I’m conflicted about the burkini issue, because it raises some questions for me. My first impulse is to say, of course, women should be allowed to wear burkinis. I believe in freedom of religion, even though I’m an atheist, and the idea that women appearing fully covered is offensive strikes me as patently absurd. Do we then ban men wearing wetsuits? (No, because they carry no weighted meaning.) And this also seems another instance of men once again making rules that target women , which I detest on feminist grounds. But then I thought more about this. Burkinis and burqas are themselves a gender-imposed restriction that has no male equivalent. I would say, at risk of offending my Muslim readers, that they are just as much an instance of men trying to control the actions of women as the bans that restricted them. So, while I wish to support religious freedom and I would not support bans of burkinis, I can’t say that I’m a fan of the garment. I’ve had Muslim friends who wore the hijab explain their reasoning. It makes sense in their worldview. I just don’t share it. I think that patriarchal religions like Islam, Judaism, and Christianity can in their fundamentalist forms be especially damaging to women. The burkini debate highlights for me why I am an atheist and resolutely secular
Tag: Feminism
-
Advice to A Young Feminist
Recently I made the acquaintance of a young feminist/activist. She had read my blog on a different site before I moved here and decided we were kindred spirits. She was despairing of contemporary America and told me that she planned to find an affordable island somewhere and set up a lesbian separatist commune. I was invited to join, and she asked for my thoughts and advice on the subject. After noting that I do not qualify either by gender or sexuality, being neither female nor lesbian (I had to explain I was ace and neutrois), I told her I had experience that historically most lesbian separatist communes failed. (I remember them from the 70s and 80s.) They do so b/c women are still humans and bring with them all the problems that humans have. IMHO if she were serious about wanting to improve the lives of women and work for a more equitable society, she would stay and fight here in the U.S. We live in a time of change, where women have amazing role models before them: Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, etc…Should Clinton win, the glass ceiling of the highest office in the land will have been shattered. But the struggle for equal opportunity will not be over-there will still be those who seek to defund Planned Parenthood, ban abortions, and oppress LGBTQA individuals . Should (shudder) Trump win, those who are feminists/activists will be even more needed. Being the librarian I am, I gave her a reading list.
I do intend to write on the Democrats and Hillary’s nomination. I’m dealing with some health issues, though, and my energy is limited.