Our View
The Carrier editorial reflects a consensus of the editorial board
While France attempts to ban the burkini, its revealing cousin the bikini is celebrating its 70th anniversary. Photographs chronicling its debut and early history in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s are on display in one of Paris’s chic galleries, according to the New York Times.
The French town of Villeneuve-Loubet banned the burkini, a bathing suit that offers full-body coverage that some Muslim women wear, from their beaches only a few days after the attack on Nice, and a handful of towns followed suit. The New York Times said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Manuel Valls supported the prohibitions, calling the garment part of “the enslavement of women.”
This past Friday, France’s highest administrative court made a ruling that overturned the town’s ban on burkinis, and Valls made another comment on Facebook about the subject. “Condemning the burkini in no way questions individual liberties,” he said.
The French Prime Minister is essentially relating the burkini to the enslavement of women, and he wants the public to pardon his problematic views. He does not condemn the women who choose to wear the burkinis, just the article of clothing itself.
Valls is upholding a false belief that the burqa and burkini are symbols of oppression, when for many women, they are a symbol of freedom from the male gaze. While some may call burqas archaic, this alienates women who wear their burqas by choice and with pride. Yes, the burqa hides the body, but more importantly for Muslim women, it is part of their religion and culture. What right does the French government have to deny women’s right to religious expression?
Saif Sarfani, a junior on staff at Viking Fusion, wrote in a blog post, “In my view, the burkini can never be a repressive form of dress because it was made by a Muslim woman with the intention of enabling other women to participate freely in sports while also allowing them to adhere to the Quran’s modesty in dress and behavior.”
This debate can be simplified further: identity versus conformity. With the influx of immigrants into France as well as the recent attack on Nice, people like Valls force conformity on the many unique and beautiful cultures within their border. Instead of celebrating new cultures and ideas, they instead try to maintain some sort of twisted defense against diversity.
Valls, in an interview published Wednesday in the Marseille daily newspaper La Provence, called the burkini part of a “political project” to enslave women. The real political project here is his advocacy of a sexist and Islamophobic ban.
A U.N. spokesman condemned the local bans, saying that they “fuel religious intolerance and the stigmatization of Muslims” and “have only succeeded in increasing tensions,” according to an article in Tuesday’s Washington Post.
We live in a society that sexualizes the female body while telling women that they should cover up more. Our society makes female students cover their shoulders for fear of distracting their male classmates, yet places ads of nearly naked women in every form of media. There are women being shamed for wearing bikinis and one-pieces, for baring a majority of their skin and for not baring “enough.” The double standards and sexism surrounding this issue need to be eradicated, and women should be allowed to wear their burkinis.