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A Modesty Proposal
As you’ve probably heard, France is in an uproar about burqinis. Three French mayors have banned them. A brawl reportedly broke out in Corsica last Saturday over women swimming in burqinis.
The word is a portmanteau of “burqa” and bikini,” but it’s is a misnomer, because the garment in question, unlike a burqa, doesn’t cover the face. France banned the burqa and the niqab six years ago. I wrote about that decision here — I was reluctantly in support of the ban. “Reluctant” for obvious reasons:
Let’s be perfectly frank. These bans are outrages against religious freedom and freedom of expression. They stigmatize Muslims. No modern state should be in the business of dictating what women should wear. The security arguments are spurious; there are a million ways to hide a bomb, and one hardly need wear a burqa to do so. It is not necessarily the case that the burqa is imposed upon women against their will; when it is the case, there are already laws on the books against physical coercion.
But in the end, in favor of it:
At its core, the veil is the expression of the belief that female sexuality is so destructive a force that men must at all costs be protected from it; the natural correlate of this belief is that men cannot be held responsible for the desires prompted in them by an unveiled woman, including the impulse to rape her. …
A woman who has been forced to veil is hardly likely to volunteer this information to authorities. Our responsibility to protect these women from coercion is greater than our responsibility to protect the freedom of those who choose to veil. Why? Because this is our culture, and in our culture, we do not veil. We do not veil because we do not believe that God demands this of women or even desires it; nor do we believe that unveiled women are whores, nor do we believe they deserve social censure, harassment, or rape.
I was careless about my nomenclature in that article. By “veiling” I meant using garments that cover the face. We can’t pretend that a garment that makes it impossible to see whether a woman is smiling, afraid, or sad — a garment that erases her face, her identity and uniqueness — is just another fashion choice.
But the argument over the burqini has nothing to do with face covering. According to the ruling, women must wear swimsuits “that respect good morals and secularism.” The ordinance says that “beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are currently the target of terrorist attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order, which it is necessary to prevent.”
Needless to say, this has prompted international ridicule and outrage. The language of the ruling is weirdly reminiscent of dictates from the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The British media, especially, is delighted at the opportunity to mock the French:
Nothing says “losing the plot” to me more than demonising what is, let’s face it, a wetsuit. Is full-piece swimwear really more offensive than seeing a middle-aged bum crack? Is it really going to terrorise your Mr Whippy into a total meltdown?
Non, they say, we must ban the burqa. Ban the burkini! Ban the bikini! Oh no, wait, the last one is OK because it’s not related to religion or politics. Apparently. Let’s not forget that back in the 50s, the itsy-bitsy bikini was not so welcome in wider society either: in addition to censure from the Catholic church, it was banned in Spain, Portugal, Australia, Italy and many states across the US. It was even banned from beauty pageants after contestants in the first Miss World scandalously wore the two-piece swimwear.
Politicians talk constantly about integration and inclusion, and then proceed to kick out to the fringes the very women they claim are oppressed and excluded from society.
On Saturday, French courts upheld the ruling, saying the move was legal under French law forbidding people from “invoking their religious beliefs to skirt common rules regulating relations between public authorities and private individuals.” The judge noted that the Cannes ban had been declared “in the context of the state of emergency and recent Islamist attacks, notably in Nice a month ago,” and “The wearing of distinctive clothing, other than that usually worn for swimming, can indeed only be interpreted in this context as a straightforward symbol of religiosity.”
Some background: I’ve never been to Cannes, but from what I understand, the influx of Saudi tourists has in recent years been a sore spot:
Tensions have been high in the French Riviera ever since it emerged that a Saudi king has been allowed to commandeer a public beach all for himself.
King Salman is expected to arrive in the Riviera on Saturday, where he and his family will stay at his plush villa which stands just metres from the Mirandole beach in Vallauris.
Local beachgoers from nearby Cannes and Antibes, however, have been protesting against the fact they will be barred from the beach for the entire duration of the family’s stay.
Saudi royals further inflamed relations with local hosts when they were given the green light to build an elevator down to the sand to make it easier for them to access the beach from their villa.
A regional councilor took the matter a step further and launched a petition against the privatization of the beach, gaining over 50,000 signatures of support, reported the BFM TV channel.
