The veil...oppressive or not?

Wearing the veil seems to be growing into a hot topic in the media for a few reasons, partly because some muslim women have been asked to not wear the veil while working and in France we see the government attempting to put a ban on veils in schools. So what is the problem with the veil and why in the western world are they seen as bad?

Well a lot I guess many would say is that due to current world events to do with terrorism and growing fundamentalism in the Islamic world there is more hostility but as we all know this type of fundamentalism is a very small proportion of the faith which most muslims living in England would say is completely against their beliefs. In a recent lecture on the subject we discussed some of the issues on the subject which lead to arguments about it being oppressive to women such as husbands forcing their wives to wear one and although I believe this does occasionally happen and I think someone shouldn't be forced to it seems the case that more often the wives will wear the veil out of respect for their husbands and it is their choice.

One of my other thoughts was that why do men not wear a veil? why is it always the women who have to wear the veil whether it is their choice or not? This is still a concern for me however I think there would probably be answer I would recieve that explains but in lots of ways I still somewhat feel that the origins and its use today is to separate people which I think in some contexts is a bad thing.

In the lecture I had on the subject I found one thing very interesting and that was that the lecturerer made a comparison between the western and eastern culture. In the western culture we think that women wearing black clothes in the desert seems shocking however it is what they are expected to do but also it seems shocking to people from the eastern world that people in Britain and other western societies would expect women to wear very little clothes in the cold of winter because it is the expected dress.

I think the veil is not bad in general, if someone wants to wear it and they have independent reasons then thats fine. I think there needs to be more education on the subject so people can learn from each others cultures and that works both ways.