by women wearing it in a supposedly free, Western culture - this is what the discussion is about, is it not?

Just one of many such articles and references. I am at a loss to account for just how you-all can be as ignorant and stupid as you're being with the arguments you're presenting here, and disgusting. That there exist women who might choose to wear certain clothing is not in question - although one might very well wonder just exactly how they came to make that decision. — tim wood

Hold up - the question presented here was why people are offended by Muslim women wearing head-coverings but not Christian nuns doing the same. I took this as referring to Muslim women in a Western cultural setting, but you keep defending those offended by the wearing of chador from the perspective of a radical Islamic state.

I’m not trying to justify the conditions of women in a radical Islamic state. The fact that this oppression and violence is sanctioned at a state level is a serious international issue that needs to be addressed, but I don’t believe we will solve it by attributing our disgust or hatred to the wearing of the chador itself - particularly if we wish to claim our society to be ‘free’ by comparison.

I’m arguing for the freedom of women in Western culture to express their commitment to a faith that is as much about peace and love as Christianity. That not all Muslim communities are violent, misogynistic or oppressive towards women does not deny that some are - same with Christianity.

I’m saying that our point of difference from the states you’re so passionately against should not be about faith or what women can and can’t wear, but about how men interpret the appearance and behaviour of women. And the arguments here show that we have a long way to go before we can claim the high ground.

I’m arguing for the freedom of women in Western culture to express their commitment to a faith that is as much about peace and love as Christianity. — Possibility

I accept your qualification, but with reservations. There is no symmetry between nuns and Moslem women in general. And I am far from persuaded that Moslem women in the west have a free choice as to what they wear. No doubt some do - more power to them! But if free, in no way similar to the same freedom that non-Moslem women have, in that at least the latter do not have to think about burkas, chadors and the like, and likely don't, whereas Moslem women likely do.

Of some interest is the French effort to outlaw such clothing. When, where, under what circumstances, and even if they have, I am not up on. It seems extreme, but then so has Moslem violence in France been extreme. I imagine a 13-year-old French girl under the gun at home to wear her whatever whenever she goes out of the house, only to be under the French gun for wearing it. Not a good situation.

My issue is with those in Western cultures telling Muslim women that they shouldn’t wear the chador, or who claim to be offended by women wearing it in a supposedly free, Western culture - this is what the discussion is about, is it not? — Possibility

The former is wrong, for sure. Best case scenario, it's victim-blaming. The latter is because, at least in part, of genuine concern. Offense is an inappropriate response perhaps, but concern is not.

I accept your qualification, but with reservations. There is no symmetry between nuns and Moslem women in general. And I am far from persuaded that Moslem women in the west have a free choice as to what they wear. No doubt some do - more power to them! But if free, in no way similar to the same freedom that non-Moslem women have, in that at least the latter do not have to think about burkas, chadors and the like, and likely don't, whereas Moslem women likely do.

Of some interest is the French effort to outlaw such clothing. When, where, under what circumstances, and even if they have, I am not up on. It seems extreme, but then so has Moslem violence in France been extreme. I imagine a 13-year-old French girl under the gun at home to wear her whatever whenever she goes out of the house, only to be under the French gun for wearing it. Not a good situation. — tim wood

It’s not a symmetry, no. But I do think that some parallels can be drawn (carefully), especially to highlight the question of choice and of how men interpret what women wear as a message intended for men.

The French situation highlights my point: the issue is not what women wear, but how we interpret and respond to what women wear. The young girl is being told on all fronts and under no uncertain terms that what she wears is to be interpreted from an external (male) perspective, and is therefore not a choice she is ever free to make alone. You simply cannot argue for liberty and egalitarianism under these conditions.

I would argue that Muslim violence is supported in France by a culture that traditionally portrays a woman’s appearance as a message intended for men, who are entitled (encouraged?) to respond. It comes as no surprise, then, that they would be at the forefront of moves to outlaw Muslim head-coverings for women, further limiting a girl’s options.