Locals are infuriated by this, but business-owners need the money. “Clearly this is good news,” said Michel Chevillon, president of an association representing hotel managers in Cannes.
“These are people with great purchasing power which will pep up not only the luxury hotel industry but also the retail and tourism sectors of the town,” he told the AFP news agency.
Anyway, France is clearly determined to say, “This is France. We don’t wear garbage bags to the beach in France.”
But I think there’s a way to make this point that isn’t needlessly mean to women who’d prefer to dress modestly at the beach. Ban black burqinis.
How does that solve anything?
Well, just look. A beach full of women dressed head to toe in black would be depressing, joyless, and un-French. Sights like the one to the right are calculated to inflame anti-Muslim sentiment. The mayor isn’t wrong to say that an insistence upon dressing like this is a provocation. Cannes is known, after all, for its film festival, its glamour, and the young Brigitte Bardot in a revealing bikini.
That said, not everyone beautifies a beach by wearing a bikini. Everyone could probably agree about that. A beach that allowed women to dress in bright, cheerful, modest wetsuits shouldn’t offend anyone but the profoundly bigoted. The difference between the black burqini and colored ones is the difference between funereal joylessness and “a pretty good fashion choice for women with cellulite.”
But French mayors want to prove that they’re tough on terrorism, so they’re going to plump for meaningless gestures like burqini-banning. And Islamists want to prove that France is at war with Islam, so they’re going to plump for maximal outrage about it. It’s a problem that could actually be solved by goodwill and common sense, but neither seem to be available in abundance.
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I’m saying that most women do not look like supermodels and don’t want to reveal to the world the extent of the difference. (Even putting aside quaint notions like religious modesty as practiced by non Muslims. ) As such, it is patronizing to assume that women do not freely choose to cover more skin than is currently en vogue, and offensive to force them to dress like a hooker or not go to the beach.
“Tits or get the [expletive] out” is no less offensive coming from the mayor than Internet trolls.
But the Schengen Zone constitutes an open-border area, and it has hundreds of millions of people to boot. I’ve read that France and other countries have reinstituted some controls there, but it seems a little late for that! This is nothing more than an invasion of Europe, and the burqini might be the least of our worries.
With other European countries.
You think that women who wear bikinis dress like hookers? (This is my last post on this thread.)
What in France keeps them from wearing a bikini now if that is what they want? The opinion’s of their peers? Well perhaps…but so what if they valued the bikini more than their fathers opinion of them they would wear the bikini if they don’t then they don’t that is not an unfree decision. Religion, family, and society all put different cultural pressures on us to conform to their expectations which can often be at odds. We should be free to decide how we square those circles for ourselves rather than have the government square them for us.
So, it makes a difference how many open borders your terrorist has to cross?
Hookers wear miniskirts that cover the line where the thigh meets the butt; bikinis don’t cover that much of the butt; therefore, bikinis are less modest than standard hooker wear. Which is why they had to be modeled by prostitutes when they were introduced.
I think we may be missing something from this discussion. I am not sure about what is going on in France but it would seem to be that the women that go to the beaches there would wear a variety of things from bikinis, one pieces suits, jogging pants, yoga pants, cover ups, jackets, etc, just like they do in the States. Why a burka like the colorful ones above is an issue seems odd.
Personally I would not mind if women (and men) would dress more modestly. I am not sure why many people feel that on the beach they can wear stuff that is even more scanty then their underwear. It is an odd world.
I get that (I think!), but I’ve read that many say it’s a way in for dangerous elements masquerading as refugees. When I read that the Paris attacks had caused a rethinking of the Schengen Zone, that reinforced this impression. I think that in view of the current situation, Europe should table its unification policies is all. This is no time for any kind of One World aspirations.
The EU in general, and France in particular, has a long history of importing cheap labor from Algeria, Morocco, and Turkey. It may not have been a technically ‘open border’ but it was “not open” the same way the U.S. border with Mexico is “not open”.
I’ll never get used to thongs. I cannot believe people run around with their entire butts showing.
I think part of the more risque beach wear was part of the trend for darker, tanned skin. The less fabric, the better hidden the tanlines in most styles of clothing.
It just takes practice.
Unless a woman is into wearing midriff-baring fashions off the beach as well, then the straps, not the the covered middle, are most likely to cause visible tanlines in most styles of street clothing. There are one-piece solutions to that problem.
