Woman refuses Disney head scarf alternative

The difference here, sic, is that to work at a Disney park, you have to wear a uniform and have a certain appearance.

It's not like they are picking on Muslims. You have to basically look like a smiling, clean-scrubbed automaton to work there. That's part of the package.

 

SST, you are trying to shoehorn this woman's situation into a discussion you think society needs to have, but it's not fitting.

 

The Disney look for Arab women isn't really all that difficult to define.

 

I know this is stretching the comparison way too far, but Rosa Parks felt the same way about where she was required to sit on a bus

 

Are Jews allowed to wear the Yamulke while working for Disney?

 

I think that's a lot of the essence of what this comes down to -- can other religions dress and display their reglious wear while at work? I tend to think not, after reading some of the other posts here talking about the 'Disney Look'. That being the case, and assuming this rule is uniformly applied to people of all religions, I tend to think this is simply a case of a woman seeking attention and trying to bait the big family-friendly company into a fight and/or seeking grounds for a lawsuit and easy money.

 

are Catholics allowed to wear crosses?

 

If you read the excerpt I posted from the LA Times editorial, you would have seen that she worked in a "theme" restaurant.

This particular restaurant had a "Chip 'n' Dale theme. Costumed characters visit the tables, and the hostesses wear camp pants and orange vests."

The wearing of a hijab at this restaurant would be as appropriate and welcomed as a hostess at Hooters wearing one.

And this has nothing to do with Islam. She could no more have shown up wearing a hijab as she could have shown up wearing a Cross, or traditional Amish clothing.

I'm all for making reasonable concessions where possible for people to observe religious traditions and/or obligations.

But short of changing the law, there's nothing that compels Disney to do so. She knew this. She agreed to it when she was hired, and as an employee with two-and-a-half years of service, she had complied with it previously -- including through the last Ramadans.

Also, there is nothing religious about the hijab. It is not required. Just as it's not required for a Catholic to wear a Cross (visibly or not visibly).

There's also nothing about her Moroccan heritage that require the hijab. Only recently have woman there been wearing it large numbers, compelled by (male) religious athorities:

Even sources that try to make it sound like it's a "choice" for Moroccan women to wear the hijab admit that it's not mandated by either civil or religious law:

 

You could make that comparison about anyone who ever felt that anything was unjust in the entire history of the world. That doesn't mean they were all right.

 

On their heads? I don't think Mickey is running around the Magic Kingdom with a cross and John 3:14 sign.

 

You wouldn't want to know what I had to wear at the last place I worked with a Chippendale theme.

 

I posted this previously, and while it's Egypt and not Morocco -- where the woman in question is from -- it's a good visual depiction of the recent history of the hijab in the Middle East & North Africa.

The first picture is of Cairo University's graduating class of 1978:



I think I can see one woman wearing the hijab.

The second is from the same University's graduating class of 1995:



You'll see that nearly every head is covered.

The hijab is not religious, nor cultural. It's mostly an oppressive garment forced upon Muslim woman by fanatical Islamists.

If they had their way, woman would be wearing a burka and not working at all.

Disney has shown more respect for this woman's right & culture than many of her most fanatical co-religionists ever would.