We Need To Talk About Clothing — what the French ‘burkini’ bans say about what we wear

It’s hard not to feel sorry for humans sometimes. As a species, we’re full of contradictions and inconsistencies. Take, for example, the recent decisions made by the French towns of Cannes, Villeneuve-Loubet and Sisco in Corsica to ban the so-called burkini. These bans amount to a fascinating case study into human attitudes to freedom, self-expression and choice. Unfortunately, what they tell us most clearly is that when it comes to these things — and especially when it comes to clothes — we’re a confused mess. Not only do the various authorities who have implemented these bans seem to have no idea quite what they’re banning or what they hope to achieve by doing so, but the torrent of words that have flooded the Internet in the aftermath reveal that humans in general are extremely good at telling other people when their freedoms are being infringed and what they should do about it, but seem to have no idea how constrained, how unfree, they themselves are.

The first thing to say about the burkini is that, like every piece of clothing in existence, it’s nothing more than some lengths of thread assembled into a particular shape. To ban a bunch of threads organised into one shape whilst not banning the same threads organised into another is not just bizarrely illogical and inconsistent, but appears on the face of it to be all but unenforceable. The burkini, for example, has regularly and not unreasonably been compared to a hooded wetsuit. After all, they both do a similar job of covering up naked flesh from head to toe. Yet no one, to my knowledge, is considering banning wetsuits. This is largely, of course, because wetsuits have no association with Islam, but it also raises uncomfortable questions around both the functionality of clothing and the motivations, real or imagined, of its wearers. Questions that, pursued to their logical conclusion, touch on some of our most deeply-held and least questioned assumptions about our very nature.

Critics of the burkini and supporters of the bans regularly declare that it represents a tool of religious oppression. The decision to wear a burkini, or a jihab or burka for that matter cannot, they claim, be made freely because these garments are specified by men in order to control women. There is, no doubt, much truth in this argument. Yet remarkably few people, I imagine, question their own motivations each morning when they get dressed. It’s just one of those things we do. Each of us, regardless of our faith or cultural background, considers our anticipated activities for the day ahead, and dresses accordingly. What we don’t appear to realise is that whatever we choose to wear, whether it’s a suit for the office, a glamorous dress for a night out, or a T-shirt and shorts for a day lounging in the park, is just as much a reflection of our own cultural oppression as the burkini. Few, if any, of us seriously consider the option of wearing something that would be considered inappropriate for the situation we’re about to face, let alone the idea of wearing nothing at all. Even the bikini and other swimwear, which is as close most of us get to going naked in public, reflects a view of the human body that requires certain parts of it to remain covered at all times.

Some people do, of course, reject the idea of covering up. But the cultural imperative to dress ourselves is so powerful that those who dare to go naked in public, like Stephen Gough, the so-called naked rambler, are regularly subjected to the full force of the law. Gough, who twice hiked the length of Britain entirely naked, was arrested for his temerity in offending what is politely called ‘public decency’, and has spent the majority of his time since in prison. As an individual campaigner, Gough is, of course, an easy target. Public nudity is far safer in groups. Just ask those who attend events such as naked bike rides, naked political protests and naked art installations, who rarely seem to be bothered by the law. And of course there are various designated ‘safe’ areas, such as nudist beaches and resorts, where people can disrobe without fear of arrest. But these are invariably located at a suitable distance from the madding crowd, in places where no ordinary decent member of the public might inadvertently stumble upon the horror of exposed human flesh. The condition of the majority of us, in our relentless quest to face each day suitably-attired, is only highlighted by the almost total invisibility of these rare exceptions. Gough’s problem wasn’t that he went naked, but that he insisted on making a point of doing so in places where everybody else was dressed.

It seems increasingly important amidst the heat of the burkini debate to ask ourselves what exactly is the purpose of all these clothes that we insist on wearing? People often argue that they’re for protection. And indeed our almost hairless bodies do seem poorly-equipped in this regard compared to other animals. But it only takes a second’s thought to see that this is a spurious argument. Protective clothing might be necessary for firefighters and arctic explorers, but for the majority of us who spend our days sitting in offices and driving cars and lounging in front of the TV, what is there to stop us going naked other than a set of cultural assumptions based largely on body shame, masquerading as sexual morality? These assumptions might be revealed most obviously by garments such as the burkini, but they are by no means exclusive to Islam. The Christian foundation on which western cultures are built is equally culpable, with its unambiguous messages of sexual and physical shame. This is a fact we seem incapable of recognising, preferring instead to focus on our projections about what is going on in the minds of those who choose to don the burkini. The claims we make about muslim women barely need repeating. They are oppressed, we say; incapable of making a free choice in the context of a religion that requires women to cover up and act modestly. What we fail to see is that we are equally subject to similar values. Mini skirts and crop tops might be more revealing than burkas and burkinis, but they are an expression of the same fundamental message — that our bodies are a source of shame and that, even when ostensibly being revealed, they should still be covered up. We claim to be free, but what kind of freedom is it that offers us the choice between this skirt and these trousers, that jumper or this shirt, but which refuses to countenance the possibility of no clothes at all?

So is it the clothing itself — the burkinis and hijabs and niqabs and burkas — that we object to? Or are we in fact troubled by the motivations that we perceive to underlie the wearing of those garments? Those who elect to ban these items seem uncertain, expressing a series of objections ranging from a perceived lack of hygeine to a supposed link with terrorism. But these people, along with the rest of us, have at least one thing in common — we presume not only to understand the motivations of women who choose to wear such clothes, but to know better than they do what is best for them. We unthinkingly elevate our own clothing choices — our suits and ties and dresses — to a higher plane of consciousness, arguing that these garments are, somehow, reflections of our freedom to choose, while those others are symbols of oppression.

It’s a spurious line of thinking. We don’t and can’t know the motivations of burkini-wearers any more than we can know the motivations of the wearers of leather jackets or pointy shoes. Some women are no doubt forced to wear burkinis by controlling men, just as some women are no doubt under similar pressure to wear mini skirts, whether cultural or personal. Many women undoubtedly cover up to avoid the relentless gaze of men; to lessen the sense of their bodies and their sexuality being public property. All we can say with any certainty is that each individual’s choice to wear what they wear is a complex mix of cultural and psychological factors, and that each of us who chooses not to go naked is to some extent oppressed by the expectation that we will dress ourselves. What we seem incapable of doing is questioning the fundamental assumption that clothes are a basic requirement in a civilised society. It’s a pity that many of those who are so quick to criticise the oppression of muslim women are unable to see the hypocrisy they practise each time they put on their own garments of choice. Because it isn’t just burkini-wearers who are suffering from cultural oppression. All of us, at least all of us who wear clothes in public, are in the same boat. So let’s either agree to let people wear whatever they like, or let’s chuck away all our clothes — all those that aren’t actually required for protective purposes, at any rate — and get used to the idea that beneath our woven threads, each of us has a body.