If opposition to the face veil is bigoted then my grandmother and great-aunt are bigots for describing their own experience of wearing the burqa in the 1930s and 40s as "physical and mental slavery".
Lejla Kuric is an independent artist interested in social justice, secularism and gender equality
The burqa and niqab, face veils worn by a minority of Muslim women, are often misrepresented as something harmless, something we should be comfortable with.
This narrative assumes that all women choose to wear the face veil of their own free will; that this is not oppression but merely sign of deep devotion; and that veiled women are not isolated from the society.
Any challenge to these assumptions is unjustly branded as a sure sign of racism, orientalism and Islamophobia.
If opposition to the face veil is bigoted then my grandmother and great-aunt are bigots for describing their own experience of wearing the burqa in the 1930s and 40s as “physical and mental slavery”.
Despite the best effort of many to present face veiling as harmless, it depersonalises women and assigns them an existence different and separate from men, burdened by social norms such as a woman is the custody of her male guardians, strict gender segregation, non-essential conversation with men is prohibited etc.
It is, by design, a device of exclusion and apartheid.
Assuming that the face veil is a choice, many liberals conveniently forget to mention how this choice comes about and what the rationale behind it is. It is fundamentally different to any other type of clothing, an embodiment of a misogynist worldview that perceives a woman’s body as harmful.
Unless women are covered up, men will be compelled to fornicate and rape them. Islamic cleric Sheik Taj Aldin as-Hilali puts it like this:
“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside… without cover, and the cats come to eat it… whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”
The “immodest” woman is also an “unwrapped lollipop” irresistible to flies; an “unwrapped sweet” covered in dirt, an evil temptress and so on – a rationale based on dehumanising rape apologia and victim blaming.
The lollypop on the left represents a veiled woman; the lollipop on the right a woman without veil. Flies represent men. The copy translates as: ” You can’t stop them. But you can protect yourself. Your creator has your best interest at heart.”
This type of meme is also popular on the social media: Pure veiled women go to heaven, while immoral temptresses go to hell.
Bina Shah, a Pakistani writer, notes:
“Many people use blackmail to convince women to wear hijab or niqab: you won’t be a good Muslim, you’ll go to hell, you’re pleasing God, you’ll be subject to harassment and molestation if you go outside without a veil. By playing on women’s vulnerabilities, by bringing up the imagery of women being sexually violated or bringing shame upon their families by walking around unveiled, by implying a woman’s morality is linked to how she dresses, women are coerced into believing they are making a free choice in the thousands and millions, every day of their lives.”
Assuming that males are sex-obsessed beasts, with no control over their animalistic instincts, is also demeaning to men, and arguably leads to a rape culture in which women are blamed for their own violation and sexual abuse. Men are afforded no agency or responsibility. “We’re all rape accomplices”, as Kunwar Khuldune Shahid bluntly puts it in this brilliant piece.
The face veil should be opposed because it is an inherently sexist and misogynist concept at odds with all precepts of an egalitarian society. The ability to critically address certain aspects of Islamic culture that are sexist does not, however, imply a blanket rejection of Islam or Muslims.
There is no explicit scriptural justification for face covering in the Quran, however Salafis, an ultra-puritanical movement, demand it.
Backed by Arabian petrodollars, the Salafi movement has gained significant influence in mosques, schools, Muslim organisations and communities. This has led to increased pressure on girls and women to cede to regressive patriarchy – from vigilante “Muslim Patrols” enforcing dress codes on the streets of London, to gender segregated events at our universities, and a school in Tower Hamlets forcing girls young as 11 year old to wear the face veil.
The goal of religious zealots is to carve out increasingly larger areas of public space where they set their own rules.
Some women wear religious clothing not as an expression of piety, but as political statement against ‘Western Imperialism’. Spurred by Islamist organisations, their intention is to deliberately provoke a culture war.
A blanket ban on the face veil would be wrong – based on a liberal principle that adults can make lifestyle choices that are self-restrictive and that state should interfere as little as possible.
However limited, context based bans are right and justified, based on the following egalitarian principles:
– the state must assert gender equality within its institutions
– religious freedom is not absolute, other concerns such as security or identification must be taken into consideration
– the state must protect those coerced
– the state must protect children not old enough to make an informed choice
Civil right activists, concerned about oppressive notion of ‘telling Muslim women what to wear’, should first look to an army of proselytisers, preachers and self-serving community leaders who do exactly that: telling us what we must and what we must not wear down to the tiniest detail.
53 Responses to “The progressive case against the face veil”
alana wyst
“sexy” is completely subjective and happens in the mind of the observer. Gender apartheid is not subjective. Being forced to dress in a way that places the locus of control of male sexual expression on the body of a female is wrong and should not be supported by law, ESPECIALLY not when it involves any child under the age of majority. Gender parity is written into and enforced by law and therefore children and adult women as well should not have these rights denied, those who do not like it can emigrate back to their countries of origin, but no one should expect host countries to support or allow importing barbaric and misogynist practices into a civilized country.
alana wyst
‘personal issue’, ‘choice’…that’s great for you. Many would choose not to cover their hair, and don’t have that choice. It is the ones that don’t have the choice that I support. I don’t understand why people who ‘choose’ repression constantly mistake these discussions as being about them and inject themselves into it. It is not for those that voluntarily take up shackles and chains, but for those that wish to be free of them, that people speak out.
alana wyst
Yes I do agree with one of your unstated points, that the way to silence critics of the barbaric repression and mistreatment of women under Islam is to equate any criticism of it with coming from the political right and then point to the shackle-loving house slaves who embrace the shroud as proof the complaints of women who wish desperately to be free from the oppression of extremist religious practices either are imaginary or fabricated. Let me explain this to you in terminology that is simple enough for you to understand: women who choose to veil are irrelevant to this issue. To use another example, right now in grimy little night clubs there are women hanging from hooks by their own skin in a punk practice called Agro. More power to them. Were, however, patrons to organize and round up unwilling participants there would be a cause for outcry. It is for the literally millions of oppressed women under Islam that people like this speak out, and the wenches that love their position in BDSM hell really do not factor into it.
alana wyst
not understanding the implication that as a gender, women must all agree. Some women choosing to veil means the complaints of those forced to are invalid? Can’t quite figure this one out. The state would never support forcing women to wear high heels, just because a few women love them. So it should ensure that no child under the age of majority has to wear hijab (because certainly lack of choice is implied) in school. I am in favor of a ban, because I feel that western socities that practice gender parity supported by law, can’t really ideologically avoid it without being hypocritical.
alana wyst
Get used to it, my friend. The left is waking up to its own hypocrisy and you are going to see more and more lefties and progressives speaking out against state support of islamist misogyny. I know that duality is the most some low-level thinkers can handle when it comes to this argument but the fact of the matter is it is the women who desire freedom from Islamist misogynistic practices that matter here, not the women who ‘choose’ to veil (so many are under such intense pressure from family and culture that the word ‘choice’ is really a thin cover up for the truth)