Perfeclty correct Andy, However I believe the point of the discussion revolves around wearing these items in this country. therefore it's this countries rules on human rights that count. It doesn't matter what the average afgan that lives here thinks about it no more than it matters wheter I think I can impose my will on my wife (yeah right) if in doing that I break the human rights laws of the country I am in then it is wrong.

To be honest, on the whole thing, as far as i can see it, it's up to them if they want to wear a full face covering robe as long as they realise that this may put some people off an unerve them. Just the same as it's my choice to wear a t-shirt saying "I eat babies" on it, but some people may treat me differently. If you make a statement with your dress, don;t be surprised when people dislike your stetment and treat you differently because of it.

The other thing they have to bear inmind that whilst they should be free to wear whatever they want, at certain points, notable security related situations they must be expected to remove them. Examples are going into a bank or passport control (or to be honest any chaeck that is made on any form of photo ID).

My final point is the fairly obvious one of if a woman is wearing these not out of choice but out of force and intimidation from there husband/peers, then that is a wrong, and should be dealt with by the relevant authorites. I don;t care if your culture or religion proscribes that a wife should be subservient to her husband. That is not how it works here. Yes at that point western morals/principles are being forced on you, but that is the price you pay for living in the west.

Stu

RL: Stuart Maher
PD: Stuart Maher in a frock coat
LT: Stuart maher in orange hi-vis
Omega: Stuart Maher in a rat mask
BUTT: Stuart Maher in various crap costumes
EOS: Stuart Maher writing plot

EOS - Book now, thank me later.

I was going to copyright my posts... but then remembered this is an LRP forum!

Some thoughts gurgled up from the murky depths of my semiconsciousness the past few days,... and then evaporated again. Hang on. *Brain makes crunching noises.* Ah yes...

I remembered two articles I read way back. The first was by Natasha Gershon, who, as VN Magazine`s Human Interest Girl, often dressed up in order to get different points of view on Everyday Life. She dressed up as a guy once and concluded it was no fun having to wait in line for a pool-table. On another occasion she dressed up as a muslima in longcoat and headscarf and noticed how Maroccon boys and men - notorious overhere for bothering women with lewd remarks and funny noises when passing them in the street - suddenly behaved. So one could wonder how cultural motivation actually works, and whether wearing traditional coverings isn`t necessitated by them feeling cast back upon ‘their own’ by growing antipathy towards muslims in Western societies.

The other was a review in Time Magazine - which I haven`t read in ages, so I don`t remember names - on some research conducted in the field of anthropology. According to that research (let`s assume the people at Time know how to quote) men and women give different signals. Relevant here is that apperantly, women use more eye contact in their conversations, whereas men tend to view too much eyecontact as a sign of aggression, and as such will more often avoid looking at the other person directly except to stress a point they`re making, or to convey a peeked interest into what the other person is saying. The usual avoidances are casting quick glances over the other person`s shoulders at things moving in the background (quick enough so as to not appear distracted) and resting the eyes slightly below the other`s face. (Looking all the way down being a sign of submission.) I used to ascribe this behaviour it in the past to having weary eyes, but the above explanation makes sense to me. I have also noticed how some women seemed to take this lowering of the eyes as me staring at their boobs. (Which it may have been in some cases, since the eyes tend to follow whatever catches their fancy, as long as it`s not too exerting, usually a trinket or a pattern in the clothing, but it certainly wasn`t with those who took the most offense.) Now, in my understanding it is considered polite to look away from women wearing burkhas, but when dealing with men with Western mores, the featureless burkha may well serve to draw the eyes of the man back to the eyes of the woman speaking to him, which, taken together with the I-can-see-you-but-you-can`t-see-me might help explain the power some women express to experience while wearing the burkha. (Of course, wearing any kind of uniform is a known cause for this sensation as well.) The man, OTOH, may - subconsciously or not - experience this as being leered at from cover, and react with a growing feeling of aggression.

As an aside, seeing how nobody at the last event seemed to notice that the girl playing the nymph was actually a skinny runt - she wears wide clothing IC - I wonder if the ‘desired’ burkha-effect couldn`t be much simpler achieved by wearing OOC ribbons?

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IRL: Edwin Hofstra

- mostly crewing at the moment