Two women on a balcony in Jaffa, Israel. Photo by Tania Harkavi from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5.
Sarah Michelle Thomas
Joint Specialization program
Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University
15 July 2018
Disclaimer: This probe takes no stance with regard to whether Muslim women should or should not wear the veil. It is solely concerned with troubling the dominant discourse in Quebec surrounding the veil and gender in/equality.
In the last two decades, debates have been raging in Quebec surrounding the reasonable accommodations of different cultures and religions. A large part of the discussion focuses on the Islamic veil – the hijab, which covers the head; the niqab, which covers the head and face except for the eyes; and/or burqa, which covers the head and face. In 2013, the Parti Quebecois proposed bill 60 to ban public sector employees from wearing religious symbols, such as headscarves. The bill died after the Liberal Party was elected in 2014. In 2017, the Liberal Party passed Bill 62 banning those wearing face-coverings from giving and receiving public services. With all Quebec parties supporting some version of the face-covering ban, the upcoming election had little chance of ending the ban. According to an October 2017 poll, a large majority of Quebecers supported Bill 62. Still, detractors turned to the courts in order to challenge this new law. This probe seeks to problematize the dominant discourse surrounding the Islamic veil as inherently oppressive, and to instead suggest that compulsory veiling and unveiling are like peas in a pod in matters of gender in/equality.
One of the most common arguments in favor of banning the Islamic veils is that they represent a threat to gender equality. According to Pauline Marois, the Quebec Premier behind Bill 60, the veil has a “connotation in regards to the equality between men and women, a form of submission.” A 2011 report from Conseil du Statut de la Femme states that “Quebec must make a choice,” because religious accommodation requests are ‘‘fragilizing women’s dignity and rights and are mobilized to heighten fundamentalism and the religious right’’. An ad published by the Coalition Avenir Quebec (or CAQ – the political party which went on to win the October 2018 Quebec general election), pictures a Syrian women wearing a headscarf with the caption stating that political opponents Couillard (Liberal Party) and Lisée (Parti Québècois) voted in favor of Bill 62, which would allow teachers to wear Islamic headscarves. It goes on to state that the CAQ believes that teachers are models to children and shouldn’t be allowed to wear a symbol of female submission. A Journal de Montréal article reminded its readers that “the veil is a symbol used by Islamists to mark their presence in the public space and to occupy it according to the principles of maximum visibility.” A third article re-asserted that the veil is both a symbol of female oppression and a political tool, and that women who refuse to wear the veil in Iran are currently being arrested and detained by the state.
These collective narratives focus not on the veil itself, but the associated, socially constructed perception of the physical and symbolic meaning of the veil; that is, the visual image of the veil. To see veiled Muslim women is to see submission, oppression and Islam. As Valerie Behiery describes in Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada, “the image plays a large role in the ‘social construction of reality’ and ‘the making of social identities’” (citing Lirola, 2010, 78). She goes on to assert that the analysis of an image requires its contextualization within “‘the institutional and social processes of cultural production and consumption’” (citing Wolff,1998, p. 27). In other words, the belief that vision, in the same way as a camera, is objective and direct (i.e. immediate, unmediated). Like a camera, vision seems to make “direct perception” possible, deflecting attention from the subjectivity of vision and its culturally constructed meaning (including the idea of being direct, unmediated). It makes little space for self-reflection on the incongruences of portraying Western women and veiled Muslim women on opposing sides of gender equality. Therefore, I believe it becomes imperative to make visible the narratives that inform the visual image of veiled Muslim women, especially in the context of Orientalism where the dominant relationship of the West to the East exists through the creation of Western knowledge about the East. This knowledge then serves to reinforce the perceived inferiority of the East. Wendy Brown highlights this process of construction by showing the incongruity of claiming that Western women are free, while veiled Muslim are not, and diverting attention away from the potential issues within Quebec and Western societies in matter of gender equality, in Civilizational Delusions :
Secular discourse casts as “free” a thirty-year-old Western woman, working for $14/hour as an office receptionist, going deep into debt for a nose job, breast augmentation, and regular access to those (high heels) shoes. And it casts as unfree a thirty-year-old Muslim woman physician, donning a niqab each day before she goes to the clinic. The Western woman is presumed to choose her shoes, her plastic surgery, her weekends shopping, even her indebtedness, while the niqabi physician is presumed coerced, by law, religious edict or both. (Brown, 2012)
Brown thus calls attention to the creation of knowledge and discourse that focuses the attention away from Western gender equalities or inequalities and onto the veiled Muslim women’s lack of freedom and equality, rendering her situation inferior to that of the Western women. This creation of knowledge by the West becomes especially evident in political and mediatic discourse where, too frequently, veiled Muslim women are spoken of but remain unseen and unheard; more symbol and vehicle than person where, too often, their ascribed motives for wearing the veil are defined by those who “see” them and their identities engulfed by the dominant narratives about them.
