The Burka Debate

I'm trying to make myself understood by my granddaughter and I'm failing miserably.  My main objection to burkas is not how they look or how foreign they appear to us in Canada but to what they represent to free women.

Moslem immigrants are hard at work trying to change Canadian laws to accept Sharia law.  Sharia law happens to be a male dominated/female subservient law and that doesn't sit well with free Canadian women.

When I see a woman in a burka, my heart bleeds for her.  I can't understand why any woman would hide herself from view like this and can only feel she has been brainwashed or forced by the males in her society to cover herself in such a degrading way.  The head scarf that some women wear is not so bad but it's still used to hide under.

We see a lot of Muslim women, covered like this, walking with men who are dressed like the rest of us.  My back goes up when I see this and my hope is that, in the future, Muslim women will feel free to show their beautiful faces and hair.  It is nothing to be ashamed of.

My argument with our government is, if they cater to Muslim demands (allowing burka garbed women to obtain government documents), they are perpetuating the male dominance over them.  It's also an unsafe precedent because anyone could be hiding underneath garments that show only the eyes.

Some of my female relatives are die-hard feminists and yet I don't hear them speaking out against the burka.  That confuses me.  If there ever was a male dominated female, it is surely a Muslim woman.  

When I had surgery on my wrist, I saw a few Muslim women doctors wearing a head scarf.  I wondered how an intelligent woman like that could still feel she needs to cover her head in public.  

Anyway, it will change in the future as the younger generations blend into the Canadian society.  The sad part is that many women will lose their lives to dominant fathers who would rather see them dead than free.  We've already seen this happen all over Canada so it isn't an idle worry.