The ultimate solution, I suppose, for those not daring enough to find a place to sunbathe completely nude, is tanning salons.
Assorted thoughts:
1.) Regarding safety. Heavy clothing drowns swimmers by absorbing water, becoming heavier, and tiring the swimmer until they can no longer displace enough water to stay afloat -and they sink. So, don’t make the burkini out of wool, and whatever you do make it out of, scotch guard it like regular swimwear, problem solved. Very long flowing garments could cause drag, over a very long time, tiring the swimmer -but without looking up the math, I’d imagine it’d require yards of the stuff to have a noticeable effect -we’re talking choreographed swimmers wearing Vegas Chorus-Girl/Busby Birkley levels of costume before any effect.
2.) Regarding modesty in the west -it ain’t just girls. I’m not actually in that bad a shape, but my skin is nuclear white and I burn easily -but I find swimming in a shirt very uncomfortable (and its hard on the cotton). So I rarely go swimming. The old Victorian-wear has an appeal for that reason.
3.) As noted before, the real reason for the burka bans was collective protection -if the burka is an option, the coercive pressures of the community would eventually force the noncompliers into the burkas. Furthermore, the noncompliers faced physical danger. But, everyone is not allowed, and so people can hide behind the law. Much like “everyone draw Mohammad day” and the famous parental order: “you are not to do that, therefore, you can blame me when your friends complain.”
Hahaha!
Is the the point in the thread where I get to complain about people’s unsightly sagging tattoos at the beach? I mean, I could live with mandatory burqinis (no, Autocorrect, not “burnings”) for fat people covered in distorted, ugly old ink.
You mean obviously they should prefer it.
And there are comments by many Western women right here on this thread which indicate it’s not always that simple.
Basically I think fetishising articles of women’s clothing as symbols of freedom (bikini) or oppression (Burkina) misses the point about what freedom and oppression are.
A woman in a bikini isn’t automatically free, she’s just in a bikini. Ditto for a woman in a Burkina wrt oppressed.
People can freely make choices that I wouldn’t. And that I don’t even understand. Don’t you think?
Claire,
Just for the record, I find nothing more beautiful, nothing more alluring, than an orthodox woman on the other side of the mechitza praying. Don’t underestimate modesty.
What this issue really demonstrates is my contention that by narrowing our focus to Jihad, the worst offenses of Sharia (such as the death penalty for apostasy, the death penalty for homosexuality, honor killings..etc.) we avoid exactly this kind of free-ranging prejudice that the French government thinks is helping. This pseudo-faith is an expression of the real current French religion which is secularity. Aside from it being a patently false faith, it is completely ineffective in counteracting the “problem”.
Regards,
Jim
Prepare to be horrified:
http://www.eonline.com/news/551961/these-men-are-wearing-the-most-insanely-revealing-bathing-suits-ever-prepare-for-the-pics
Ok, apparently the terrorists have won.
Yabbut they got to the PIT first – and I still have the images in my cache to prove it…
That looks painful. I’m just thinking of the torsion that must be involved.
Indeed.
Presented without comment:
http://www.racked.com/2016/8/16/12417762/beach-gal-bikini-hasidic-jews
I love this!
Haha! As do I!
Not really horrified just think it is silly. I just don’t understand the thrill a portion of the population gets out of wearing the least amount of cloths possible. Not sure why people want to inflict their nudity upon others.
I’d say the difference is whether the dress is mandated or not. What would happen to the Egyptian competitors if they chose to dress differently?
I should think the dress is mandated simply because it’s a team uniform. That aside, apart from the head covering, I would, like Amy, prefer the Egyptian costume to the butt-baring “western” design. I’d like to go on a tear about Sports Illustrated and its swimsuit edition (mostly naked women as a sport? indeed). Anyhow…
There is some modest swimwear out there with a broad range of coverings. This one is pretty expensive, but I’d like the capri leggings and tankini top. These include the Islamic type, but also some cute suits. The full length bodysuits are what I wear under a scuba drysuit. Finally, good old Amazon, with a nice range of prices, too. Swim leggings are very reasonably priced and have high ratings.
Worst thing I’ve ever seen on a beach: very slender pale-skinned man, in a thong, posing, posturing; for men, I think. *shudder*