My issue is with those in Western cultures telling Muslim women that they shouldn’t wear the chador, or who claim to be offended by women wearing it in a supposedly free, Western culture - this is what the discussion is about, is it not?
— Possibility

The former is wrong, for sure. Best case scenario, it's victim-blaming. The latter is because, at least in part, of genuine concern. Offense is an inappropriate response perhaps, but concern is not. — Kenosha Kid

Agreed. But check your concern and how you interpret it.

There is a tendency to focus on the ‘victim’ as the passive object of our concern, rather than as a free-thinking agent who has been limited under conditions of culturally perceived potentiality. Men want to rescue the victim from certain ‘forces’, without examining the conditions that attribute potentiality to these ‘forces’ rather than the agent. It is these conditions of perceived potentiality - in particular what a woman’s clothing means regarding the potential and value of interactions with her - that women are rarely given a say in as free-thinking agents, in any culture. THIS is an area of concern.

And you're a seeming apologist for some of the worst practices in the world. — tim wood

"Seeming" being the operative word.

My bad if I misunderstand. Please correct me.

No, that's not good enough.

But being confirmed by lack of correction, I shall respond as I see fit, and the standard you're setting abysmally low.

There you go. You think that with an attitude like you've been displaying here toward me and some others, you invite open discussion? Too bad this forum doesn't have the type of report function that some others have, because I've been wanting to report you from the beginning of this.

The standard of discussion that you're setting here is abysmally low and does not warrant much engagement.

I feel disgusted by your attitude.

There is a tendency to focus on the ‘victim’ as the passive object of our concern, rather than as a free-thinking agent who has been limited under conditions of culturally perceived potentiality. Men want to rescue the victim from certain ‘forces’, without examining the conditions that attribute potentiality to these ‘forces’ rather than the agent. It is these conditions of perceived potentiality - in particular what a woman’s clothing means regarding the potential and value of interactions with her - that women are rarely given a say in as free-thinking agents, in any culture. THIS is an area of concern. — Possibility

Exactly. And there's a name for this wanting to rescue others, seeing them as helpless victims: white knighting.
This, combined with being a social justice warrior makes it impossible to actually discuss any social problem, and makes sure that the conversation is kept on the surface of the issue, while the deeply embedded factors that bring about and maintain the very problem that the SJW and WK want to save the poor victim from, are left intact.

It's a way of maintaining the status quo while pretending to be acting for change.

They're not just milder, they're qualitatively different. If you accept a position at a firm with a dress code then, like a nun, you have weighed up whether conformity is something you're willing to adhere to get something you want. — Kenosha Kid

For one, the nun probably isn't weighing her options like that. I wouldn't assume nuns or prospective nuns generally do that. There was a time when I wanted to become a Catholic nun, and I can say from personal experience that the standards of dress were never an issue for me; it went without saying that if I were to become a nun, I would wear the habit or whatever standard attire would be prescribed by the order. I have also not felt in any way oppressed by the standard of dress for nuns; there was no fear involved in the prospect of wearing the habit. On the contrary, I looked forward to it, I felt proud about it. I dare say I am not the only one who thinks so.
Becoming and being a nun is just not for every woman, nor is every woman required to be one. Your generalizations don't apply.

For two, one needs a job, and the options are, for many people, rather limited. The dress code is sometimes a necessary evil. But because the job is a necessity, one views the requirements of the job in a similar way as one views the requirements of one's citizenship, which one received simply by being born into a certain country (as is the case for most people): it's a preexisting unilaterally imposed obligation over which one has no say.

However when weighing up whether or not to wear a headdress in public, you are weighing up whether or not the risk of insane and hateful punishment is worth taking.

I don't know. How many Muslim women have you interviewed about this?

