Dress codes in society

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by S.A.M., Nov 12, 2010.

  1. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    You have perhaps forgotten nearly the entire Islamic world, where bans on insufficiently conservative dress range from societal to legal?

    Edit: I note quadra has already addressed this point.

    Why should they be? Their owners can simply let them out without such attire.

    I would add Palestine to his list, of course. From your comments, I note that you have essentially brushed over the point as if it were of no account, which is a different kind of avoidance for you.

    Interesting point here. I agree with you that it is their husbands, cousins, brothers and fathers who ought to be arrested. A subtle point.

    I can scarcely believe you cite a source drawn from (and as likely "imagined up by") Ahmed Bedier from CAIR, of all sources. Was there none more reliable?
     
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  3. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    On this planet? Alive at this moment? No one knows if any other ape before us was naked. . . .

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    The way water runs off the back, arms and legs of all of the other apes is not hydrodynamic. . . Almost all other apes can't stand the water, what does that mean? :shrug:
     
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  5. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    You know, after reading through this thread, this reasoning makes perfect sense now. I used to think those Europeans were being a bit fickle and, well, stupid. But then, over here in America, we aren't having Muslim riots, so we can't really say anything. I can see now where that would start to seem awfully threatening after all the violence. . . .

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  7. Lori_7 Go to church? I am the church! Registered Senior Member

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    i have been forced to wear a uniform in the past, but it doesn't have to be forced conformity to be conformity.

    i understand that some uniforms, like fatigues, military, or athletics are both functional/utilitarian, and also for recognition, and that's important.

    but not even referring to a uniform per se, take the normal "business/business casual" dress. blah. i remember when i was in college, my mom's car was in the shop so i went to pick her up at GE where she worked. and i was sitting there watching all of the drones file out of the building. they all looked the same. i was appalled. particularly because i was in business college at the time.
     
  8. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Here's another haw-haw to ponder.

    Some while back as I recall, I and a few of the other inmates were having a little tête-à-tête about the whole "Death to Amereeka!/Death to Israel!" thingy that seems to go on at otherwise awesome parades of rockets on sleds and Haij trips down Saudi Arabia way (one can imagine the idiotic chatter of the attendees of the latter: "Dude, we like totally chanted 'death to America', dude!" "Dude! I knaw! It was righteous!"). I was told - damn my cultural unawareness! - that this was just 'something they did'; like, totally innocuous, man. It's just like a cultural thing, man! and so forth. When I wondered what the reaction might be over there if I had rallies with similar slogans over here, but in reverse - say, 'Death to Iran! Death to Islam!' - I was given a 'whatever'. Yet I also recall the grande mal freakout the Islamic world experienced when it was rumoured that someone had so much as farted on a Koran. So one wonders at the double-standard scenario and what it means. Odd, no?
     
  9. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    In a similar vein, when I visited Tehran in the lates 1990s and was waiting for my bags to appear on the airport carousel I pondered a very large, garish propaganda painting covering one wall of the arrival hall. This was ablaze in colour, with complex military scenes and depictions of battlefield devastation and the like. There was writing in Farsi, so I asked one of the porters what it said. He replied, "A thousand cruel deaths to the Western infidels, may they suffer in hell for eternity." Then he added, in very genuine tone, "Do you need any help with your bags sir?"

    So perhaps it just is something they do.
     
  10. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, in the general sense, sure. Sorry: I'm not implying that everyone wants Western infidesl to die a thousand cruel deaths and be burned in Hell for eternity. Rather, I readily believe the conservatives (whatever one interprets them to be) as actually wanting this.
     
  11. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Nice try :]

    Yes, you are.

    Which would be "not at all." Societies are not "entitled" to anything that is not demonstrably beneficial in secular terms. The rest is the exercise of raw power, not justice.

    They are honest and straightforward - no hiding or pretense involved. You'd probably notice that if you dealt with the situation as it actually is, rather than spending your time addressing what some asshole somewhere said about the Ground Zero Mosque, or running down speculative rabbit-holes about housebound wives.

    And that's a specious argument.

    In the first place the harm there is speculative - you have no actual reports of any women being caused to quit school, do you?

    In the second place you haven't addressed the upside - and you should be addressing the hypothetical upside that the French hold to, if you're even slightly interested in having your bombast taken seriously. It is telling that you will not so much as aknowledge the possibility that some of these women are indeed oppressed, and might be advanced by this law. You seem outright blind to the possibility, in fact.

    Paris Hilton doesn't flout social convention. On the contrary, she caters to the most craven sexist conceptions of American women. She lacks self-possession, and so any power associated with her is not hers. She's an object, and one noted as much for its idiocy and pliancy as its sex appeal.

