Straightforwardly: I just can't believe what I read. Wearing a burka violates the dignity of women? Is this a joke? So, I suppose that bikinis should likewise be banned, since many may think that going around virtually naked violates the dignity of women.
This is what the French Parliament is debating these days. They even created a special investigative commission. Really: IS THIS A JOKE?
Obviously, what bothers some people is really any display of religiousity. Then, they have the hypocrisy of making it look like they are concerned with women's dignity. I wonder why they don't do anything against pornography.
And what about the "use" of women in advertising. In my opinion, women's dignity is violated every time that their bodies are used as a bait to get men to buy a certain product. I'm surprised they don't say anything about this either, being so concerned about women's dignity.
Besides, the assumption that every woman who wears a burka (or a bikini) does it because it is being imposed on her, and not out of conviction, is in itself an insult to those women's dignity. I may think that some women are actually victims of a cultural imposition when they wear a bikini. I may think that they undergo rigourous diets, exercise programs and risky surgeries because the reigning culture imposes on them the paradigm of a certain kind of body. Should we ban all of them in the name of "women's dignity"?
I am not of those who think that in the name of people's privacy and self-determination we should refrain from any kind of intervention (legal or other kind). There is a line, of course there is a line, that when crossed, we should not hesitate in using the power of the law (or the arms) to put things back in place. But that line is very, very thin, and we must be exquisitely careful not to make it any wider. The true dignity of the person and its inalienable freedom demands this extreme care from us.