From what you've said, I surmise that you're assuming that the baseline from which all women all over the world all over history start (or from which they should start) is the same: that they all want to live by a certain Western secular standard; and that if they can't live by that standard, they feel oppressed and only follow social norms out of fear.

This is where you're wrong.

Wanting a particular job is not on the same spectrum as not wanting acid in your face. That's the troubling aspect about this.

It's a false dichotomy to begin with.

There are milder, broader issues around things like dress and oppression. Transvestites are often attacked by homophobes. However a) it's comparatively rare, not systematic, and

b) the victim has recourse to the law.

Recourse to the law in "civilized" countries?
Where do you live???!

Yes, we have laws, on paper, but they're only as good as how much money and power one has.

The same coersion that forces women to wear particular clothing in public (which is far more totalitarian than just in the workplace) will typically either place them outside of the protection of the law, or else under a law that supports that mode of oppression. We're talking the kinds of countries that stone women to death for being raped. Even in the most comparable cases, it's qualitatively different.

Your most fundamental mistake is that you think that Western secular men are better feminists than any woman could ever be.

Heaven knows you feel a fierce moral indignation and your armor is shining on your white horse.

Agreed. But check your concern and how you interpret it.

There is a tendency to focus on the ‘victim’ as the passive object of our concern, rather than as a free-thinking agent who has been limited under conditions of culturally perceived potentiality. Men want to rescue the victim from certain ‘forces’, without examining the conditions that attribute potentiality to these ‘forces’ rather than the agent. — Possibility

The opposite seems to be the case here, where people are speaking up for a potentially oppressed person's apparent choices without reference to the limitations placed on those choices. Ultimately my argument is that you can only do this once the coersion is removed, e.g. the threat of violence is removed. Is your counter-argument that this coersion should be sustained? If not, and putting aside as unjustified your guesses as to men's motives and knowledge, it's difficult to see what your point is.

There was a time when I wanted to become a Catholic nun, and I can say from personal experience that the standards of dress were never an issue for me — baker

And why do you assume that wearing a suit and tie in my first job was any more of an issue for me? Point is, they're equivalent. They are equivalently an issue, and equivalently a non-issue.

Becoming and being a nun is just not for every woman, nor is every woman required to be one. — baker

Neither is becoming a middle manager of a stationary company, or a police officer, or a surgeon, or a soldier, or indeed anyone else who's vocation dictates their attire.

How many Muslim women have you interviewed about this? — baker

Funny, that's the second time I've hit this kind of logic. If I interviewed 100 and 90 said that they weren't concerned about the repurcussions of not wearing hijab because they wanted to wear it anyway, would that make it okay?

From what you've said, I surmise that you're assuming that the baseline from which all women all over the world all over history start (or from which they should start) is the same: that they all want to live by a certain Western secular standard; and that if they can't live by that standard, they feel oppressed and only follow social norms out of fear. — baker

That's not from what I've said, so you're being dishonest. As I've repeatedly said, women are being attacked, disfigured, raped, and killed for not wearing hijab. Male government figures have repeatedly pushed the viewpoint that these women deserve such. Do you agree? Is that okay by you? Because I believe, as I've said, that that kind of coersion needs to be removed before you can make any ab rectum claims about women having a choice.

It's a false dichotomy to begin with. — baker

No, it isn't and, as I said, it's extremely troubling that you think it is.

Recourse to the law in "civilized" countries?
Where do you live???! — baker

In the countries where nuns dress as per the OP.

Heaven knows you feel a fierce moral indignation and your armor is shining on your white horse. — baker

I don't think I need an especially elevated moral ground to not be okay with throwing acid in women's faces. I'm sorry you're not there yet.

