@…Original Paul. How is opposing religious fundamentalist backwardness ‘racism’? It isn’t anything of the sort. But you are guilty of the lazy habit lefty types have of denouncing anything you dislike as ‘racist’. Racism as the ultimate sin! It’s no worse than the kind of hatred espoused by many Muslims for the infidel or the brutal oppression meted out by many Muslim states to their non-Muslim minorities.
Personally I think that Muslim women in this country should be permitted to wear the burkha subject to one condition : that employers would have an automatic right to refuse to even consider for a job anyone dressed this way. It is a primitve custom, dreamed up by misogynistic male bigots and defended only by deluded multiculturalists. I am fairly certain that those contributors to this site who defend the burkha will all be men, safe and secure in the knowledge that they themselves will never have to endure such degrading treatment. Such men are contemptible hypocrites in my opinion.
Davy P, I get were you’re coming from because opposing the Burkha isn’t racist and it IS an oppressive instrument used by men against women. Whether or not our government actually bans it, the government shouldn’t condone it. Those who advocate it adhere strictly to the Koran unlike normal muslims. But don’t you see that there is a bit of conflict in this debate between Freedom of Expression and Choice? What if a woman chooses to wear a Burkha? We have to be careful about how we address this debate instead of colouring it with non points about multi-culturalism and ‘the left’ and have a grown up debate.
Obviously it will never be banned in the UK, neither the general population nor the Human Rights Act would permit that.
I’ve no idea how the logistics of such a theoretical ban would work, what if I (as a white, British-born, atheist male) wanted to wear one? Would I be breaking some law?
If we wait long enough for a general election (so we have a democratically elected PM), and the economy to improve (so people stop blaming immigrants so much for everything from “taking our jobs” to the weather), I’m sure we’ll all forget about banning any items of clothing and move forwards as a collective nation again.
Actually Stevie H I know a (white English) woman who wears one.
She likes the way it strips people of their ability to catagorise (excepting those hateful racists who reveal themselves pretty easily and can’t believe it actually is a white English woman waering it).
“It’s no worse than the kind of hatred espoused by many Muslims for the infidel or the brutal oppression meted out by many Muslim states to their non-Muslim minorities.” Well that’s OK then.
“It’s no worse than the kind of hatred espoused by many Muslims for the infidel or the brutal oppression meted out by many Muslim states to their non-Muslim minorities.”
You could find-and-replace “Muslim” with “Christian” in the above sentence and it would still be true. One or two other religions would work, too.
Banning an article of clothing – yeah that’ll work. Whatever people’s feelings on burkhas, ordering someone to do/not to do something is usually counter-productive (it’s like telling a teenager not to smoke/to cut their hair/to not go out – they just get more bloody-minded about it). They have to want to do it themselves.
Believe it or not, there are people who WANT to wear the Burqa and I’m all for making it a crime to force people to wear one, but I also believe in the freedom to wear whatever you like.
The Burqa is used as an oppressive instrument by SOME men against SOME women. Please don’t paint everyone with the same brush.
@Sarah…I’m glad that for once you and I are not TOTALLY at odds. PS did you see my post to you on the front page with Lembit Opik and the Cheeky Girl on the cover? No, it wasn’t about them but about Northern Ireland.
@Ken…your response was pretty pathetic. You sniped at me but didn’t dare answer the points I was making. I wonder why not? Scared of doing some serious thinking probably.
I’m for banning the burkha, as long as any other form of religious imagery is also banned, including Jewish caps, Christian crucifixes, and Diana front pages.
Think it through. How could you ban the burqa/abaya? How would you enforce the ban? Would you arrest women for being oppressed? Wouldn’t that just lead to greater radicalisation of British Muslims? And in any case, does anyone seriously think that banning a form of dress would end misogyny?
Most young British Muslims want nothing to do with this archaic crap anyway. Many of the women wear hijab, but they’re nobody’s slave. Women continue to have a shit deal in Muslim theocracies, but here in the secular UK the lure of freedom is strong, and I think Muslim women are heading in the right direction without the need for morality police dictating how they can dress (like a bizarro Saudi: “show some more skin, woman!”)
Look at who is advocating this ban, and ask yourself: do the Express, Sarkozy and the BNP have a track record as feminists?
