Londoner “Henry Stewart” wrote a letter to The Guardian making a powerful point about the recent burkini ban. Why worry about burkinis or burqas, Stewart wonders, when it’s men—in suits, specifically—that we ought to be worried about?
Stewart begins his short letter by writing, “No woman in a burqa (or a hijab or a burkini) has ever done me any harm.” Suited men, however, are different.
But I was sacked (without explanation) by a man in a suit. Men in suits missold me pensions and endowments, costing me thousands of pounds. A man in a suit led us on a disastrous and illegal war. Men in suits led the banks and crashed the world economy. Other men in suits then increased the misery to millions through austerity. If we are to start telling people what to wear, maybe we should ban suits.
A high court in France recently overturned the burkini ban from happening in Villeneuve-Loubet, a small town near Nice. The court cited that the ban “seriously, and clearly illegally, breached the fundamental freedoms to come and go, the freedom of beliefs and individual freedom,” TIME wrote.
Perhaps to some people’s dismay, burkini sales have gone up 200% since the ban.
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