Swimming Hijabis

[qatarperegrine]

From my sister's local paper: there are arguments going on in Oxford over whether Muslim women should be able to swim in hijab.

Aren't there burqinis in Oxford?

Comments

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention that - that's the solution they've proposed. Along with the women in Blackbird Leys who have a women-only swimming session and recommend finding similar women-only sessions at other pools.

Although of course when they did the story on the radio, with an announcer that's American but lived in Oxford for thirty years, it's hard to tell the difference between burqinis and bikinis, especially as he didn't explain and just said something like "Muslim women intending to swim in the pools are requested to wear burqinis instead" so without awareness of the product it does sound like bikini!

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Wow, that site (burqinis and such) is awesome.

Boggle

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I was almost too afraid to check-out those burqinies, the combination of the concepts of burqah and bikini was just brain-frying. :-)

In Israel, in areas with large Orthodox communities, you can easily find swimming pools and beaches with separate hours/days for men and women. Even so, some women wear the strangest outfits in th water. But taking a swim in full Burqah?? I just can't parse that.

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

And the funny thing is that, since hitting puberty and discovering that I no longer had a little boyish body, I've been swimming in the closest I could get to a burqini anyway. I'd usually get away with a t-shirt over my swimsuit with the argument that I sunburn and I'd spend as much time as possible wearing a towel around my waist to cover as much else as possible. Lately I just haven't gone swimming. I suspect there would be a lot of people (ok, mostly women) out there who'd happily go for a burqini or Victorian swimming cozzy!

Do they do relaxed burqinis without the balaclava bit? I might get one!