The French government is split over some legislators’ call for a nationwide ban on burqas. The government’s official spokesman, Luc Chatel, said that legislation might be introduced to ban full-length veils if it was proved that they were being “imposed” on Muslim women against their will. “In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” President Sarkozy said in an address to parliament. Other officials fear legal action would create too much unrest and tension.
I agree that such a ban would create tension, but that’s not the only reason I think the potential legislation is unsound. Limiting what women can and cannot wear in public is no way to liberate them. If the French government finds that burqas are indeed imposed on women against their will – an inquiry the logistics of which I don’t quite understand – disallowing the garment would be a band-aid solution to the problem of female subordination. The degradation of women is the issue the lawmakers claim to be fighting. Outlawing the burqa will not liberate Muslim women. Instead, many will refrain from going out in public at all. Rather than “prisoners behind a screen,” they will be prisoners in their homes. You cannot erase male dominance by policing women’s clothing.
“You cannot erase male dominance by policing women’s clothing.”
Yes. And what we have here is really just a different set of men policing women’s clothing in a different way. I think their motives might be more agreeable to me, but ultimately it’s just Same Patriarchy, Different Day.
More stupid laws passed by stupid, privileged men in power. Just as it is offensive to tell women they shouldn’t wear skimpy clothing if they don’t want to get raped, it is extremely offensive and victim-blamey to tell women that they shouldn’t wear the burqa if they don’t want to be oppressed. The point, they’re missing it!
I think this has less to do with women’s rights, as it turns out, and more to do with France and xenophobia/racism. Some French are very concerned with their idea of “Frenchness” and what is or isn’t properly French. You can see it in the rhetoric: what Sarkozy said was “That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity”. The fact that the French republic now has 5 million Islamic citizens that could make a fairly cogent argument that the burqa is not inherently undignified really doesn’t matter. This particular issue is getting a lot of attention, but it’s not the only place where the battle to keep France “French” is being fought: they also use laws designed to prevent skyscrapers from crowding cities to prohibit minarets on mosques, for example. And while France has been wrangling with this issue for a while, having both a very defined idea of “Frenchness” and an Islamic population of fairly long standing, a lot of Western and Northern Europe seems to be trying to figure out how to avoid altering their cultures to include Islamic populations without looking prejudiced. This particular argument works well for them because they can make it sound as if they’re doing it for women’s rights, but that’s not really the goal at all.
Baraqiel, I think this is spot on. I’ve read that one of the questions they ask of people seeking French citizenship is how many times they eat couscous per week, as well as what language they speak at home. Moreover, France has a history of being generally anti-religious that we in the US do not share at all. There was recently an “Inquiry into Cults” that created a very narrow definition of “cult”–certain private schools and yoga studios would have qualified. The government recommended strategies to crack down on these cults and in general exhibited an astonishing hostility to religion. There is an exceptional hostility to Islam, as well, at least in part because of the xenophobia you mention.
On it’s surface it reminded me of an article I read over the weekend about the protests in Iran. The young woman was making the point that the hijab had been used politically before; her grandmother had been FORCED to unveil, just as she was now being FORCED to veil. This is another case of women’s dress and appearance being used as a political tool. ALSO: thanks Baraqiel for the insight into the French xenophobia.
I just think the entire concept is laughable. “We’re going to liberate women(!!!)…by telling them how they can and can’t dress.”
@baraqiel: Completely agree with all of what you said. French paternalism is almost always xenophobic, whether the target is Muslims from the Mahgreb, West Africans or Jews. There’s this desperate need to homogenize everything into a white European mush.
SarahMC, why you so fucking smart? You better bring it to the big boys in econ or I will never forgive you for not doing womens studies.
Agreed on this being totally wrong, and very much wrapped into France’s history of racism; this idea of oppression of Muslim women was also part of the rhetoric for banning religious symbols from schools in 2004.
