"It is part of their culture..."

Fuck their culture. It's not part of ours.

"It was probably only when I went there and spent some time amongst women that I really understood that for them it's a choice"

Keeping black slaves on Caribbean plantations was part of British culture once. Plenty of those slaves chose to spend their whole lives in slavery rather than risk the terrifying consequences of escaping to freedom. And there were plenty of twits who marvelled at the happy, care-free Negroes. Some even wondered why any slave would want to run away. So today we have the likes of Ms Spelman, who went all the way to Afghanistan to see villages full of women in black body bags, and never thought to ask a single one of them what would happen to her if she chose to go out in a skirt or jeans instead.

Fantastic. She can move there immediately and start empowering herself, lest her stupidity spread like the plague through a hovel.

It's so insane. It's so loopy. Maybe this is like the stupidities we get from the real fanatics of the religious right who complain about evolution.... The zombies who really don't know about science and the humanities, so they think being a college professor is just about saying complicated and counter-intuitive things.

Maybe this Spelman person doesn't know anything at all about decency, or feminism, or dignity... Maybe this is just a pathetic cry for help, a backhanded way of saying to the world that her upbringing and education were completely spineless, colorless, unchallenging experiences.

Wouldn't excuse this, but it would be one explanation.

But it's their culture. It's okay for them.

Of course people who justify barbarity because it's "their culture" fail to recall that our own European-based culture once included burning people at the stake, bleeding with leeches, right of first night, trial by fire, and other abuses stomped out by the coming of the Enlightenment and a belief in human rights.

...wearing a burka "empowering" and "dignified" for Muslim women.

Wearing a burka is empowering. Mostly because being beaten and murdered by the local morality police is not empowering and can be undignified.

She said that she held her view “as a woman,”....

So, she forms her opinions as a woman? Being a woman, how else would she have formed them...as a man? As a mongoose?

I hate the word empowering! Seriously! It's always attached to women in some way and it really chaps my ass. It's as if we had no power to begin with, Only through this marriage or that outfit or that job or this set of manners we will be magically transformed. The only thing governments can do is to stop denying women the power they were born with. But it's bigger than the govt, it's in the psyche of every person in that culture. We do it here too though, it's just more rooted in consumerism. I guess the burka is the new Louboutin. Of course, we still have a choice over here to honor kill or not honor kill our feet on saturday night ;0

It's only "empowering" bc it separates the sex workers from the "decent" folk. Sex workers are not allowed to wear it, so another similarity exsists here. What woman in our culture would want to broadcast to the world that she is a sex worker? Sex workers are dehumanized everywhere and yet they are such a big part of the invisible hand in our economy.

Well "as a woman" I think this is complete horseshit.

I just wonder when is their islamic burka nonsense going to end? Do they expect us to waste our precious time debating whether they should or should not wear their islamic burka? It is nothing wrong if they cover themselves due to modesty reasons but if they cover themselves due to some evil need to have some power to intimidate us nonbelievers and look down on us nonbelievers, then it is clearly unacceptable. It seems that not only they can't cure their own islamic community schizophrenic madness, they tried to spread their schizophrenic madness to us.

One wonders if the esteemed Spelman has herself ever donned said burka, and if so, for what length of time....when I was over here in Afghanistan four years ago, one of the soldiers bought one to mail home to his wife (as a joke, don't ask) and we of course all tried it on.

Even in a building that was a temperate 75 degrees, it was damned oppresive. Not unlike having a thick canvas bag over your head that goes to your ankles and the accompanying feeling of suffocation. I see these babes running around in the hot, dirty streets of Kabul and wonder how in the hell they do it. Down south, where the temp averages around 130 this time of year...can't even imagine how awful it is.

Oh, and just because a "cultural norm" is a "cultural norm" does not make it any less f*cked up or barbaric...

This is for all the good looking women.. It is empowering to walk around naked.

For the ugly women it is empowering to stay home or put a paper bag over your head.

See I can do the same thing...

It saves all the agonizing over what to wear.

The only other positive things I can come up with is that the Burqua could be a bank robber's best friend if it catches on over here.

Remember, Spelman is one of the elites. That ought to tell you everything you need to know about those who want to run your life for you.

Ooooopsie!

Looks like the Pandora's Box of politically-correct cultural relativism and anti-Jingoism has been opened (white = bad; male = bad; traditional mores = bad, "Western" = bad, etc., etc.). And all the King's horses and all the King's (or is it really Queen's?!) men (and women -- oh, God, don't leave out the women!) couldn't get the Box closed again.

Isn't it amazing how many aspects of our lives end up being dictated by a few ideologues' and zealots' views of what society SHOULD be like, and their opinions as to what the truth SHOULD be.

Cumbaya, my friends, cumbaya ...

It's astonishing how many elite types miss the point... it ain't the clothes you wear, kid, it's the thought behind them. Dignity is one thing, if it isn't forced upon you... "you would be so much more diginfied, dearie, if no-one could see you. In fact it would be better if no-one did."

It's a piece of clothing. It is the law and lifestyle that demands it that is the problem... or is that too difficult for a minister to figure out.

Wearing a white sheet is racist. Wearing a black sheet is multi-culti correct and empowering. Got it.

Anyway, even withut their islamic burka, they still behaved in such an intimidating( towards those who opposed their evil cult) and obsessive manner over their evil cult. Therefore it doesn't matter what they wear as long as they keep their evil islamic madness and their mad irrational evil obsession with their evil cult to themselves.

Pat Condell's latest video is well worth a watch!

You know, I mostly agree with her. Just from reading her somewhat fuller comments in the rest of the article, she was talking about whether or not to ban the burkha in the UK. And no, in general, I don't think government should be telling women what they can or can't wear.

What about bikinis? Don't they overly sexualize women? I mean, my God, you go to a public beach and little children are exposed to nothing but cleavage! What kind of message is THAT sending to their developing minds?

No doubt, her argument that women in Afghanistan find choosing to wear the burkha empowering is somewhat rubbishy. But it's not that ridiculous a statement (or sadly, that original.)

It's like marijuana. I wouldn't be against random drug tests for airline pilots. And I wouldn't be enthusiastic about a burkha clad woman getting on my flight without being checked over by a female security guard.

But if some Muslim woman wanted to legally smoke a bowl at home, then wander the streets clad like a ninja, I'd have no problem.

You know, I was going to make a joke about having to pay extra to dehumanize a sex worker, but it nolonger seems à propos

Besides burqa, those too many islamic women also wear those intimidating hijab(that don't cover their face) but as intimidating and as disgustingly arrogant and hostile in malaysia. they expect special privilege to wear that headgear and they expect people to respect their stupid headgear but they don't respect our many types of decent western clothing which we wear according to climate, practicality, comfort, design, etc. However skimpy our clothing may be, they should not looked down on us. In fact they have no right to tell us to wear modestly since behaving in an upright moral manner is more important than wearing modestly. It is a shame that their head to toe covering did not prevent their islamic community from committing adultery and other immorality. so, no point they being proud of their horrible covering and no point they boasting that their disgusting way of life is better, when in reality it is not better than our decent way of life.