The different layers behind the veil

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems to be a recurrent theme in a lot of popular and public debates on the Islam to illustrate its backwardness by referring to the role of women in this religion. The topics of Veiling and the wearing of headscarves never go by unnoticed. It is interesting to take a look at why the focus is so often on the position of women.

Women seem an easy target in the debate on the Islam; in their invisibility, they become visible to us as a symbol of a backwardness that is not present in our own culture. Criticizing Islamic gender codes seems to be a way for us to generate a moral justification for the idea that Islamic culture must change. However, in doing this, it is easy to fall into a few traps. First of all, it is important to bear in mind that “to gain an understanding of the problems we need to separate out imposed dress-code regulations, such as those imposed by the Iranian and Saudi governments, from elected ones such as the choice to wear the hijab in the West” (Afshar, H., 2008) as is stated in the article ‘Can I see your hair? Choice, agency and attitudes: the dilemma of faith and feminism for Muslim women who cover’, written by Haleh Afshar. For women living in societies where the imposition comes from the government, one could argue that it is true that they don’t have a choice. However, the situation both in these countries and in the West is more complex.

A first trap is to assume that, just because women in our own culture don’t veil and could be called more ‘free’ in this sense, the veil or headscarf is always an imposition on women. In doing this, we are failing to consider the possibility that women might choose to wear a veil, not only as an expression of faith, but also as a sign of belonging to a particular culture and community. We seem to forget that the simple act of wearing clothes in the West is also a way of conforming to culture, yet nobody seems to claim that this is ‘restraining’ us. In the above mentioned article, there is an extract from Fareena Alam (editor of Europe’s leading Muslim magazine Q-news), which explores other reasons why a woman might choose to wear a headscarf: “Modesty is only one of many reasons why a woman wears a scarf. It can be a very political choice too. I began wearing it at the age of 21, against the wishes of my family, while serving as president of the United Nations Students’ Association at university. I wanted to assert my identity and counter common stereotypes about Muslim women. A woman who wears a hijab can be active and engaged, educated and professional. . . . Does this democratic society have any room for a British-Muslim woman like me who chooses to wear the hijab on my own terms” (Afshar, H., 2008)?

For many Muslim feminists, the reason why it is so important to question veiling is because is represents a freedom of choice, which is supposedly absent for Islamic women.  In the article, however, Afshar mentions that “if feminism is about anything it is about celebrating difference and respecting the choices that women make” (Afshar, H., 2008),  something many people are failing to consider.

 

Another trap is that by choosing to view Muslim women as oppressed and submissive, we are constructing an image of the Other, which is much the same as the superficial belief people used to have in the  existence of  the Orient; supposedly a place full of harems of sensuous women doing belly-dances. As Afshar points out, “the new climate of Islamophobia has otherized Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular in a way that exemplifies aspects of what Edward Said termed Orientalism” (Afshar, H., 2008). Based on limited experiences in the East, Said states, a distorted image of the Orient has been constructed by  Western scholars, which presented the Orient as “essentially ancient, exotic and absurd, the land of despotsand mystics, populated by a backward population of supine men and subordinated and silent women”  (Afshar, H., 2008) . Because Orientalism is largely a fictional creation, it hinders us from seeing things objectively and, much like Islamophobia, feeds the existence of stereotypes.

If one becomes aware of the fact that many Muslim women are actively engaged in the interpretation of the Koran and want to define their rights for themselves within the context of their religion, it is difficult to call them submissive or oppressed. It is sad that there has been a ‘demonization’ of the headscarf across Europe, as is mentioned in the article. The result is that many women who have always worn a head scarf can no longer function or feel at accepted in the societies where they have lived for a considerable time.

 

In conclusion, one can say that there is a difference between veiling that is imposed by government and the freedom of choice to veil. There is also a possibility that the women who are forced to veil by the state, still view this as an individual decision and that for Muslim women in the West, the act is in a sense forced by the community they grow up in. However, there is no question about the fact that for many women the choice is distinctly personal and a way of accentuating their identity and choosing to be part of a certain community with a particular belief system. In short, Muslim women, however much fun we may make of them (such as in the Dutch Burka Babes cartoons by Peter de Wit) often experience their situation differently than we would often think. Therefore, without dismissing acts we feel are damaging to people as part of a culture only ‘they’ can understand, this is important to bear in mind.