But,Kithkin, I wouldn’t say France is antireligion per se; there’s just a very different approach to it than in the US, mainly that religion is something private and has nothing to do in State/public affairs. Which is why Sarkozy wants to legislate on this matter, logical isn’t it!
It also bears pointing out that the son of Hungarian immigrants defining “Frenchness”, (whatever that is, because I disagree with Baraqiel that it’s quite so clear-cut, for the general population at least) is quite amusing. Unfortunately, only the full-on racists from the far-right fringe ever comment on it…and i’m pretty sure they’re beside themselves with glee at this burqa-banning idea.
@Froufrou – I’m not saying that if you asked every French person what francite’ is, they’d give you the same answer. Americans would state very different things when asked what “Americanness” is. And yet the concept of what is and isn’t properly American is something that governs a lot of our policy-making, and indeed we’ve been having a slightly violent, extremely vitriolic culture war for the past 30 years at least over two competing versions of what Americanness is.
The same is true in many countries: how they define themselves has a large effect on how they shape policy. I could say something about why France in particular has these issues with their definition of unity, their views on religion (not simple, and not just that it’s private), and their conflicted relationship with the work force they imported from the Mahgreb, but the reasoning behind the effect is ultimately not the most interesting thing for the future. Because, as I said, France is only the first country to react to their Muslim population in this way, but they aren’t alone.
From what I can tell through my reading and travels, and the accounts of friends who have studied in north/west Europe, a lot of the countries there define themselves largely as white, agnostic/apathetic, and tolerant. If they’re going to incorporate a piously Muslim group of Semitic/African immigrants into their cultures, the first two have to change. Instead, they seem to be realizing that they’re not really as on board with the third one as they thought they were (shocking!)
Part of what’s going on, as Froufrou says, is that the French understanding of secularism, “laicite,” is much more focused on freedom *from* religion–and this really does go back to the anticlericalism of the Revolution. It’s absolutely true that this manifestation of it has ugly ethno-nationalist undertones, but part of it really is an ideology of Frenchness as a revolutionary, color-blind, unitary identity–one that, therefore, is extraordinarily suspicious of anything that smacks of divided loyalties. You can see this in everything from the continued existence of the French Foreign Legion to the Conseil Constitutionnel striking down as unconstitutional a law permitting social scientists to collect statistical data on ethnicity.
For a more sympathetic take on this *sort* of approach, though, see Susan Moller Okin’s “Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?” and responses here (scroll down).
Ooops. Here’s the Okin link.
Oh, and: here’s nice explanation of how an earlier law, that banning “ostensible” religious symbols in schools, wasn’t even particularly faithful to the supposed neutrality of laicite–only crosses of “manifestly excessive dimensions” were banned.
Many groups wear a particular dress style like Sikhs, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Nuns, Monks, etc, are they being oppressed and excluded from mainstrean society??
Sarkozy has a hidden agenda in causing this controversy, just looking at his background reveals more than what he says or does.
The sooner Sarkozy gets voted out of power the better for all concerned.
If any women feels oppressed by being forced to wear or not wear a particular style of clothing then there should be a law to protect them.
The law should not be used as a blunt instrument by banning a particular dress style.
Banning an Islamic dress style in this case will cause animosity between the French Muslims who want to wear it and the French State who will not allow them to do so.
This case will end up at the European Court of Human Rights and the French government will be forced to repeal this law.
More waste of time and European tax payers money.
Dean
(a Lawyer:))
kithkin: “Moreover, France has a history of being generally anti-religious that we in the US do not share at all.”
What’s wrong with being antireligious?
I agree with the burqa ban because of one issue and one issue only:
Security.
Everyone should be able to be readily identifiable, under a burqa, we don’t know who is in there. Given the recent, but fortunately foiled terror attacks, can we really afford people walking around under tents that may or may not hide weapon or heaven forbid a suicide bomber?
Secondly, many countries around the world do set up measure be it sociological, political, etc to preserve that particular country’s identity and heritage, why are we demonizing the French for something most countries do? Especially Muslim countries, so why the hypocrisy?