Burqa : Women’s rights overlooked in the name of racial “tolerance” .

If there’s a hierarchy in the hallowed halls of our nation’s tertiary institutions whenever a potential clash of ideology arises, it goes something like this: Muslims and then women. In that order.

This is an environment in which even the most passionate of women’s advocates can be rendered mute by a suggestion they are engaging in anti-Islam rhetoric.

An environment in which the very same people who will argue at length about how female pop stars are coerced into wearing skimpy clothing due to the patriarchy will shy away from a frank discussion about the pressures brought to bear on other women to wear a burqa, niqab or hijab.

Analysing the archaic double-standards and obstacles faced by women across the world is all well and good until you risk offending the sensibilities of Muslim men. And let’s face it, it is only ever the men.

When was the last time you heard a Muslim woman seriously claim to be offended that anyone would dare to suggest she should sit where she wants? Or wear what she chooses? Somehow it’s always a man who steps forward to defend a woman’s “right” to be treated as a second-class citizen.

Last October freelance journalist Alison Bevege wrote an opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph in which she detailed how she was not permitted to sit in the front of the room at a public meeting in Sydney organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir.

“Like Mississippi blacks in the 1950s sent to the back of the bus for the colour of their skin, I was segregated due to my gender,” she observed.

Which is pretty much how events unfolded at the University of Western Sydney last Thursday night when men and women were asked to sit apart at an event organized by the Muslim Students’ Association.

Note EU-Digest : With all respect for anyone's religious believes, but Islam really could do with a face-lift the Christian had back in the 1500's when Martin Luther told the Catholic Pope that he was not God's representative on earth, that God lives within us and not above us, and that Women and Men are both equal in God's eyes.

Women’s rights overlooked in the name of racial “tolerance” | Herald Sun