However, the hijab doesn’t fit neatly under the bracket of being a “religious symbol”. It’s not the equivalent of a piece of jewellery that displays pride in your faith, and which can easily be concealed to stop people feeling uncomfortable. For its wearers the hijab is a core part of their way of life, linked to the way they choose to practise their faith. It is not up for debate.
By permitting a ban on the hijab, Europe is essentially permitting a ban on Muslim women in the workplace.
Well, oddly enough, the hijab itself isn’t a particularly Muslim thing.
The actual injunction is to dress modestly and different cultures have interpreted this differently. From, roughly speaking, the full burka to just not flashing one’s tits. Hijab refers not to the scarf nor even the head covering, in truth, but to the “modestly”.
I’m actually old enough to recall when it was considered very much not on for a woman to be bare armed in a Catholic Church…..
Now, it might be that the dominant Muslim culture of our times says that the head covering is that necessity for modesty but it’s still not universal. Just as Orthodox Jewish ladies wearing wigs so that only their husbands see their hair is a definitely minority pursuit.
Myself I’m all in favour of this ban upon religious symbols. Yes, this includes the air hostess wearing a crucifix, the Rasta insisting upon dreadlocks and so on, that’s the way the ECJ has written it. Employers are indeed allowed to discriminate among those they would employ. As we’re all allowed to discriminate against employers who do damn fool things. And as Gary Becker pointed out, employers who stupidly do so will lose money. This is a problem best left to the market to solve.
And think what happens if this really is discrimination against Muslim women? Their wages fall I make a fortune by specifically employing only Muslim women. And don’t say it doesn’t happen that way because Dame Stevie Shirley showed outright that it does work.
And modesty in a dress code is relative.
A vicar’s wife in a mini skirt was big news 50 years ago. Not now.
I knew a Pentecostal girl who expressed modesty by wearing just bikini bottoms on a nudist beach.
“Identity isn’t something you suppress for public spaces. I don’t stop being a Muslim when I come into work and turn into a journalist. “
How very revealing….
Equality is the root of all evil of course.
It’s what has governments contorting laws which have to try and look non-discriminatory while magically catching Muslims but no one else.
It would be far easier (and perhaps more honest) just to say, “sorry, you’re new here, you adapt first, and then we’ll see about us adapting”.
Did you hear the one about the two Muslims who tipped off the press about a radical imam preaching death sentences for apostates (in Switzerland)?
They got beaten up by a crowd of ‘fellow’ believers.
And then reported for breach of privacy laws.
https://www.thelocal.ch/20170224/winterthur-mosque-presses-charges-against-duo-who-reported-imam-for-inciting-murder
Some things just aren’t ‘equal’.
Back when I was a kid most women would wear a head covering when outdoors – a hat for the middle class and a headscarf for working class was usually the order of the day.
And I pity the judge who has to deal with a future case where the employer claims it’s a hijab and thus a religious symbol, and the employee claims it’s a snood and thus secular fashion.
When it comes to facecoverings, I work on the following concept:
Would it be considered suitable to wear a full-face motorbike helmet in this situation?
If not, then no other facecovering should be allowed either.
His article would be an interesting contribution IF THERE WAS JUST SUCH A HIJAB BAN. There isn’t though; there is a ruling that says EMPLOYERS can ban religious symbols provided they do not discriminate between religions.
Cue the claim that the hijab isn’t really religious in that sense, oh how convenient. Well here’s the rub dear: if it is a cultural requirement there is even less cause for it to be protected from this ruling. For culture is about how we self-identify and how we encounter others. And at work we encounter others precisely how our employer says we encounter others and not how your lifestyle choice or your own chosen identity says you do.
A different take, from another Muslim woman:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/03/the-right-to-ban-the-veil-is-good-news-for-everybody-including-muslims/
Companies can have dress codes. Nothing new here.
The Guardian (and the BBC) have taken a ruling which refers to company dress codes and not discriminating against particular religions, and turned it into a lie that “the government are deliberately targeting muslims”.
It’s as if they were desperate for a civil war or disturbances in the streets, or something. They do this on every occasion they can.
I think job candidates should wear religious symbols, it speeds up the weeding out process.
Banning head-bags is a pathetic attempt by Western cuck politicals to give the impression they are “doing something” about the RoP takeover. When they are doing nothing.
Likewise this Rutte creep in Holland–getting into some hot air contest with the Sultan of Scum. “Look tough” is what their ad men tell them–while the poli-pork continue to kiss arse. Camoron “re-negotiation” style–except Camoron couldn’t even manage that much.
Well, oddly enough, the hijab itself isn’t a particularly Muslim thing.
It ain’t a particularly Buddhist thing either. I would bother with any Social Justice Warriors telling us what Muslims believe. Muslims clearly believe it is a particularly Islamic thing. So it is.
More to the point, it is a grievance in search of a confrontation. The Radicals want to drive a wedge between the Muslim community and the rest of us. They have picked the hijab as an issue. If not this, they would pick something else. There is no real solution. They will get their confrontation. They are a cancer and we cannot live with them.
I’ve had my fill of this mo’ hammed stuff.
I want less hammed.
DocBudMarch it speeds up the weeding out process.
Viz top tips – Employers- throw half of all job applications in the bin to ensure you don’t hire unlucky people.
The ruling actually allows employers to discriminate against the wearing of ‘political, religious and philosophical symbols’. How that becomes solely a ban on the hijab I will leave for greater minds to explain.
‘It’s not the equivalent of a piece of jewellery that displays pride in your faith, and which can easily be concealed to stop people feeling uncomfortable.’
Go screw yourself, Amrani. You have NO RIGHT to not feel uncomfortable. Your snowflake position is suicidal. If I wore a religious symbol, say a cross, I’d damn sure not conceal it.
Westerners are to change so that ME invaders don’t feel uncomfortable.
I speak of it in another thread: journalism seeks power. Their goal is destruction of the West. That they will die with it doesn’t concern them, apparently because they can’t see past tomorrow.
So because strict Muslims go for more crazy displays of faith, we should be more accommodating? That seems like a terrible idea.
But really, I, as employer, should be allowed to decide any symbols, religious or otherwise. My gaff, my rules.
If you’re running a hair salon, you want hairdressers hair on show. Whether they wear a crucifix around their necks is irrelevant.
Bottom line is that employers now have to do a “will this person be a dick”. It probably results in more prejudice because no-one wants a dick as an employee that’s difficult to fire.
See, this is what gets me. “Modest” is “not drawing attention to oneself”. Ergo, “dressing modestly” is “dressing in a way that does not draw attention to oneself”. Wearing a hijab is the complete antithesis of dressing modestly.
“I’m actually old enough to recall when it was considered very much not on for a woman to be bare armed in a Catholic Church…..”
That may not be very old. In summer 1996 my family was not allowed to enter St Peters in Rome because my son and daughters (ages 21, 19, 17) were wearing shorts.