    You could just about fit the things that you don't know about the West into the Grand Canyon. Which would be okay if said ignorance worked as some kind of check on your willingness to advance bald assertions, and to premise bigoted positions on them.

    Not sure, although it seems to be accepted by society and at least tolerated by the police - who make a point of not similarly tolerating homosexual encounters in public spaces, in most places.

    You have no grounds to claim knowledge of the women in question. They're people you've never met, in a country you know little about. I know as much about their mindset as you do.

    I could give exactly zero shits about your "doubts," since you have no authority to speak for the women in question. I could as well say that I doubt that a single woman will not be overjoyed to be freed of sexist bondage and patriarchal control. None of that would represent an argument.

    But I will point out that the ability to "see without being seen" is a primary component of why face veils are held as unacceptable in French culture. It establishes a power imbalance between people, and thereby abridges equality. It keeps veiled women at a remove from society, even in public spaces. Not to mention that the gaze is a central object of western feminist criticism - you should read up on this stuff before wading into a debate about it (and preferably leave your stilts at home, too).

    And maybe - no, definitely - this baseless speculation doesn't deserve to be paid any attention.

    That's silly.

    That sounds like a massive step backwards. That would be even worse for everyone than your worst-case hypotheticals wherein French Muslim women feel oppressed by bans on burqas and stay at home.

    The Nair are matrilineal, not matriarchal. Those two things are very different. There is no shortage of matrilineal societies that are patriarchal - such is the typical arrangement in societies where the men's work takes them far from home for extended periods of time (sailors are a prime example).

    And you should know better than to try to snow me with examples from Kerala.

    What does "a majority in the state" mean? In a matriarchal society, you'd expect to see men subjected to similar forms of oppressive social control.

    Won't it? And in the first place, perhaps those attitudes do not need much in the way of quelling, since they stop short of interfering with the freedoms of Muslims to build a community center near Ground Zero, and otherwise worship as they please?

    There are lots of different groups in the USA who hate one another. That's not a problem provided they respect one another's freedoms and let everyone get on with their lives in peace.

    Who knows, or cares? That is a single anecdote, without any basis for drawing any larger influences. For all we know the boy has a crush on her that he doesn't know how to deal with, and is acting out.

    Meanwhile, I've personally known dozens of observant Muslim women who wear headscarves and have no trouble attending school or working without harassment. And I've known dozens more Muslim women who are thrilled at the chance to shed the veil, wear sexy clothes, publicly drink and flirt with boys, and generally act like a free individual, afforded by their immigration here. It always rattles me when I see their holiday pictures back home, and have a difficult time spotting them in their veils and bulky dresses.

    She'll get a ticket for a small fine and be asked to remove the face veil when in public.

    Why do you assume that some French cop is going to jump on her with a truncheon or something? And why do you think that anyone is going to accept such a wildly slanted presumption?

    Why don't you try dealing in reality for a change? It might be more work, but it will piss of your interlocutors a lot less, since you won't be constantly trying to make them account for figments of your imagination.
     
  12. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    And see, again, the REAL issue isn't about dress code, you are once again dodging the issue, right at the point where you just about come clean to admit what the issue really is. The issue is about getting along, and cultural assimilation.

    What most people want to do, is just get along. Individual human cultures prevent this though. Cultures want to enforce their world view on everyone else. That is where we get into trouble, and where everyone else gets worried.

    You S.A.M., are an awesome, and VERY intelligent person, who has NO PROBLEM letting other people hold their own views. From your own experience, and from the many years you have been on this board alone, you must have seen, that unfortunately there are many people in this world, that are not happy unless others share their view of reality. They are threatened unless all conform to their views. Why else would some of the warped and silly laws we have in the world today exist? Why else the dogma in religious doctrine? Are the great books of religion divinely inspired? Of that I have no doubt. But is the influence of human ego poisoning them with cultural bias as well? To be sure. . . New religions would not spring forth, and atheists would not be so abundant were this not the case.

    We are at a state in our human evolution now, where we must study ALL the great religions, and the lesser ones as well, to discover their similarities and find out that which is divinely inspired, and grow out of that which is backward, barbaric, and archaic. Things like dress codes, diet prohibitions, arbitrary separations between peoples, castes and cultures, and claims to having a monopoly on truth, these have no place in the modern world, and are clearly the work of the ego of a primitive human mind, NOT that of a divine inspiration.