There is a tendency to focus on the ‘victim’ as the passive object of our concern, rather than as a free-thinking agent who has been limited under conditions of culturally perceived potentiality. Men want to rescue the victim from certain ‘forces’, without examining the conditions that attribute potentiality to these ‘forces’ rather than the agent.
— Possibility

The opposite seems to be the case here, where people are speaking up for a potentially oppressed person's apparent choices without reference to the limitations placed on those choices. Ultimately my argument is that you can only do this once the coersion is removed, e.g. the threat of violence is removed. Is your counter-argument that this coersion should be sustained? If not, and putting aside as unjustified your guesses as to men's motives and knowledge, it's difficult to see what your point is. — Kenosha Kid

This threat of violence is perceived as a ‘force’ that needs to be removed, and I do understand how you can think it’s that simple. But simply removing a ‘force’ as such doesn’t turn an object into an agent, it only leaves the object open to new ‘forces’. A denial of agency is a necessary condition of coercion - this is where the real problem lies.

But solving this problem doesn’t lend itself to an action-hero scenario. In fact there is no way to predict or control what follows, making it difficult to evaluate the ‘success’ of our actions, let alone get any form of thanks for it.

And you're a seeming apologist for some of the worst practices in the world.
— tim wood
"Seeming" being the operative word.

My bad if I misunderstand. Please correct me.
No, that's not good enough. — baker

Don't waste your time on me. Take on the Amnesty international report cited earlier, copied here:
"

From Amnesty International:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2019/05/iran-abusive-forced-veiling-laws-police-womens-lives/
------------------------
".... This may sound like a fictional dystopia, but it is not. This is the reality for millions of women and girls in Iran, where the state heavily controls women’s bodies.

Under the country’s compulsory veiling laws, women and girls – even those as young as seven – are forced to cover their hair with a headscarf against their will. Women who do not are treated as criminals by the state.

Iran’s “morality” police place the entire female population – 40 million women and girls – under surveillance. These state agents drive around the city and have the power to stop women and examine their dress, scrupulously assessing how many strands of hair they are showing, the length of their trousers and overcoats, and the amount of make-up they are wearing.

The punishment for being seen in public without a headscarf includes arrest, a prison sentence, flogging or a fine - all this for the “crime” of exercising their right to choose what to wear.

Even when women cover their hair with a headscarf, they could still be deemed as having fallen short of forced veiling laws if they are, for example, showing a few strands of hair or their clothes are perceived as being too colourful or close-fitting. There are countless stories of the “morality” police slapping women across the face, beating them with batons and throwing them into police vans because of the way they are dressed.

But the policing of women’s bodies is not confined to the state. Iran’s abusive, discriminatory and degrading forced veiling laws have enabled not only state agents but also thugs and vigilantes who feel they have the duty and right to enforce the Islamic Republic’s values to harass and assault women in public. Consequently, on a daily basis, women and girls face random encounters with such strangers who beat and pepper-spray them, call them “whores” and make them pull their headscarves down to completely cover their hair." [italics added.]
------------------- — tim wood

But solving this problem doesn’t lend itself to an action-hero scenario. In fact there is no way to predict or control what follows, making it difficult to evaluate the ‘success’ of our actions, let alone get any form of thanks for it. — Possibility

You seem pretty dedicated to casting a man's dislike of violence against women purely in terms of self-glory. I can't really do anything with or about that. It's not only obnoxious, it's a conversational dead-end.

Iranian women have been forced to wear hijab since 1979. In 2016, an Iranian woman named Masih Alinejad dared to film herself driving (Iran is off and on about women driving) without hijab as an effective call for freedom. She started a movement as a mass of followers (millions on social media) took to the streets in protest against this thing they apparently choose freely to wear. Many of those women have been arrested, imprisoned for up to 10 years with up to an additional 74 lashes, and referred for psychiatric treatment. They have been assaulted in the street by police officers who have been commended by Iran's police commander. Masih Alinejad herself can't currently return to Iran because she'll be arrested, and she has received daily death threats for years.

A few years ago in Afghanistan, four women were beaten and arrested by police for insufficiently covering up. One of them, who was wearing a burqa but no face mesh, was beaten unconscious. They were then sentenced to severe floggings.

