this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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World news might be a bit out there but couldn't find a better place to post.
Basically the province of Eastern Flanders is implementing a ban that would see headscarves be illegal on schools. This will mostly target muslim girls as they are the ones wearing it of course. They will do it to encourage 'neutrality' and some people see it as a feminist act.
Now of course none of these wankers has actually talked to, you know, a muslim woman because they will soon find out that a lot of them actually want to wear headscarves. Or at least have the option to choose.
'We shall prevent policing how you dress by policing how you will dress! We are feminists!'
I used to be in favor of this myself until I actually met muslim women who were against it and their logic is sound: let women decide. Can't argue against that. Simple as.
I disagree. Most women don't want to wear headscarves, and a few people who do that willingly don't justify allowing religious symbols. People coming from strictly religious families find refuge in schools. And for them, school is an excuse to not wearing or performing religious clothing or rituals for at least 5 hours per day. Schools should definitely ban strictly all things non-secular
EDIT: now, I agree with OP
I'm sorry but this seems just so wrong to me.
Isn't the ban just about headscarves? A piece of cloth is not a religious symbol and policing women about their fashion choices is an awful idea.
It seems specifically worded to hide behind (white) feminism while just being another bigoted law that specifically targets Muslim people in Europe to scare them and to send them a message.
And I would like to know on what you are basing this idea that "most women don't want to wear headscarves". Maybe most white Western women don't?
Because from my personal life and experiences I can tell you that I've met plenty of both Muslim women and also black women who not only preferred wearing a headscarf, but actually felt more empowered precisely because they could control who gets to see what of themselves.
And don't even get me started on the weird obsession that white people have for black people's hair. So wearing a headscarf can also helps to have healthier hair... In addition to literally stopping white people from randomly touching your hair just because "they're so different!"
The ban is made for hijab but I forgot the word so I used a more literal translation for the Dutch word which is headscarves. Though headscarves probably fall under the new measure as hijab wearing people would otherwise be able to say it's just a regular headscarf.
Thank you for the clarification then!
Your point is definitely convincing.
Yeah I fear that's probably similar to what lawmakers are trying to harness with this law (OP then wrote that the law is actually specifically targeting hijabs and they wrote headscarf for the translation).
I personally think this could be a much longer conversation about clothing, racism, states' policing and religion. For example, even European fashion used to have far more hats and head covering in it before it became associated with Islam and deemed as "scary/dangerous" in the West.
But because nowadays white Western European fashion has mostly moved away from that specific style, and also because Europe has become less religious, they slowly kind of collectively agreed that 'covering your hair=bad'.
Pair this with their negative views of immigrants and Muslim people and you can see how some lawmakers are hiding behind things like "feminism" or "schools should be neutral" to target minorities and make them feel not welcomed in Europe.
They can be far creepier than that unfortunately. And it falls again in that realm of "we don't want you to feel at home here. You either conform to European whiteness or you're already going against the law from when you are a child"