Hi DaveyP, welcome to the debate. I do like a bit of balance myself and freedom to speak without condition. I guess I am a bit older than you now based on your assumptions. However, I am not one for prejuding, so do join our Forum and develop your thoughts without rancour as it wounds my heart to think otherwise
In my view, advocating banning the burqa on the grounds put forward here, such as avoiding “separation”, amounts to inciting racial hatred. Ohh and I remember when Jack Straw caused the last little outbreak of hijabophobia, the number of hijabs worn seemed to treble. Holland and Italy have passed bans already apparently, I wonder how long until they are abandoned as unworkable and/or overturned by the ECHR (which has been pretty cowardly on the hijab issue so far).
I see the word ’some’ has been accidentally deleted from the Express’s dictionaries.
To be honest I find full burqa’s a bit weird and freakish. Not that I’m often exposed to them, it’s really only if I’m visiting Bradford which I do about four times a year.
I also find facial piercings weird and freakish. And down below piercings even more so. But no way should my predjucides ban the practice.
(though giving piercings to a child should probably consitiute assault)
It gratifies me to note that no women on this column seem to be defending the burqa. As I predicted it is only men, such as Shafiq and Andy, who defend this primitive custom. Shafiq says that women should have the choice…but many of them don’t have a choice in the matter! They are pressured into it by their families/communties. And what kind of culture is it that produces women who want to shroud themselves like walking corpses? To condemn such primitivism Is NOT racist. Got that Andy ? If there is any truth in reincarnation then it will serve you right if you come back as a woman in somewhere like the Yemen or a tribal area of Pakistan. Then you could personally experience the oppression and degradation that, as a Western white male, you presently defend.
Did anyone see ‘Newsnight’ last night? The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy put it brilliantly when he said that the burqa issue boils down to this question: does a woman have a face or something to be ashamed of? Your answer to this question determines your attitude to the burqa issue.
daveyp
” As I predicted it is only men, such as Shafiq and Andy, who defend this primitive custom”.
You mean defend the freedom to choose.
As usual daveyp, when 2 sets of rights or freedoms clash you can always be guaranteed to prefer to want impose your own choices – and funnily enough they always come out slanted a particular predictable way.
A woman (like any of the rest of us) has the freedom to choose exactly how she presents herself to the rest of the world.
If she wants to go out dressed in a Burkha, a sack or glammed up in a tiny mini skirt it’s her choice, not yours or mine for that matter.
(and quite frankly it’s really none of your business either way – and certainly not a handy vehicle for you to make transparent jibs about Islam, or women ‘asking for it’ if the choose the glam path)
@ DaveyP : both yourself and Monseiur Levy are over-simplyfying. We all believe women have faces (obviously) but to suggest that – therefore – we all believe facial covering should be banned is incorrect.
I assume you’ve met several women wearing Hijaabs and wearing Buqahs, who’ve told you that they are forced to wear it?
Oh, my mistake, that would require some brain power and some initiative on your part – you’d much prefer making shit up.
Unless you can prove that these women are pressured by families or communities, you should stop making such claims. Especially seeing as they run contrary to my own experiences where women from the same family have completely different dress.
And over the past couple of days, many women, most of whom don’t wear the Burqah and live in the West, have defended the right to wear whatever they want. You claim that you’re trying to defend women, but can’t seem to respect them enough for them to be able to choose to wear whatever they want to wear.
daveyp says “It gratifies me to note that no women on this column seem to be defending the burqa.”
sarah earlier asked: “What if a woman chooses to wear a Burkha?”
As far as I can tell Sarah’s the only woman who regularly posts here, and she seems to hold that the question’s a lot more complex than you’re making out.
@Mail Man…pathetic nonsense, even by your standards. Most of what you accuse me of saying is the exact opposite of what I actually did say. And as for the ‘It’s none of my business’, the burqa issue was raised on this particular front page and the whole point of these columns is to debate the front pages! So by your logic NOBODY is allowed to comment on what’s on this front page.
@Shafiq… so you maintain that Islam is all about female emancipation do you? In which case you have a fine sense of humour. Women all choose the burqa do they? So if all the men were to disappear in Islamic society the women would carry on wearing burqas would they? Not many I suspect!