According to Sherene Razack, in A Site/Sight We Cannot Bear: “Bans are often defended as necessary for the Muslim woman’s own good. Cast as a victim of patriarchal excess, she has no agency and, thus, no personhood. On the other hand, she gives offence, a contradictory space to occupy and one that is marked by ambivalence.” This visual understanding of the veiled Muslim women serves both to underscore her plight and the inferiority of the Muslim people, which in turn highlights the superiority of Quebec culture. Yet, despite the dominant discourse of veiled Muslim women as victim (which, when exported abroad, serves to justify military intervention for their liberation), here, in Quebec, the victim becomes a criminal in practice; either to be forcefully unveiled or banned from public services and institutions. This interesting incongruity becomes further complicated by the voices and experiences of veiled Canadian Muslim women themselves, as interviewed by Homa Hoodfar and Lynda Clarke.
Where the Quebecois cultural perception of the veil sees both victim of Islam and threat to Western gender equality, some Muslim women perceive the veil as freedom, security and self-expression of culture and religion. Indeed, Hoodfar found that many Canadian Muslim women choose to wear the hijab because it changes their families and communities’ vision of them, granting them more freedom and even religious authority. In other words, in the same way that the visual image of the veil comes with added cultural meaning in dominant Quebec discourses, so it does for many Muslim communities and families. But to these communities, a veiled Muslim women is perceived to be mature, responsible, both embracing and dedicating themselves to their Muslim identity. This religious standing also makes space for these women to challenge their families and communities’ culturally conservative practices, such as arranged marriages, in the name of Islam. A 19-year-old Palestinian interviewed by Hoodfar had this to say on the subject:
“The veil has freed me from arguments and headaches. I always wanted to do many things that women normally do not do in my culture. I had thought living in Canada would give me that opportunity. But when I turned fourteen, my life changed. My parents started to limit my activities and even telephone conversations. My brothers were free to go and come as they pleased, but my sister and I were to be good Muslim girls. Even the books we read became subject to inspection. Life became intolerable for me. The weekends were hell. Then as a way out, I asked to go to Qur’anic classes on Saturdays. There I met with several veiled women of my age. They came from similar backgrounds. None of them seemed to face problems. Some told me that since they took the veil, their parents know that they are not going to do anything that goes against Muslim morality. The more I hung around with them, the more convinced I was that the veil is the answer to all Muslim girls’ problems here in North America. Because parents seem to be relieved and assured that you are not going to do stupid things, and your community knows that you are acting like a Muslim woman, you are much freer. Now I am happy, and since I go to Islamic study group, I have learnt a lot. From studying true Islam [emphasis added], and comparing notes with Muslims from other countries like Egypt and Syria, I have also realized that so much of what our parents impose on us in the name of Islam is not Islam but it is their cultural practice. So I can discuss with them and sometimes I succeed in changing their minds.” (Hoodfar, 2003)
Indeed, Hoodfar found that it was not religiosity that was the dominant factor as regards wearing the hijab but rather coming from a culturally conservative family and community. Muslim women from less conservative backgrounds actually faced resistance from their families for wearing the hijab. During the interviews, one father said:
“I had to accept her choice; there was nothing I could do. I convinced myself that at least I did not have to fear that she is running around with unsuitable company, getting drunk or worse, coming home with the news of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. But it was not easy. My father and his generation fought to remove the veil and free women and bring them into public life. Now how can I explain that my daughter, two generations later and in Montreal, chooses to take up the veil? Just as well that my father is not alive to see this.” (Hoodfar, 2003)
This conversation highlights the resistance that many women face when choosing to wear the hijab, yet it also underscores that many Muslims have fought, and still do, in order to not have to wear the veil. Either way, Muslim women play an active role in choosing whether to wear an Islamic veil, or not.
Another reason stated by these women for wearing the hijab was to shield themselves from uncomfortable and often sexualized male attention. This was also the case for some of the women who wear the niqab that Lynda Clarke interviewed. As one Ottawa women says: “The reason I am starting the niqab is that I am seeing in society that there is an oversexualization of women and women’s bodies. Once I started (wearing the) niqab, I felt more comfortable, and it was a sort of barrier to stop the advances.” Indeed, for many the veil, both hijab and niqab, offers both physical and symbolic visual coverage by signaling sexual unavailability. Clarke also found that most of the women she interviewed had faced resistance from their families, spouses and communities for choosing to wear the niqab, had high levels of education, often believed that the niqab was not mandatory, and most often wore the niqab because they wanted to fully express their devotion to Islam. Another study among British Muslim women found that women who wore the hijab had better self-esteem and body image than Muslim women who did not. In other words, wearing the hijab and potentially being shielded from the male gaze has a protective effect on the perception of self.