In 2016 in Saudi Arabia, a woman posted a photo of herself on Twitter that resulted in calls from conservative Saudis for her to be beheaded. She was arrested and imprisoned for three years, thankfully avoiding the lash. Activists who supported her were then arrested, imprisoned and, according to Amnesty, assaulted and raped while in prison. Her husband was then arrested.

In 2016 in Somalia, Ruqiya Farah Yarow was shot dead for not wearing the veil. Somalia is probably the worst offender for enforcing the veil, with women routinely being beaten, stripped naked, and raped for not wearing hijab, even if they are police officers or doctors or soldiers.

Dozens of women in Pakistan are attacked with acid each year, one of the main reasons being not satisfactorily covering their hair (the other being rejecting a proposal of marriage). Not no hijab, just not good enough hijab. Acid attacks against women for inappropriate dress are also common in Iran, and not unknown in the west.

Worst of all, none of these are atypical.

It's really not like being a nun.

Yes, there a millions of women who choose to dress this way, and too often they too are attacked by the same kind of dickhead men in the west. But that's not a reason to brush under the carpet the millions of women who are forced to wear it. For something that's supposed to be like wearing a nun's habit, there's an awful lot of women protesting being forced to wear it, an awful lot of men violently punishing them for not wearing it, and an awful lot of state, police and judicial effort expended on mandating the wearing of it.

First off, I'm neither attacking nor defending a side on the matter of outlawing Moslem women's dress code. What I do want to convey is the glaring inconsistency in allowing Christian nuns to wear their choice of clothes [clothes that bear an uncanny resemblance to the Moslem chador] and then taking umbrage at the Moslem chador. The fact is the former doesn't upset us because we believe it's considered a sign of virtuous piety. Moslems too consider the chador as a garment for virtuous women. Shouldn't we then extend them the same courtesy we do to Christian nuns?

Either that or condemn the Christian nuns' habit too as a deplorable mark of oppression.

What I do want to convey is the glaring inconsistency in allowing Christian nuns to wear their choice of clothes [clothes that bear an uncanny resemblance to the Moslem chador] and then taking umbrage at the Moslem chador. — TheMadFool

(My emphasis.) There is a glaring inconsistency here, and you obviously know about it because you avoided reference to a Muslim woman's choice.

glaring inconsistency in allowing Christian nuns to wear their choice of clothes [clothes that bear an uncanny resemblance to the Moslem chador] and then taking umbrage at the Moslem chador. — TheMadFool

You're right, how dare those women, those Christian women, choose their clothing! You're obviously a man on the right track: those women need permission! And of course you're no Moslem yourself, or I doubt you are, But clearly you're a Christian version. Those Christian women, they don't fear enough - but maybe you could teach them. Do you? Do you teach the women in your own life? Do you make sure the women in your life have free choice, for so long as you allow them to choose what you tell them to?

Or alternatively, are you proposing that it's the garments themselves that determine the matter? Please make this clear, because you're waist deep in sucking nonsense and you're still digging!

But solving this problem doesn’t lend itself to an action-hero scenario. In fact there is no way to predict or control what follows, making it difficult to evaluate the ‘success’ of our actions, let alone get any form of thanks for it.
— Possibility

You seem pretty dedicated to casting a man's dislike of violence against women purely in terms of self-glory. I can't really do anything with or about that. It's not only obnoxious, it's a conversational dead-end. — Kenosha Kid

That’s not what I’m doing at all - I’m simply pointing out a perspective that is conveniently overlooked in these discussions because it calls out the existing patriarchy, and therefore the perceived ‘norm’. Your defensiveness and indignation is understandable - I’m asking you to look honestly and humbly at your motivations for speaking out against the level of coercion that exists in the lives of Muslim women. That isn’t easy, and I’m neither surprised nor offended by this kind of response, which I’m sure frustrates you all the more.