@Nick Pheas…It clearly escaped your notice that Sarah does not approve of the burqa. She simply said that women should be allowed to wear these things. And, as my original post made clear, I too believe this, providing only that employers have the right not to employ people who wear such a primitive and anti-social garb.
Your comments have ENTIRELY vindicated my original thesis, namely that those who defend the burqa are all male chauvinists of one kind or another. And you will PLEASE forgive me gentlemen if I persist in my belief that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, someone who knows far more about life as a woman under Islam than either me or you, is a more reliable guide to such matters than male chauvinists such as Shafiq, Mail Man and Andy.
Well there we are, straight out of anything to say you parrot back what others have said to you, like a 5yr old.
Of course you have nothing to say about the right to choose what is worn despite all the bluster about your personal opinion on what you think it (the Burkha) must mean (oppressive and primitive were your words I think).
….oh, except to say that those women who choose it should face discrimination you’d make legal by those who didn’t like it.
You’d love it if Muslim employers were legally allowed to dfiscrimate against those they employed who didn’t want to wear it though, huh?
Contemptible nasty and confused nonsense.
Down to your usual ’standards’ I’d say.
its funny how the anti-burqa people here are mostly men who have an idea of what the women should look like in this highly sexualised society and even more funny they say its because they are for womens rights, how are you defending women rights when you ignore the views of the women who wear burqa because its a fallacy in logic your treating the women who wear burqa as having their view points unequal to you, in truth its just one sort of men against another sort of men
Using it as a means to legalise a form of religious discrimination (after all the lip-service chatter about ‘rights’ and equality) is pretty damning too.
You didn’t read my post properly did you, or do you have a habit of misinterpreting what people write?
I said most women in Western countries who wear the Burqah, do it out of their own free will. Not once did I mention the plight of women in other Muslim countries, seeing as we’re discussing the prospect of the Burqah being banned here and NOT in Muslim states.
And as far as I know, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not a Muslim (any more) and has never worn or been forced to wear, a Burqah – Bad Example.
Well I’m thoroughly opposed to women having to cover up or alter their dress when the equivalent never applies to men. At least the Taliban came down hard on men who didn’t have the right length of beard!
I find the burkha/niqab rather scary. I wonder what’s going through the woman’s mind which makes her feel it’s the right thing to do. I wonder if she is judging other Moslem women as not being quite Moslem enough – and I am being judged for not being a Moslem at all and possibly for being an under-dressed slut – as undoubtedly some Moslem men would consider – remember that ‘preacher’ on Jon Ronson’s programme (I think) who said Western men must ‘control their women’ and make them cover up. My sister was in Green Street with her husband, wearing a long summer dress (my sister, not her husband), and she overheard a comment directed towards her in Arabic (which she was learning at the time) about her being ‘a whore’. Nice! Having said that, I heard a similar comment in Mexico 16 years ago directed to me and two friends, and as for UK men, well they’re not always perfect gentlemen either!
I don’t believe most UK women have been forced to wear face covering by their families, if I listen to their conversations they usually sound British so they’ve been brought up here and have been exposed to ‘Western values’ but have studied the Koran and decided to cover up more and more. Often their mothers wear traditional Pakistani dress (salwar kameez & simple cloth over head) but their daughters take up the Saudi look of a hijab, then take it further. This is probably an expression of solidarity, of wanting to be defined and identified as a Moslem, and the further we go, in the West, in isolating and alienating the Moslem population, the more entrenched these feelings will become. Like someone else here said, if you seek to ban something, be it long hair or a niqab, the more some will want to do it.
My friend who works with domestic violence victims, says that many women take up the burkha/niqab and feel safer that way, their families who are threatening them won’t know them if they pass them on the street. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of this, but I wouldn’t want to prevent them being able to go about the streets in (relative) safety. Yes, I know they should be able to wear whatever they want and go wherever they want, but life’s not like that at the moment.
Racist shite straight from the BNP.
bloody hell.
if “even muslims don’t want it” wouldn’t that make a ban an utterly pointless exercise?
I’m not too sure what Elena Baltacha thinks when she wakes up to find that she has been knocked out of Wimbledon without loosing a match.
Or isn’t she British enough for the Daily Express?