    Beyond that, you can blow the dust off of Fraggle Rocker's answer, there isn't much more to it than that if you refuse to see much more beyond it than just a "dress code" issue. Having studied Cultural Anthropology in depth at Uni, his answer is spot on, and what I was trying to tell you earlier, it doesn't get more plain than that. Gold star to Fraggle Rocker. :bravo:
     
  13. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    Well? IMHO? This "something they do", is about as silly, and makes about as much sense as the turf wars these teenage dirt bag gangs have over the drug lands in Saginaw and Detroit. They're both bad, and both nasty.

    What's the difference? Neither of them can claim they're the good guys. The Muslims want to claim they have god on their side and do it because of god, what a load of horse shit. God is supposed to equal love. And the other side is supposed to believe in the universal declaration of human rights. . . secular humanism. . . in the end. . . love. In reality? it's the "birth place" of Machiavellian philosophy, which is what is REALLY taking place when push comes to shove.
     
  14. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    When that sort of rhetoric gets co-opted by the state in order to buttress its sagging legitimacy, it becomes superficial. They don't paint that stuff on the airport because there's a popular demand for it - they paint it on the airport to distract people from the things that they do demand. And so it quickly becomes a hollow experession, just a rote element of political correctness (like saying the pledge of allegiance), and so subverted. The "Western infidels" in question there aren't the actual West, but just some straw man that everyone has long since ceased to relate to anything real. And so quite often people take it all very cynically, or even completely dissociate the object of PC animus from what it nominally refers to. I.e., "Western infidels" has about as much meaning as "Islamofascists." It's a bogey-man in a psychodrama, and adults know better than to take its nominal implications seriously.
     
  15. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    So, is "gang colours" an apt metaphor?



    No I'm not.

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    Why does it have to be "demonstrably beneficial in secular terms"? Would that be because that is your preference?



    Oh please. Since we are in a putative science forum, let us just say that the evidence behind the assertion is lacking. There is a far greater threat to French society from unemployed immigrants than from veiled women.

    No its not. Fining/imprisoning a woman for covering any part of the body as a claim for liberating her from assumed oppressions is like slapping a kid to make them free from physical abuse.


    Actually, the first casualty in all the hijab wars have been girls who quit school either of their own volition or due to their parents. Its not speculative, just look at the number of Islamic schools popping up wherever there is a hijab or burka ban
    I don't see any upside to this, if you do, please enlighten me. And if these women are oppressed as you say, all this law has done is make them prisoners of their homes. I'd like to know how this is intended to benefit them. If they could not even question a veil, how are they supposed to be able to leave their homes without one?
    I think Paris Hilton flouts social convention - she is not the girl you bring home to your parents, you don't think of Hilton when you think of long term monogamous relationships and I doubt many men see her as the mother of their children. She epitomises the quintessential woman who needs to fulfil no conventional womens roles.


    Thats usually how western perspectives on anything non-western sound to me.
    Thats common to both our cultures, although any woman having sex in public would be considered public property and available to all and sundry in India. The very act of disrobing in public to any extent is a sign that the woman does not intend to keep her "favours" to herself but is signalling a willingness to barter her body. This is often an attitude which leads to molestation of western women, since Indian men would see a scantily clad woman [and there are varied definitions of what constitutes scanty clothing] as being sexually available. In India, the norm is, the more covered a woman is, the more respectable she is.
    Perhaps I am assigning attitudes to them which are different from what exist in France. I am however willing to bet on my assumptions based on my knowledge of Asian women in general and veiled Asian women in particular. I have known enough women who veil to understand their outlook.

    Sure, opinions are like assholes. Which is why I prefer predictions of possible outcomes. Lets try it, I predict that the headscarf will become more popular in countries that ban the hijab, that there will be more Muslim schools opened where those who do veil can attend. That women who veil and want to work will formulate employment opportunities for themselves by creating private institutions where such women can veil as well as work. The problem with social imposition in a western country is that women have the resources to work around them. I see more social segregation of Muslim women in France and greater difficulties in assimilation of the Muslim community. Belgium I'm not too worried about - there are only 30 women who veil and plus, they have more important issues, like being without a government for a year, to address
    I think thats rubbish. I was at the passport office yesterday in Mumbai and out of the approx 200 people in line three of them were veiled women. There was no difference in the way they were treated by others nor in the way they treated the people around them. I think you can see for yourself that the burqa ban is being instituted in countries which already have problems getting along with people who are "different"


    Yes, but its already in progress...
    One girl has even shaved her head because she was not allowed to wear the scarf:

    Four private Muslim schools have opened up in France after the hijab ban:

    These girls are going to need jobs when they graduate. Where do you think they will work?
    Huh? The Nairs are matriarchial, the mothers are the heads of the community and the heads of the household. The mothers family is responsible for the children, with the husband being a "guest". Its true that its not practised much mainly because of westernisation.
    Not necessarily, women don't manage the way men do, its not necessary that you'd see oppression of men in a matriarchial society.