I want to be clear that my comments here should not be construed as an attack on men, but call for a critical evaluation of the systems of value and perceived potentiality that perpetuate the coercion of women. I’m sure it feels like an attack when your cultural identity is constructed from it, but I’m not going to apologise for that. You are more than your cultural identity.

It’s a ‘conversational dead-end’ because you can neither admit nor deny what I’m arguing here. To admit it would be to recognise that you contribute to it, and that the structures maintain your own value and perceived potentiality. To deny it would be to undermine the purpose of your participation in this discussion - to support an end to these incidents of violence and threats against women.

And the fact that I am a woman does in no way give me the high ground here - I contribute to these conditions as much as you do, only in different ways. And I have deliberately not responded to @baker’s suggestions that women are complicit in all of this because I am in the minority here, and therefore neither going to paint a target on my back so you all feel less victimised, nor get defensive about something I recognise to be true. I use the pronoun ‘we’ to include myself, and women in general, in perpetuating the conditions of coercion.

That said, I’m also questioning the predicted effectiveness of removing these structures of coercion in relation to women’s agency. While I recognise that they do absolutely need to be removed, the idea that this removal solves the problem is naive at best. We need to recognise that these situations of coercion are symptoms of a larger issue.

I wish that everyone wasn’t so defensive, it would make these discussions much more productive. I genuinely do not mean to attack those who have engaged with me here, but I do think a dose of humility is in order. I hope it’s not too much to ask.

All good stuff. Cheers.

Here's a thing to keep in mind: it's the laws of particular countries that are wrong, not the clothing they command.

Sometimes this gets mixed up.

Here's a thing to keep in mind: it's the laws of particular countries that are wrong, not the clothing they command.

Sometimes this gets mixed up. — Banno

Well said, but just to be more clear, it's not just laws but cultures, especially patriarchal cultures, especially those that back up their unofficial laws with misogynistic violence.

There are plenty of countries like Indonesia that wear headdress without violent enforcement, where it is not only a matter of tradition but of fashion, and I'm sure that when we see those none of us are remotely perturbed.

There are no difference between them other than what people attribute to them by being outside viewers. Not able to separate different types of observations we attribute oppression to one and choice to the other. While the truth is that both are indoctrinated in faith and oppressed by the doctrines of society. The same as people being against Minaret songs but ok with church bells. People in western society are fine with what they are used to and attribute less oppression to what's existed for long in our culture, while calling other cultures oppressed based on being outsiders observing them.

Truth is, oppression is not felt by Muslims in the same way as we think they "should" and we are blind to the invisible oppression we enforce within our own cultural norms. Many don't get annoyed by church bells and nuns, but would get annoyed by Minaret songs and Niqabs. Many don't see how society and Christian religion indoctrinate people into these positions, but clearly see how Muslim nations oppress and indoctrinate their people. It's easy to see systems from the outside than spot the systems we live in.

The many conflicts and problems we spot in Muslim nations almost always have more to do with people in power using religion to oppress and control. The problems are always means of power, not the religion itself. Religion is a powerful tool to control people far more effectively than anything else.

So the more interesting question is; If we remove systems of power, what would become of religion? How does practice, rituals and ways of living look if religion as a means of power is changed to being a religion with pure choice. Meaning, no one force religion on anyone, not their children, not a stranger, not the people.

Before saying these people have a "choice" or define the differences between the two by a scale of "feeling" oppressed, we must break down how people are formed into making either a choice to be, indoctrinated or forced to be something.

All of us are products of a deterministic society, nature and nurture where even nature is formed by the nurture of past people. So to define differences we need to detach ourselves from the shackles of this determinism in order to purely objectively observe the nature of being and understand that there are no differences between the two, it's only a narrative we've formed to be comfortable in existence.

I’m asking you to look honestly and humbly at your motivations for speaking out against the level of coercion that exists in the lives of Muslim women. — Possibility

Evidence presented in this thread that the level of coercion is extreme and state, religion, and culturally supported. Please address those.