Ban the Burka. Kristi Winters & TSF Chat (Mirror)
Channel: Kristi Winters
Date: 2016-08-12

Intros 0:00
Background 1:30
TSF view 1:53
Debate invite 4:14
Kristi's view of the burqa 6:21
Burqa chat
Question about using feminism to analyse social phenomena 28:31
Oral rape laws in OK 29:39
Advice to those who want to start a feminist channel 31:22

The Skeptic Feminist https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ihB7WP6MtZbB3XyV2vj9Q

''The Afghan burqa covers the entire head, face, and body and has webbing or grille work over the eyes that allows the wearer no peripheral vision. Another version in southern Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, covers the mouth, part of the forehead and lower jaw, and the head. The niqab can cover the entire face with a small space cut out for the eyes.''
http://www.meforum.org/2777/ban-the-burqa

Reasons against banning the burqa: the state has no place in deciding what a woman can and cannot wear—it is her body, not public property; 

My objection to the burka

Go back 6000 years - social, political, religious were all mixed, no spheres as we think of them today. In those societies there was a common structure for power: In-group free men at the top (be they Jews or Romans), Out-group free men (foreign men), under that level are women, slaves and children - the property of the men in the in and out groups.

Women and their bodies have always been regulated by men who ruled their communities. Women's bodies were regulated in terms of where they could go (women not allowed in the Roman Senate or past a certain section of the temple in Jerusalem in Jesus' day), and their clothing. 

Deuteronomy 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man
1 Cor 11:16Yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair! But since it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, she should wear a covering.
1 Cor 11:7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.

Women's bodies have always been, and still are, regulated by the state (influenced by religious norms) in ways men's bodies are not. Women's bodies are regulate to protect men from exposure to women's bodies. This reflects the ways in which women's bodies were seen as property by the men who owned them (fathers or husbands), and that the notion of regulating women's bodies to protect men from seeing them and having sexual thougths is still with us.

WHY FOCUS ON THE BURKA?

My objection to the burka is based entirely in feminist critique of the way it singles out women for oppression.  The burka is not Islamic, it is cultural, therefore my critique is not anti-Islamic. I also do not object to the burka for reasons of national or local security - the idea that the state should be able to see everyone's face to identify them.

My feminist critique is based on a few key observations: first and foremost the wearing the burka is a gendered practice.  The purported goal of a burka is one of modesty - but modesty is a concept that applies equally to men and women. Yet men are not required to wear it, therefore feminist critique allows us to highlight this hypocrisy.  I am not, for instance, in favor of the state banning anything and everything that covers the face and head because both men and women wear head coverings: whether it's a do-rag or cancer patient covering their head after hair loss from cancer treatments. The same cannot be said for the burka: it is designed to be worn by women only.  

My second feminist critique focuses on the intent of the burka.  It's aim is to negate the personhood of women. It is an attempt to eliminate a women's physical body from who she is.  If the men who imposed the forerunners of the burka could have created the sort of block out square we put over people's eyes in photos to hide their identity, I have no doubt they would have done that. If they could have made it practical for a woman to walk around in a box, they would have.  It is a display of who owns that woman's body, and it is not her.

My third feminist critique of the burka is that it punishes women for men's thoughts. Men in these societies decided that it was easier to cover up women's bodies and cast them as dangerous temptations rather than addressing the problem of rampant sexism and misogyny in their own cultures.  Instead of promoting that men in those society act like grown ups, and teach their boys to respect women, they baby proof their world by punishing women for their sexual thougths.

WHY FREE THE NIPPLE? http://freethenipple.com/why-free-the-nipple/

My subscribers are awesome - you're awesome too so you should subscribe as well!

Join my monthly seminar by supporting me on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/drkmwinters

My YouTube Facebook page 
Kristi Winters https://www.facebook.com/youtubedrkmwinters/

Follow me on Twitter too! https://twitter.com/KWintie