Swiss Men Tell Women What They Can and Cannot Wear

The lower house of the Swiss parliament has voted in favor of a bill that would ban covering one’s face in public. This is, of course, a burka ban, and it is being pushed by Switzerland’s far-right nationalist party. According to The Independent:

The proposed law would see paragraphs written into Switzerland’s federal constitution against the “concealing of one’s face” in public places, other than religious sites, with exceptions for health and safety, the climate and unspecified local customs.

While browsing social media, I came upon an argument over the proposal. One friend argued that the bill was a good thing, meant to stop Muslim men from forcing their wives/daughters to weir the veil. Another friend responded that it amounted to more of the same—men telling women what they can and cannot wear. The first friend objected, noting that there are certainly women in the Swiss parliament, so the bill isn’t men telling women what they can or cannot wear.

Curious, I looked up the vote on the bill and checked each MP’s gender.

The vote was a close one, with 88 voting for and 87 against. Of these, 18 women voted for and 40 women voted against. In other words, if only women had been voting, the bill would have been soundly defeated, over two to one. Further, the makeup of the Swiss parliament is skewed male. If it weren’t—if women comprised half the body and voted along the same lines as the women currently in parliament—the bill would have been defeated. The bill only passed because it had strong male support.

So yes, I’m afraid that we very much can say that this bill is an example of men telling women what they can and cannot wear. Indeed, women voted against the bill more than two to one despite the bill’s primary promoter’s claim that it was designed to “maintain public order and respect for the dignity of women.” It appears that Swiss women disagree, and don’t want to be told what they can and cannot wear in public.

As I’ve noted before, bills like this has the unfortunate effect of further limiting the movement of conservative Muslim women, many of whom are immigrants. These women are vulnerable enough without being shut out of public life more fully.