Does anyone like or support face-covering (hijab or burka)??

Nothing wrong with the hijab, it doesn't cover the face usually.

Would you make an exception for Brides?

Or traditional nuns?

Haven't seen a traditional nun for years - I remember their headwear sort of black veils covering a white snood affair and long black dresses. Do they still exist or are they all modern these days - in fact do nuns still exist?

Actually when you think about it very similar to some styles adopted by women of the muslim faith

Exactly whitewave and it was never considered discriminatory. We had this discussion on the Vit D thread. I've since found out that most of the teaching and nursing orders now wear much more modern dress but the enclosed orders still wear traditional dress. These are the orders we rarely see outside their communities.
I must admit to feeling uncomfortable with the burka but have witnessed some amusing moments in muslim countries watching woman using mobile phones or trying to eat while wearing the burka! The hijab looks very smart especially when worn with business suits. Great for a bad hair day!

Well in my case it would be everyday Can non-muslim women wear a hijab or if you are having a very bad day a burka? Nothing to stop you I suppose - I would feel a bit claustrophobic though I do like fresh air.

And what do you wear underneath a burka?

well depends on the weather if it is hot nothing!! Whose to know? The more I think about it the better the idea gets it is just the fresh air bit that I would have trouble with. But oh the glory of just shoving on a complete cover up and poodling out. I could be the world's most glamourous woman underneath it all.

White wave, there's lots! I mentioned on another thread that one is a member of the forum and another has just joined. The traditional dress was ditched after Vatican 11 in the 60s.

Whitewave
I like the way this thread is going. Pity I have to get to work. Hope others pick up the suggestion that there are advantages to wearing a burks and run with it. GNetters can be very creative and amusing!

If you overslept you could wear your pjs all day and get away with it

is there any Gn'r that wears one of these? apart from our nun members. Are they - the nuns - grans then?{confused] now that would be really interesting

I can't speak for all of them, obviously, but my friend is a widowed gran whose children have long flown the nest. She's a busy energetic woman who likes to live with sisters. I have another friend, who has done many interesting things in her life, including at one time working in a clothing factory and getting involved in a health and safety matter and then being accused by management of being communist.

Get rid of the stereotypes, GNers!

Well going back to the OP - you see to be in a mild state of personal outrage. Along with your friends. And you are worried about the effect on your grandchildren.
You make an argument about integration and doing as the Romans do. etc
So does your outrage extend to less concealing forms of Muslim clothing? Men wearing turbans? Women in saris?
If not, what is offending you so much? Do you feel that they can see you and you can't see them and this is somehow unfair?

Actually if you take the argument to it's logical conclusion everyone would wear the same "Brave New World" anyone?

Each to their own! I do prefer the hijab as the person's face is visible. My discomfort would come if I thought it wasn't the woman's own choice.

Turbans etc, no issues with them at all. They don't cover the face!

Yes it's not being able to see people's (women's) faces that I object to. I come from a culture where people show their faces and I want to continue living that way. Like I value a culture where men cover their legs!

Someone wearing a burka is scary for children. I was delighted when that daft teaching assistant in Yorkshire (I think) was sacked for insisting on covering her face. The reading of the face (I don't mean speech) is an important way in which we communicate. I don't think I'm being unreasonably intolerant. Nor does French Law. I wish it was the Law here too.

I associate the burka (not hajib) with people who do not want to partake in the society I live in, and I object to that. Strongly.

I accept, reluctantly and not quite whole-heartedly, that women who wear the burka do so voluntarily.

Also (anecdotally) we live in the most security camera saturated country in the world . Crimes sometimes do seem to be solved by CCTV's all pervading presence. Doesn't the burka make a nonsense of this? If a woman in a burka were to be a hardened shoplifter, she can't be identified (and she has somewhere extremely commodious to conceal items!) btw I am not accusing all burka-wearers of being shoplifters, of course they're not!

I'm surprised more people here don't agree with me. Are you all being totally honest?

btw there are plenty of nuns out there but, as someone said, they tend to wear modern dress these days.

Eariier comments. I've never seen a bride with an opaque veil, always transparent. And rarely worn in public, usually just in and around the church. I have absolutely no objection to what anyone wears in private.

I've never seen a nun who covers her face.

I don't like women wearing the burka or niquab and I also dislike the idea of any women being coerced into wearing them. I also strongly disapprove of the French law that forbids women from wearing them. I don't think its anyone's right to tell individual women what they can or cannot wear. I should prefer it if women didn't cover their faces, but do not object to their doing so. As for headscarves – well, even Her Majesty wears those.

absent so that makes wearing a headscarf OK then

It makes it very British whitewave (re OP when in Rome…).

absent exactly!

I am in accord with absent on this - well put.

There are many modes of Islamic women's dress of which the burka is the most extreme. The niqab also covers the face with the exception of the eyes. Like you, isthis, I don't like these at all. To see a family out feeding the ducks, the children and father wearing jeans and sweatshirts, with the mother entirely enclosed in a burka made me feel intensely uncomfortable, as if the mother was of a different species, or in some kind of servitude. I don't know what is worn under the burka - anything from thermals to almost nothing, I shouldn't wonder. When I was an ESOL teacher, during the coffee break when the male students had left the room, an Iranian woman showed us what was under the scarf and coat - astonishingly, cropped blond hair, jeans and trainers, much like the French girls in the same room.
One day, perhaps, the burka will be a thing of the past but it will take cultural change rather than statutory measures to bring this about.