    Only within the US. Anti-Muslim attitudes of the US have far reaching consequences, as you know and there are enough Abu Ghraibs scattered around to show how they work.
    And do Americans in general let Muslims get on with their lives in peace? Or simply get on with their lives at all? How many Muslims have been killed or tortured by Americans in the last 10 years? Don't you think that has anything to do with the way that Muslims in general are perceived by Americans? Is it any wonder that countries who are having problems with Muslims are the same ones who have troops in NATO occupying countries where Muslims are the majority population?




    Why? Haven't you ever been to a foreign country and dressed up like the natives? I see lots of western men and women who come to India and dress like the natives. It never "rattles" me to see them wearing their own clothes back home.

    And if she refuses?
    Like I said, we will see, most veiled women will be hesitant to provoke such an attack and I have yet to read any report of a burqa clad woman appearing in public after the ban.

    Lets just say that I have yet to be proven wrong in my assumptions.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2010
  16. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    S.A.M.
    Have you even addressed all of the people that have been bringing up the dress code oppression on the women in Iran and Saudi Arabi that would like to dress like Western women. . . or have I missed that?
     
  17. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    No you haven't missed it. We're not addressing dress codes instituted by western puppet governments or the governments that follow the overthrow of elected governments.

    We are discussing dress codes in societies where people of the society have representatives in government and use public pressure to institute dress codes.

    Besides, I'm Indian, when I make comparisons, its generally to Indian society.

    We have our own problems:

    If you notice, stripping women of their clothing is considered as the apogee of insult in our society too.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2010
  18. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    Also, I have another question. . . what passage in the Koran does it say that women must be covered up like Darth Vadar at all times? I am just baffled as to what on earth this has to do with God.

    I mean. . . in the great majority of other spiritual traditions, humanity recognizes gods creations as beautiful. To cover it up is, well, to cover up beauty. It seems counter-intuitive really. If anything should be covered up, it should be the ugly men. lol

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    But yeah, quote for me, chapter and verse, either from the Old Testament, or the Koran, what ever. . . Where it states, God says, keep the women covered. . .

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  19. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    Well, it seems to me you are making the discussion unnecessarily restrictive. Because, this ban has to do primarily with the attitudes of Islam, and western society. I have absolutely no love for the hypocrisies of western societies and the scientific dictatorship that has put a stranglehold over the spirits of their members. However, you are being disingenuous if you are not willing to discuss the backward double standard which oppresses the freedom of spirit which equality must render unto both sexes for any spiritual tradition to claim the mantle of anything approaching any semblance of genuine truth and liberation.

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    By framing the discussion thus, you make Islam out to be a victim, Hinduism to be a victim, and western colonialism to be the absolute oppressor. While I have no qualms with this as a starting point of analysis, I don't think you are willing to see the forest for the trees. You wish to only point out the warts on others faces, but not see the problems with all religions and cultures in general. . . including your own. This is no way to come together to a greater understanding of what it is that causes these tensions, and rise above them. Are you getting too old? Are you to much a part of your own traditions, and to closely identified with them to critically see what is the same and weak about them, and similar in them, that is the same as every other tradition? Is that what you refuse to wish to analyze?
     
  20. Mr MacGillivray Banned Banned

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    Are you also protesting against turkey banning the fez? Because wouldn't it be hypocritical if you weren't?
     
  21. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Have they banned the fez? I have no idea. I do know that they have banned the hijab since a very long time and girls have been harassed for wearing it in universities. And probably the change in attitudes in Turkey since that ban could be a lesson for Europe. I believe the current popular government they have in power is an "Islamist" one. I've already addressed this issue in earlier discussions on the hijab.

    Compare that to Iran, where after the institution of the chador, women work around it by wearing lighter colourful headscarves.

    Heaadscarf in Ankara, Turkey where there is a hijab ban:

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    Headscarf in Teheran, Iran where there is madatory hijab:

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    Last edited: Nov 17, 2010
  22. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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  23. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    But the threat is to the veiled women, from their male relatives and/or husbands. If you're implying that these latter people need to be arrested, then that would be a more sensible solution, in point of fact.

    Not in the slightest, and I think you know that. If you had some ironic protectionist example, that would make more sense.

    It is possible that this law could push domestic abuse back into the home, yes. But wouldn't such abuse already be in place?

    Yes - just the tiniest bit degrading and offensive, don't you think?

    Oh? And the same must be true of French society? I thought you the one for celebrating differences in convention. But now because it's so in India, it must be true of France, a country you seemingly know nothing about. Cultural imperialist thinking, Sam?

    You have almost always been proven wrong in your assumptions.
     

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