This thread starts off with the wrong basis. All clothing choices are political. Just because she didn’t realize it didn’t make it less so. Ignorance is sometimes convenience, I guess.

I don’t really buy the Clash of Civilizations narrative, but at the same time I believe that — no matter what the participants therein say — that the burka/niqab/hijab is a form of forced servitude.

That said, I don’t know that banning the wear of such garb is the answer. I lean that way, with laws similar to those in France, but I’m not certain of it.

All these folks come out of the woodwork when there is some effort to preserve secular society, but there is nary a word when forced veiling or the politics of the veil is brought up, or Muslim oppression of women….

To me, preserving a secular society at pretty high cost is worth making some people’s lives worse or more inconvenient for a while.

God this is such a stupid discussion.

That you sexually harass people doesn’t mean you are terrible at everything else. It just means you are an asshole, and assholes have many other talents — just like anyone else.

In fact, I’d wager that sexual harassers because they are boundary breakers might produce slightly more and better science individually but harm science overall. Note: this is not condoning their behavior! I’d like to tase all of them right in the face. But people who push too hard in one area tend to do so in others, too. The “benefit” though is probably outweighed by the massive drawbacks such as good people (mostly women) being ejected out of science.

Most people are pretty horrible. I just can’t get behind the “I can’t watch, read, listen to, or trust the science of anyone who is not completely perfect.”

It’s just senseless, and if one were to practice that, you’d have to live in a cave eating bark.