@…Original Paul. How is opposing religious fundamentalist backwardness ‘racism’? It isn’t anything of the sort. But you are guilty of the lazy habit lefty types have of denouncing anything you dislike as ‘racist’. Racism as the ultimate sin! It’s no worse than the kind of hatred espoused by many Muslims for the infidel or the brutal oppression meted out by many Muslim states to their non-Muslim minorities.
Personally I think that Muslim women in this country should be permitted to wear the burkha subject to one condition : that employers would have an automatic right to refuse to even consider for a job anyone dressed this way. It is a primitve custom, dreamed up by misogynistic male bigots and defended only by deluded multiculturalists. I am fairly certain that those contributors to this site who defend the burkha will all be men, safe and secure in the knowledge that they themselves will never have to endure such degrading treatment. Such men are contemptible hypocrites in my opinion.
Davy P, I get were you’re coming from because opposing the Burkha isn’t racist and it IS an oppressive instrument used by men against women. Whether or not our government actually bans it, the government shouldn’t condone it. Those who advocate it adhere strictly to the Koran unlike normal muslims. But don’t you see that there is a bit of conflict in this debate between Freedom of Expression and Choice? What if a woman chooses to wear a Burkha? We have to be careful about how we address this debate instead of colouring it with non points about multi-culturalism and ‘the left’ and have a grown up debate.
I’m against banning the Burkha for as long as the BNP and their fellow travellers are aginst it.
Too many would assume it was done for all the wrong reasons and not the right ones.
F*ck those BNP trouble-making b@stards.
Blimey. Having failed with the bullying, daveyp is going for the soft-soap approach.
It still isn’t working.
Obviously it will never be banned in the UK, neither the general population nor the Human Rights Act would permit that.
I’ve no idea how the logistics of such a theoretical ban would work, what if I (as a white, British-born, atheist male) wanted to wear one? Would I be breaking some law?
If we wait long enough for a general election (so we have a democratically elected PM), and the economy to improve (so people stop blaming immigrants so much for everything from “taking our jobs” to the weather), I’m sure we’ll all forget about banning any items of clothing and move forwards as a collective nation again.
Actually Stevie H I know a (white English) woman who wears one.
She likes the way it strips people of their ability to catagorise (excepting those hateful racists who reveal themselves pretty easily and can’t believe it actually is a white English woman waering it).
It’s pretty tragic really.
“It’s no worse than the kind of hatred espoused by many Muslims for the infidel or the brutal oppression meted out by many Muslim states to their non-Muslim minorities.” Well that’s OK then.
“It’s no worse than the kind of hatred espoused by many Muslims for the infidel or the brutal oppression meted out by many Muslim states to their non-Muslim minorities.”
You could find-and-replace “Muslim” with “Christian” in the above sentence and it would still be true. One or two other religions would work, too.
Banning an article of clothing – yeah that’ll work. Whatever people’s feelings on burkhas, ordering someone to do/not to do something is usually counter-productive (it’s like telling a teenager not to smoke/to cut their hair/to not go out – they just get more bloody-minded about it). They have to want to do it themselves.
“They have to want to do it themselves.”
Precisely. Peope will never “Grow out of” religion if the is forced.
If the ISSUE is forced. Sorry, tired typing.
DaveyP
Believe it or not, there are people who WANT to wear the Burqa and I’m all for making it a crime to force people to wear one, but I also believe in the freedom to wear whatever you like.
The Burqa is used as an oppressive instrument by SOME men against SOME women. Please don’t paint everyone with the same brush.
@Sarah…I’m glad that for once you and I are not TOTALLY at odds. PS did you see my post to you on the front page with Lembit Opik and the Cheeky Girl on the cover? No, it wasn’t about them but about Northern Ireland.
@Ken…your response was pretty pathetic. You sniped at me but didn’t dare answer the points I was making. I wonder why not? Scared of doing some serious thinking probably.
I’m for banning the burkha, as long as any other form of religious imagery is also banned, including Jewish caps, Christian crucifixes, and Diana front pages.
Think it through. How could you ban the burqa/abaya? How would you enforce the ban? Would you arrest women for being oppressed? Wouldn’t that just lead to greater radicalisation of British Muslims? And in any case, does anyone seriously think that banning a form of dress would end misogyny?
Most young British Muslims want nothing to do with this archaic crap anyway. Many of the women wear hijab, but they’re nobody’s slave. Women continue to have a shit deal in Muslim theocracies, but here in the secular UK the lure of freedom is strong, and I think Muslim women are heading in the right direction without the need for morality police dictating how they can dress (like a bizarro Saudi: “show some more skin, woman!”)
