Air hostesses banned from wearing lipstick and nail polish in Turkey as Islamic influence extends

Banned: Flight attendants at Turkish Airlines are no longer allowed to paint their nails and lips red

Female flight attendants at Turkey’s national airline have been banned from wearing red lipstick and nailpolish,
Air hostesses with Turkish Airlines, Europe's fourth-biggest carrier, are no longer allowed free rein over their appearance, prompting outrage from secular Turks, who claim it has a religious connection.
The new rule will be imposed just one year after the airline lifted its ban on headscarves among its staff, and many fear the company’s new line on appearance is a result of the country becoming more Islamic.
Critics say the new rules, which followed a ban by Turkish Airline on serving alcohol on many of its routes, reflect the influence of the government's conservative religious values at the state-run airline.
‘This new guideline is totally down to Turkish Airlines management's desire to shape the company to fit its own political and ideological stance,’ Atilay Aycin, president of Turkish Airlines' worker's union, said.
‘No one can deny that Turkey has become a more conservative, religious country.’
Turkish Airlines defended the rule, saying the ban on red lips is aimed at keeping crews ‘artless and well-groomed with makeup in pastel tones’.
‘As a consequence of our current cabin uniforms not including red, dark pink, etc., the use of lipstick and nail polish in these colours by our cabin crew impairs visual integrity,’ the company said in a statement.
The move sent social networks into a frenzy, with many women posting pictures of themselves with red lips in protest.

One wrote: ‘Why not just ban stewardesses altogether so we can all breathe a sigh of relief?’
Some male Twitter users were indignant over the insinuation that red lipstick would induce a sexual frenzy.
Turkish Airlines passenger Ahmet Yerli, 33, said he did not think the new guideline was a sign of creeping Islamisation but that the ban was still ‘absurd.’
‘I've never heard of a plane crashing because of a women's lipstick,’ he said before his flight.

Conservative control: Turkish Airlines have been accused of imposing conservative Islamist views on their staff by preventing them from wearing the makeup of their choice

Islam is the main religion in Turkey with 99 per cent of the population identifying themselves as Muslim, including those who define themselves as secular with a Muslim background.
Despite this, the tradition of wearing a headscarf, a practice associated with Islam which is followed by many Muslim women, is banned in a majority of jobs in Turkey.
Turkey's constitution prohibits women working in the public sector, such as lawyers, teachers, or anyone working on state premises, from covering their head - a ban which and until 2008 also applied to university students.
In 2007 Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, head of the moderately Islamic AK Party, tried to lift the ban, but was stopped by Turkey's Constitutional Court which ruled that removing the ban was against the founding principles of the constitution.
However, Prime Minister Erdogan, who won the 2007 promising to scrap the ban, said last month he did not believe constitutional change was needed to abolish the ban on headscarves in the public sector.

DAILYMAIL