Burkinis

You won't be surprised to know my view of the burkini fiasco in France is this:

Get your nose out of women's clothes! 

What are you? Some kind of pervert? 

It seems the police are trying to safeguard secularism in France. I believe very strongly in secularism in a modern society. But I'm not offended by cabin crews on BA wearing crucifixes. Or by officers in Police Scotland wearing the hijab.

I hear French lawyers are challenging the secularism law in the courts but I suspect this isn't about secularism. It's about controlling women's behaviour. The police won't try to stop Jewish men wearing kippas or Muslim men wearing the kurta or the shalwar kameez. Women are a much easier target.

And if you think this kind of nonsense goes on only in France and could never happen in the UK, just think about the female employees of multi-national companies who are told they must wear high heels and skirts and grow their hair long because, apparently, male clients like that.

I remember this kind of nonsense from my youth: teachers in the 1960s getting girls to kneel down in the school corridor so they could see that their skirts touched the ground. Not that it made a blind bit of difference: once the girls were out of sight of the teachers, the skirts got rolled up at the waistband till they were miniskirt length again. When I started teaching in the 1970s, the 'Lady Advisor' was still trying to stop female teachers wearing trousers. My pal the drama teacher didn't bother to ask her how you change a studio lighting rack in a skirt while retaining your modesty at the top of the ladder. She just ignored her.

And this half-arsed attempt to ban the burkini won't work either. If you look at the photos below, you'll see that it took women less than 60 years to go from wearing the swimsuit on the left to the one on the right. In between, there were two world wars, which changed women's lives and attitudes forever.

1880s 

1920s

1940s

Myself, I'm not only keen on secularism, I'm really keen on choice. Women of whatever religion - or none - are perfectly able to make their own decisions. They don't need the police nosing about in their swimsuits.