Look at who is advocating this ban, and ask yourself: do the Express, Sarkozy and the BNP have a track record as feminists?
Hi DaveyP, welcome to the debate. I do like a bit of balance myself and freedom to speak without condition. I guess I am a bit older than you now based on your assumptions. However, I am not one for prejuding, so do join our Forum and develop your thoughts without rancour as it wounds my heart to think otherwise
In my view, advocating banning the burqa on the grounds put forward here, such as avoiding “separation”, amounts to inciting racial hatred. Ohh and I remember when Jack Straw caused the last little outbreak of hijabophobia, the number of hijabs worn seemed to treble. Holland and Italy have passed bans already apparently, I wonder how long until they are abandoned as unworkable and/or overturned by the ECHR (which has been pretty cowardly on the hijab issue so far).
As these people are so bothered about clothing being used to de-sexualise and oppress women then I look forward to them banning nuns habits ASAP!
I see the word ’some’ has been accidentally deleted from the Express’s dictionaries.
To be honest I find full burqa’s a bit weird and freakish. Not that I’m often exposed to them, it’s really only if I’m visiting Bradford which I do about four times a year.
I also find facial piercings weird and freakish. And down below piercings even more so. But no way should my predjucides ban the practice.
(though giving piercings to a child should probably consitiute assault)
It gratifies me to note that no women on this column seem to be defending the burqa. As I predicted it is only men, such as Shafiq and Andy, who defend this primitive custom. Shafiq says that women should have the choice…but many of them don’t have a choice in the matter! They are pressured into it by their families/communties. And what kind of culture is it that produces women who want to shroud themselves like walking corpses? To condemn such primitivism Is NOT racist. Got that Andy ? If there is any truth in reincarnation then it will serve you right if you come back as a woman in somewhere like the Yemen or a tribal area of Pakistan. Then you could personally experience the oppression and degradation that, as a Western white male, you presently defend.
Did anyone see ‘Newsnight’ last night? The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy put it brilliantly when he said that the burqa issue boils down to this question: does a woman have a face or something to be ashamed of? Your answer to this question determines your attitude to the burqa issue.
daveyp
” As I predicted it is only men, such as Shafiq and Andy, who defend this primitive custom”.
You mean defend the freedom to choose.
As usual daveyp, when 2 sets of rights or freedoms clash you can always be guaranteed to prefer to want impose your own choices – and funnily enough they always come out slanted a particular predictable way.
A woman (like any of the rest of us) has the freedom to choose exactly how she presents herself to the rest of the world.
If she wants to go out dressed in a Burkha, a sack or glammed up in a tiny mini skirt it’s her choice, not yours or mine for that matter.
(and quite frankly it’s really none of your business either way – and certainly not a handy vehicle for you to make transparent jibs about Islam, or women ‘asking for it’ if the choose the glam path)
@ DaveyP : both yourself and Monseiur Levy are over-simplyfying. We all believe women have faces (obviously) but to suggest that – therefore – we all believe facial covering should be banned is incorrect.
@DaveyP
I assume you’ve met several women wearing Hijaabs and wearing Buqahs, who’ve told you that they are forced to wear it?
Oh, my mistake, that would require some brain power and some initiative on your part – you’d much prefer making shit up.
Unless you can prove that these women are pressured by families or communities, you should stop making such claims. Especially seeing as they run contrary to my own experiences where women from the same family have completely different dress.
And over the past couple of days, many women, most of whom don’t wear the Burqah and live in the West, have defended the right to wear whatever they want. You claim that you’re trying to defend women, but can’t seem to respect them enough for them to be able to choose to wear whatever they want to wear.
daveyp says “It gratifies me to note that no women on this column seem to be defending the burqa.”
sarah earlier asked: “What if a woman chooses to wear a Burkha?”
As far as I can tell Sarah’s the only woman who regularly posts here, and she seems to hold that the question’s a lot more complex than you’re making out.
@Mail Man…pathetic nonsense, even by your standards. Most of what you accuse me of saying is the exact opposite of what I actually did say. And as for the ‘It’s none of my business’, the burqa issue was raised on this particular front page and the whole point of these columns is to debate the front pages! So by your logic NOBODY is allowed to comment on what’s on this front page.
