Preserving modesty in the pool (Muslim women in Seattle)

Seattle Times ^ | July 19, 2005 | Lornet Turnbull

[Mrs. Don-o]

It's Saturday evening, the end of a hot day, and a group of women and children have gathered at North Seattle's Meadowbrook Pool for their monthly swim.

Most of the pool staff has left, except for two female lifeguards, who on this day will be on duty for the next two hours.

The women and children — all Muslims — have been swimming in private once a month at Meadowbrook as part of a program organized by the North Seattle Family Center.

Because Islam requires Muslim women to fully cover themselves in public, swimming in pools or the ocean is largely off-limits for many.

But across the Puget Sound area, that's starting to change as public and private pools at times are sending home their male staff members, covering up their windows and allowing women of faith to swim alone and in private...

Access to these pools is not free; the groups, like all others that use these facilities, pay a rental fee....

[AnnaZ]

Ya beat me to it. LOL.

[Iron Matron]

Idiots.

Where is N. O. W.? Where is old Helen Gurley-Brown?

This is the United States of America. Women here have rights, they can sunbathe in public wearing two-one inch patches and a couple of tassels if they so desire!

Muslim women ARISE!!! Your Husbands CAN NOT beat you here (you can have them arrested!), your husbands can't chop your heads off (even if you don't use, them, it is still a loss).

Why are Muslims ALLOWED TO OPRESS in this Country? There are laws, after all.

Other than that. I couldn't care any less..I don't think muslimes ought to be living in this Country while their minds remain in the third world..oh, and there is that wanting to kill us thing too.

[kellynch]

I belong to a women-only gym, and there is at least one Orthodox Jew and one Muslim who work out there when I do. A few weeks back, a man was there to do some work on the office computer, and, even though he had his back turned to the machines, the Orthodox woman, who was already quite modestly dressed (long sweatpants and a short-t-shirt) quietly went into the lockerroom and came back with a sweatshirt on top of her t-shirt and a "sweatskirt" on top of her sweatpants. The Muslim woman was not there that evening, so I do not know what she would have done.

In other words, I have no problem with this group paying for access the say way other groups do.

[montag813]

The way to fight them and win on this is via public health argument...that if someone is clothed you cannot see whether they have open sores or other such condition that might threaten their fellow bathers, and therefore it is unsafe to allow them in a public pool.

[Red Badger]

And excess body hair.......

[kellynch]

I meant "short-sleeved t-shirt"

[bitt]

next, maybe NAMBLA will be able to hire the pool privately, with only male guards, so they can peder the little boys in comfort. The door has been opened, and now all comers can step up, cuz they got precedence and the ACLU.

[funkywbr]

PUBLIC?

Looks like musscums can get away with what christians can not.

Like using public pool for baptisms?

[Mr. K]

I guess if they pay to rent the space they can do as they want

[July 4th]

have been swimming in private once a month at Meadowbrook as part of a program organized by the North Seattle Family Center

I read that as "pogrom" initially...

[bitt]

we might try to find that article...

[Tax-chick]

that if someone is clothed you cannot see whether they have open sores

You're suggesting everyone should be strip-searched before they use a public pool?

[livius]

Stupid, but better than the things we had in NYC a few years ago, where male children would surround girls and women in city pools and tear their bathing suits off, chanting "Woop, there it is!" ( a rap song).

[swarthyguy]

>>across the Puget Sound area, that's starting to change as public and private pools

Private, fine. But public, no. changing a country's social mores like this is too much.

Even the French don't go in for this kind of dhimmitude.

Monty Python could do a skit about this.

[Skooz]

LOL!!!!

[wildwood]

okay, ugh, having read this, i have to say, as a female this makes me sick. i cannot imagine this kind of oppression. boys no older than 6? women are completely bound by this oppressive culture, which, of course, i knew, but actually seeing it in practice makes me ill.

i'm sorry. ugh.

[HamiltonJay]

I dunno, the one muslim I know the best is the most P-whipped person I've ever met....

[Red Badger]

I once saw a muslim man and his wife here at the beach (Gulf Coast Florida) he was wearing shorts and a teeshirt. She was wearing a FULL body robe and a headscarf. the temp was in the 90's. I felt so sorry for her..........

[Cecily]

Orthodox Jews tend to swim separately, and I don't imagine the women wear the skimpiest bikinis.

If Muslims ever try to bring sharia law or their customs into American public life, I wonder if the ACLU will fight them tooth and nail as they have done to Christians?