I'm a 31 year old American expat living in Oslo, Norway, with my bulldog, Ada, and my husband, Johannes. My interests include interaction design, especially information architecture, philosophy of mind and ethics, cognitive psychology, sociobiology, feminism, yoga, fat acceptance, knitting, pottery, and cooking.Well, here we go.
Aftenposten.no - Oslo can ban niqab
Personally, I agree with the head of MiRA on this one:
Banning something that impinges on an individual’s freedom is never good. Adult women over 16 should be able to choose for themselves.
It’s one thing when you’re talking about a little kid, but presumably someone over the age of 16–well over the age at which most Christian kids get confirmed–should be able to make this decision herself. Many argue that the women who wear hijab, niqab, etc. aren’t in a position to make a free choice. Perhaps, but isn’t the case in every patriarchal society? How many women do you know who would feel improper with unshaven legs and armpits, for example? And that’s inside the house and out. The example might seem trivial, but the principle remains the same. There are certain things we feel like we have to do in order to be acceped by society. Some activists might think those standards are confining and work to try to change them, but I’ve never heard an activist fighting to restrict women’s choices.
Well, with the exception of the issue of the veil.
Personally, I cannot imagine what it would be like to be told that I must go to school dressed more immodestly than I’m comfortable with. I’m not exactly sure what to think, though–what would it be like to have your family to force you to encase yourself in heavy, dark material before appearing in public? How liberating would it feel to “have” to take the thing off at school?
An Iraqi couple owns the ethnic store across the street from my building, and since we go to their shop so much, we’ve developed a warm relationship with them. The woman came up to me excitedly one day and told me to be sure to watch NRK1 at 10:30 because she and her family were going to be on TV. They showed up in the background of the main scene, which was taking place in IKEA. the director had apparently told her to ask her kids to pretend they were fighting and making a big ruckus, and she was supposed to be trying to get them to behave. The director also asked her to wear a hijab for the shot. It was funny, I wold never have recognized her in the shot if she hadn’t told me what to look for–the veil made her look so much different, and so much older. She definitely lost a lot of her individuality by putting on the hijab.