These interviews and studies with veiled Muslim women paint a different picture from the one on offer in the dominant political and mediatic discourse in Quebec. Indeed, some Muslim women choose to wear the veil for all manners of reason: because it grants them freedom, allows them to participate in Canadian public life without losing their identity and standing as Muslim, protects them from the male gaze and/or potentially from low self-esteem and unhealthy body image. The narratives and embodied experiences of these women challenge the dominant perceptions of the veil as imposed and oppressive. The question arises: Might it be the veiled women’s choice to be perceived as Muslim and sexually unavailable that is at the root of the response to veiled Muslim women, which portrays them as threats and as criminals in that through the visual? The physical and symbolic unavailability of those who wear the veil resists the orientalist/male gaze and by refusing to assimilate, may threaten the (presumed) cultural right of men to see and desire. This would help explain the state’s perceived need to regulate women’s dress, in a fashion no different than Iran, for example, through compulsory unveiling in order to maintain the visual accessibility of women’s bodies. As Sherene Razack posits in A Site/Sight We Cannot Bear, the veil is an obstacle to visual control whereby men cannot see, therefore cannot know and enjoy “dominion” (here, over women). The veil resists the unspoken cultural contract by which women “demonstrate that we like our subjugation and are available for viewing and untroubled by unwelcome and often violent sexual attention.” Therefore, veiled Muslim women challenge the accepted social order, both as women who cannot be seen and as a cultural and religious minority that doesn’t submit to the cultural and religious dictates of the dominant society. Furthermore, when taking in account the protective effects of the veil on self-esteem and body image, it can be surmised that the veil also challenges the very social construct of femininity as thin, young, beautiful, and most importantly, desirable to the male gaze. In all of these ways, the veil is a threat to Western gender inequality and a form of resistance to the subjugation of women through the male gaze. Therefore, what was incongruent, a victim punished like a criminal, becomes congruent because in Quebec culture; to resist the male gaze is to threaten the accepted social structure. As Jennifer Selby explains in Un/veiling Women’s bodies, “If a person or group does not behave or perform properly, they are excluded from the rights and freedoms granted to citizens. […] The State has a clear interest in shaping ‘acceptable’ sexuality across public and private spheres as a central component in the production of its citizens.” Hence the need to legislate women’s bodies and dress stems not from the need to protect them from gender inequality, but rather, much like Islamic regimes with compulsory veiling, to preserve and promote a dominant social order and acceptable sexual and gendered behavior.
In conclusion, whether Muslim women fight to wear the Islamic veil or fight to not wear the Islamic veil, they are fighting for the right to choose what they want to wear and by extension the right to their own bodies. In contrast, a certain supposedly progressive strand of thought in the West would have us believe that forcefully disrobing women (at the threat of being banned from public spaces) is better than forcing women to wear the Islamic veil, blind to the irony of legislating women’s bodies and dress in the name of gender equality. This same progressive strand of thought, which often highlights Iranian women’s current struggle against compulsory veiling as proof against veiling, forgets that not that long ago, Iranian women marched against compulsory unveiling; and that, as Masih Alinejad, a leader in the current struggle, said: “(the) ultimate aim is not to remove veils entirely from Iranian society, but to overturn their compulsory status.”
Further Reading:
Behiery, Valerie. “Bans on Muslim facial veiling in Europe and Canada: a cultural history of vision perspective.” Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, vol. 18, issue 6, 6 Oct. 2013, pp. 775-793. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Bock-Côté, Mathieu. “La provocation par le voile.” Le Journal de Montréal, 7 Apr. 2018. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Clarke, Lynda. “Women in Niqab Speak: A study of the niqab in Canada.” Canadian Council of Muslim Women, 2013. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Durocher, Sophie. “Non, le voile n’est pas inoffensif !” Le Journal de Montréal, 5 Apr. 2018. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Hoodfar, Homa. “More Than Clothing: Veiling as an Adaptive Strategy”. The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, edited by Homa Hoodfar, Sajida Sultana Alvi, and Sheila McDonough, Women’s Press, 2003, pp. 3-40.
“Iranian women risk arrest as they remove their veils for #WhiteWednesdays.” CBC, 31 Jan. 2018. Accessed 1 July 2021.
“La CAQ se sert de l’image d’une femme syrienne dans sa campagne contre le tchador.” Le Journal de Montréal, 24 Nov. 2016. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Laframboise, Kalina. “For supporters, Quebec’s face-covering law a matter of safety and respect.” CBC, 22 Oct. 2017. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Leblanc, Daniel. “Marois blasts multiculturalism in defence of ‘values’ charter.” The Globe and Mail, 6 Sept. 2013. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Miah, Jusnara, Donna Taylor, Nazarene Noorani, and Viren Swami. “Is the hijab protective? An investigation of body image and related constructs among British Muslim women.” British Journal of Psychology, 26 July 2013. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Payne, Elizabeth. “There are many myths about us, say women who wear the niqab.” Ottawa Citizen, 9 Oct. 2015. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Razack, Sherene H. “A Site/Sight We Cannot Bear: The Racial/Spatial Politics of Banning the Muslim Woman’s Niqab.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, vol. 30, no. 1, 21 Mar. 2018, pp. 169-189. Accessed 1 July 2021.
Selby, Jennifer A. “Un/veiling Women’s Bodies: Secularism and Sexuality in Full-face Veil Prohibitions in France and Québec.” Sage Journals: Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 22 May 2014. Accessed 1 July 2021.
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