Woman strangled to death by her headscarf

Jay/Cris wrote:

To be fair, she wouldn't have had this problem if she had been wearing a bhurka.

It's possible she would. A part of the headpiece could have flapped into the kart and she could have gotten head injuries if you took the worst-case scenario.

Also, seeing a woman wearing a proper burqa in Australia is quite uncommon. The majority of the community tend to go low-key with simple headscarves.

Penguin wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

To be fair, she wouldn't have had this problem if she had been wearing a bhurka.

Actually, I'd say a burkha would dramatically increase the chances of serious injury and death around machinery. There's so much more cloth to catch on something.

There is a reason why people who go carting often wear those daft racing suits, and it's not a fashion statement, heath and safety and religious dress tend not to mix.

Unless you're into actual kart racing, wearing a racing suit to a go kart track is just cosplaying the Stig.

Penguin wrote:

Unless you're into actual kart racing, wearing a racing suit to a go kart track is just cosplaying the Stig.

Those are the people I ment!

Fair enough. It's just the idea of someone showing up in full racing regalia to a tourist trap kart track with 15MPH governors on all the karts just makes me laugh.

Hm, maybe it's because I grew up with around pretty progressive Muslims, but their hijabs were always pretty short (the cloth ended on the shoulders) and well-secured with pins etc, also so it wouldn't fly off in a breeze etc. I never saw any piece of cloth hang out so far from one of my friends' headscarves that it could have been caught on anything.

In short, I don't think taking the headscarf off or avoiding go-carts altogether are the only options here; taking a few minutes before getting on the cart to fasten it more securely could have saved her life here.

Then again, people don't tend to think about this kind of thing when they're having fun, which makes this incident so tragic.

Well, she could have been wearing a long one. There's a girl in one of my classes who wears long, pretty, sparkly ones that sometime reach the small of her back.

Lapin wrote:

Well, she could have been wearing a long one. There's a girl in one of my classes who wears long, pretty, sparkly ones that sometime reach the small of her back.

True, but it would have been possible to find a rest room for some privacy and adjust it so it's out of the way - tuck the back into the collar of whatever jacket or top she was wearing, completely rewrap it in a more compact style (I've been told there are various ways to fasten it, most Muslim girls I knew had at least three different ways - I know, anecdotal evidence, but seriously, you can cover your hair without cloth flapping everywhere)... The point being that the dichotomy that has been argued about in this thread - wearing religious garb vs. operating machinery - does not exhaust the possibilities.

Penguin wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

To be fair, she wouldn't have had this problem if she had been wearing a bhurka.

Actually, I'd say a burkha would dramatically increase the chances of serious injury and death around machinery. There's so much more cloth to catch on something.

Around machinery in general, yes, but in a go-kart as well? I mean, check it out:

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The cloth is substantial, but all in one piece, so if there's anything flapping around, it's bound to be the hem, yeah? Since she is in a go-kart, she's sitting down, pinning much of it down, already decreasing the amount of flapping goin' on - I think it's comparable to, say, go-karting in a long dress. Not that I would particularly recommend that, either, but I think a bit of flapping at the legs is less dangerous than something long and flowy blowing around and getting wound up in spinning tires and dangerous car-engine-bits. A burkha is less likely to come loose than a headscarf, after all.
(I can see how a burkha like this would be a bit tricky with the steering, though.)

Raine wrote:

It's possible she would. A part of the headpiece could have flapped into the kart and she could have gotten head injuries if you took the worst-case scenario.

Most burkhas I know - personal experience, mind, nothing backed up by facts - are one-piece, hem reaching to the ground. They remind me of tableclothss: there's no headpiece, just a full-bodypiece.

Raine wrote:

Also, seeing a woman wearing a proper burqa in Australia is quite uncommon. The majority of the community tend to go low-key with simple headscarves.

I was trying to undermine the point that this poor girl's death was caused by her being a muslim, rather than by wearing a very unfortunate piece of clothing. Or, as Saleha more eloquently put it: "The point being that the dichotomy that has been argued about in this thread - wearing religious garb vs. operating machinery - does not exhaust the possibilities."

It's not about "billowing in the wind" although that just adds to the problem. A lot of loose fabric can wind up anywhere, and it doesn't have to be the end of the fabric to get caught. Besides, the whole point of the garment is to make women as shapeless, anonymous and unfeminine as possible, and this is accomplished with a lot of billowing fabric. About the only saving grace to wearing a burkha is that it doesn't seem to have much of a way of yanking the body along with it when it gets caught in something.

Also a woman that was a member of a part of Islam that thinks burkhas are pretty neat would probably be far more likely to die horrifically from other things than freak accidents.