@Shafiq… so you maintain that Islam is all about female emancipation do you? In which case you have a fine sense of humour. Women all choose the burqa do they? So if all the men were to disappear in Islamic society the women would carry on wearing burqas would they? Not many I suspect!
@Nick Pheas…It clearly escaped your notice that Sarah does not approve of the burqa. She simply said that women should be allowed to wear these things. And, as my original post made clear, I too believe this, providing only that employers have the right not to employ people who wear such a primitive and anti-social garb.
Your comments have ENTIRELY vindicated my original thesis, namely that those who defend the burqa are all male chauvinists of one kind or another. And you will PLEASE forgive me gentlemen if I persist in my belief that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, someone who knows far more about life as a woman under Islam than either me or you, is a more reliable guide to such matters than male chauvinists such as Shafiq, Mail Man and Andy.
daveyp
Well there we are, straight out of anything to say you parrot back what others have said to you, like a 5yr old.
Of course you have nothing to say about the right to choose what is worn despite all the bluster about your personal opinion on what you think it (the Burkha) must mean (oppressive and primitive were your words I think).
….oh, except to say that those women who choose it should face discrimination you’d make legal by those who didn’t like it.
You’d love it if Muslim employers were legally allowed to dfiscrimate against those they employed who didn’t want to wear it though, huh?
Contemptible nasty and confused nonsense.
Down to your usual ’standards’ I’d say.
its funny how the anti-burqa people here are mostly men who have an idea of what the women should look like in this highly sexualised society and even more funny they say its because they are for womens rights, how are you defending women rights when you ignore the views of the women who wear burqa because its a fallacy in logic your treating the women who wear burqa as having their view points unequal to you, in truth its just one sort of men against another sort of men
ridwan
Using it as a means to legalise a form of religious discrimination (after all the lip-service chatter about ‘rights’ and equality) is pretty damning too.
@ DaveyP
You didn’t read my post properly did you, or do you have a habit of misinterpreting what people write?
I said most women in Western countries who wear the Burqah, do it out of their own free will. Not once did I mention the plight of women in other Muslim countries, seeing as we’re discussing the prospect of the Burqah being banned here and NOT in Muslim states.
And as far as I know, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not a Muslim (any more) and has never worn or been forced to wear, a Burqah – Bad Example.
Well I’m thoroughly opposed to women having to cover up or alter their dress when the equivalent never applies to men. At least the Taliban came down hard on men who didn’t have the right length of beard!
I find the burkha/niqab rather scary. I wonder what’s going through the woman’s mind which makes her feel it’s the right thing to do. I wonder if she is judging other Moslem women as not being quite Moslem enough – and I am being judged for not being a Moslem at all and possibly for being an under-dressed slut – as undoubtedly some Moslem men would consider – remember that ‘preacher’ on Jon Ronson’s programme (I think) who said Western men must ‘control their women’ and make them cover up. My sister was in Green Street with her husband, wearing a long summer dress (my sister, not her husband), and she overheard a comment directed towards her in Arabic (which she was learning at the time) about her being ‘a whore’. Nice! Having said that, I heard a similar comment in Mexico 16 years ago directed to me and two friends, and as for UK men, well they’re not always perfect gentlemen either!
I don’t believe most UK women have been forced to wear face covering by their families, if I listen to their conversations they usually sound British so they’ve been brought up here and have been exposed to ‘Western values’ but have studied the Koran and decided to cover up more and more. Often their mothers wear traditional Pakistani dress (salwar kameez & simple cloth over head) but their daughters take up the Saudi look of a hijab, then take it further. This is probably an expression of solidarity, of wanting to be defined and identified as a Moslem, and the further we go, in the West, in isolating and alienating the Moslem population, the more entrenched these feelings will become. Like someone else here said, if you seek to ban something, be it long hair or a niqab, the more some will want to do it.
My friend who works with domestic violence victims, says that many women take up the burkha/niqab and feel safer that way, their families who are threatening them won’t know them if they pass them on the street. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of this, but I wouldn’t want to prevent them being able to go about the streets in (relative) safety. Yes, I know they should be able to wear whatever they want and go wherever they want, but life’s not like that at the moment.