Word: headscarf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...While this method seems like the right one, it is not the national norm. That Harvard as an educational institution wants to make a contingent of undergraduates feel satisfied is reasonable. Indeed, just a few minutes on the elliptical machine in full sweatpants and a headscarf is an unpleasant prospect. We all benefit from diversity that is obtained through the right approach...
...restricting their freedom. It demonstrates a lack of respect for the autonomy of women and their ability to make their own decisions. If Turkey wants to promote women’s autonomy, it should do so directly, particularly by protecting women who choose to wear or not wear the headscarf from discrimination and retaliation...
Even if wearing the headscarf expressed political opposition to secularism, continuing to ban it may be the riskier move for the secular republic. Powerful interest groups, as well as the general public—60 percent, according to one opinion poll—oppose the headscarf ban, and over 400 members of Turkey’s 550-member parliament voted for its repeal. Maintaining the ban despite such opposition would only foster further resentment against the government and its secular policies. The past generation has witnessed the ferocious backlash that can result against a blanket secularism imposed tactlessly, most notably...
...influence on society and a serious threat to a non-religious public life. While the ban may seem anathema to Western liberal countries that prioritize freedom of religious exercise, the unique political and demographic characteristics of Turkey have made the ban quite appropriate, especially as the headscarf has become a political symbol of religious conservatism. The issue here is not simply the rights of individual women to don the headscarf in the classroom, but what impact the repeal will have on women’s rights and secularism in the broader context of Turkey’s political climate. Despite...
...Prime Minister Erdogan, an often blustery and impatient politician, has done little to ease the tension. "If [the headscarf] is indeed a political symbol, does that make it a crime to wear it? Is wearing a symbol a crime?," he said at the start of this debate last month. To secularists, his words confirmed their worst fears - that the headscarf is not an expression of religious piety but of a political movement that ultimately seeks to impose Islamic law. Thousands of secularists, mostly women, took to the streets in the capital of Ankara last week chanting "Turkey will not become...