“Education and campaigning are the solutions. Not crude laws.”

But why do we have to choose and why do you say “crude laws?” Are you a lawyer?

We need both education and laws.

My facilities permitting I do try and read everything that people write, but maybe I don’t see it in the same way? :)

I don’t disagree with your comments.

If you want my solution, and I’ve had time to think a bit:

a new feminist movement, that and women’s outreach programs will be the only real way of combating repressive clothing etc.

Laws won’t do it, the women just won’t leave the house, and a false sense of achievement will be felt in the wider society.

Education and campaigning are the solutions. Not crude laws.

PS: Douglas, we’ll see eh?

So a burqa wearer (supposing that someone actually chooses to wear one, on their own), will be able in the US: to dress up like a Nazi, spout the speeches of Hitler, all of that and more, later, go get a gun, go hunting, kill little animals, but not wear a bit of clothing (the burqa)…

do you see the contradictions there?

Clearly, you didn’t read what I wrote.

There are legal sanctions that are well short of criminalization that can come into play, both to protect women and girls from being pressured into wearing the beastly things and to protect the public good and I suggested a few of them.

Wearing a burqa out in public or while operating a vehicle or equipment is a safety hazard to the wearer; they can’t see properly and the yardage can be easily caught in an escalator or other moving mechanisms.

Compelling a female child to wear one out in summer’s heat is plain cruel.

The burqa has certainly been used by criminals as a means of concealing identity.

The administation of justice has also been impacted by women refusing to testify unveiled who cry that their human rights are being abrogated when a judge insists on being able to see their faces while they give testimony in open court.

The fact that it isn’t easy to develop legal means of protecting individual and communal rights isn’t a reason for saying we should do nothing save than decrying the wearing of the burqa as medieval practice and hope this will suffice to bring about change in a community that aspires to drag every last one of us back to the 7th century.

I disagree, Modernity.

I think it’s going to be up to the courts to decide that issue, in this country at least.

In any case, I know of no case where people were allowed to participate in public affairs (voting, driving, cashing checks, etc.) with their faced covered.

btw: sun glasses and motor cycle helmets are not face coverings and are function specific. Eye patches become part of a persons identity and do not cover the whole face, Douglas.

It is an illusion of a solution.

Legalistic means make people feel happy “ah, we’ve got a law for that”, etc

But as you suggest, we are going around in circles, I shall leave you with that fine old expression:

“We need to beware the tyranny of the majority.”

As for state-enforced dress codes, they exist everywhere, not only in Saudi Arabia. Even where they are not state-enforced, society at large sets its own rules. In a seaside resort it’s all right for both men and women to go out and do their shopping in their beachwear, but in a city miles from the nearest beach those same men and women would naturally cover up more, and not just because of the weather. You must have noticed that.