Also see: men continue to regulate women's bodies.
Seriously though, did you guys even know what a burkini was before this week? I sure as hell didn't.
In case you haven't heard, several places in France are now banning (Muslim) women from wearing their choice of bathing suit, in a move that serves only to further divide an already tense population. I totally understand a leader's desire to ensure each citizen's freedom from oppression, especially in a secular society, as France claims to be. However - and I can't believe I even have to point this out - restricting people from wearing something they choose to wear as part of upholding their faith is oppression!
Look, I know that many Muslim women are forced (by their male counterparts) to wear certain things and adhere to strict rules, and it bothers me as much as it does the next free-thinking gal... although perhaps this is just my own white person's misguided understanding of the situation. Either way, many Muslim women also choose these things for themselves in order to adhere to the religious code they've been brought up with (the same way people of other less highly publicized and vilified religions adhere to their chosen religion's own rules). And if we're talking specifically about controlling women, consider Christianity: if I were to ask you about the women in the Bible, whose names would come to you? The ever-pure Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, a dirty, dirty whore. These are two opposing views of women exemplified in the most read and revered book in existence (a book written, edited, and re-edited a bazillion times by - you guessed it - men!) You can't tell me this opposition is an accident. This is very clear allegory used as a cautionary tale to women and an outright simplistic reduction of women's character into two specific streams - because of course, if a woman is not one, she must be the other! This is just one example of myriad ways this particular religion oppresses women; without getting too deeply into a wider discussion about religion in general, there is no doubt in my mind (and in the mind of anyone else who has critically studied religion) that a key part of most religions is the control of women (and of course the general population as a whole... but again, I'm not getting into that today).
All this to say, we can't accuse one religion of oppressing women when too many others are guilty of the very same thing.
However, the buzzword-du-jour continues to be Islamic radicalism, so of course we're going to latch on to what those crazy Muslims are doing, get up on our high white-person horses and tsk tsk about it.
But what they're really doing in France, rather than reversing female oppression, is persecuting ladies who just want to go play in the water like the rest of us, without sacrificing their religious ideals. French leaders are also playing further into people's misguided fear of Islam (ie fear of what they do not know or understand), thereby broadening the existing divide between their citizens. To my mind, this is simply a knee-jerk reaction to the recent horrific attacks in France... which is understandable, of course, but when making any decision, appropriate sensibility and level-headedness must be used. That is not what we're seeing with the decision to ban burkinis, and consequently this move serves no one positively.
I'd also like to point out that in many cultures women wear full-bodied bathing suits without religious connotations. When my sister and I were at a water park in Singapore, we were some of the only women in western-style bathing suits; most other women and girls were in suits that covered their arms and legs - and Singapore is a decidedly multi-ethnic, multi-religion, and extremely civilized country. I can't say for sure if any or all of the women at that water park were covered up for religious reasons - although I doubt they all were - but certainly the choice was made for the sake of modesty, which is an important aspect of Asian culture, regardless of religion. Armed with this knowledge, again I can only conclude that the ban on the burkini stems directly from people's misinformed fear of Islam.
If women were simply choosing to cover up for modesty's sake, taking religion - and more specifically, Islam - completely out of the equation, I doubt this would even be an issue. (And of course, no one has a problem with someone wearing a full body wetsuit, because again, religious connotation.) But inject into the situation a (historically xenophobic) country's anger toward a certain faith and suddenly something has to be done about this non-issue.
So now we are singling out specific women to make a point. Lovely.
What are these women supposed to do? Not got to the beach? They certainly aren't going to go against their religious convictions and buy a western-style bathing suit simply to appease people. In fact, a French leader's demand that Muslim women use a different bathing suit is no different than someone or something else telling them to cover up; either way, women are being told what they can and can not do with their bodies. Whether it's in the name of religion or secularism, it's the same thing, and it's wrong and it's ridiculous.
Simply because a country identifies as a secular society, this does not give leaders the right to take away people's religious freedom. I myself am not a religious person and therefore do not advocate from the point of view of any religion; however, I am an advocate of a person's rights, and religious freedom is one of those rights. Do I believe the world would be a more peaceful and sensible place without organized religion as one more way to divide and control us? Absofuckinglutely. But a person's right to practise their chosen religion should be given the same respect as a person's right to live by no religion at all, and we can not talk about human rights while picking and choosing which human rights to uphold.
Beyond this, as tempting as it is to point at what we perceive as oppression and declare it wrong (in this case, the forced covering of Muslim women's bodies), it is not up to us to decide what is best for someone else.
A country looks to its leaders for guidance, and a leader's reaction to any situation can and will greatly affect the larger population's reaction. By banning a damn bathing suit, France's leaders are continuing to tell its citizens that people practising Islam are to be feared, at a time when understanding, acceptance and unity are needed most. The move to ban an innocuous garment only serves to further divide the people of France, which will absolutely do more harm than good.
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