I. Hijab as Resistance

A. Algeria

1. France promoted unveiling as sign of modernity
2. Veiling became anti-colonial

B. Iran

1. 1930s-1970s: regime discouraged hijab in schools, hotels, restaurants
2. Western-educated elites criticize hijab as backward
3. Hijab becomes form of resistance to Westernization
4. 1979: Islamic Revolution makes hijab compulsory

C. Veiling as Islamic feminism

1. 1920s: unveiling seen as liberating
2. Today: voluntary veiling can be about liberation from commodified, objectified forms of sexualization, assertion of women's piety and power
3. Islamic women need Islamic form of liberation within context of Islam: value sanctity of home, inherent differences between men and women
4. Is argument that veiling oppresses women Orientalist?

 

II. Laicite and Headscarves in France

A. 2004: French law prohibits overt religious symbols in schools
B. Laicite: secularism

1. Significant, yet open to interpretation
2. 1880s-1920s: Third Republic removed Catholic Church from public schools
3. Come together as citizens in public space on equal terms: "We have to place ourselves in the public space, by abstracting from our individual characteristics, from where we came from, our roots. This is the idea of the social contract" (14).
4. Separation between public and private
5. Freedom from state (Anglo-Saxon) vs. freedom through state (French)
6. Organized religion is guaranteed, but bounded, private

C. Religious schools and state funding (law of 1959)
D. 1970s: laicite becomes common term to describe approach to family, sexuality, religion
E. Chirac (2003): public space must be neutral to allow "peaceful coexistence of different religions" (29).
F. Freedom to believe, freedom not to believe

 

III. Multiculturalism, Communalism, and Islamism

A. Republic requires agreement on basic values

1. Integration of newcomers
2. Mixite vs. multiculturalism

B. The problems of communalism

1. Ethnically defined communities closing in on themselves
2. "Communalism threatens the processes of direct communication between the state and citizens that underlie French political philosophy. It separates citizens by valuing their affiliation to communities over their collective participation in the nation. Once safely distant in 'Anglo-Saxon' societies, communalism now appeared closer to home, in the poor suburbs of Paris and Lyon and in small communities taken over by Islamists. It threatened to pervert the public schools, those crucibles for molding citizens out of assorted human, by introducing religious identity, marked by the voile, to divide children against themselves" (256).
3. Mixite allows people to see each other as people, not representatives of generic types
4. Ethnicity and religion in the French census

C. Islamism

1. Second and third generation French Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians identifying as Muslim
2. Problems of exclusion, unemployment, discrimination
3. Search for more authentic Muslim identity than parents
4. Headscarves and coming of age

D. World context: Iran, Afghanistan, 9/11

 

IV. Why Would Headscarves Challenge Laicite?

A. Laicite typically invoked to limit Catholic Church
B. 1999: headscarves only mentioned in passing; 2004: headscarves and "Arabic-Muslim culture" were the problem
C. Problems with Islam

1. Newer and "more foreign"
2. Headscarves and prayer are demands to be publicly religious
3. Disrupted private/public boundaries
4. Seen as aggressive assertion of absolute truth
5. Do Muslims accept France's laws?

D. Algeria and colonialism

 

V. Sexism and Headscarves

A. Two key claims about girls' victimization

1. Protection from harassing boys
2. Pressure from foreign Islamists

B. Lack of individual choice
C. Lack of mixite: doctors, pools
D. Muslim women are oppressed by Muslim men
E. Violence represents misogyny, Arab-Muslim culture
F. Neofeminism: Headscarves deny women expression of femininity

 

VI. Where Are the Voices of Women in Headscarves?

A. Headscarves defined through genealogy of ideas of laicite, public
B. Islamism = communalism = oppression of women
C. Problems of perspective and voice: sociologists and the media
D. The Levy sisters

1. 2003: wore Islamic dress to school
2. Jewish father, non-practicing Algerian Muslim mother
3. Talk show: explain personal religious decision
4. "Experts" emphasize politics, aggression
5. Levy sisters: France isn't Saudi Arabia
6. Commentators: objective, sexist, Islamist meanings
7. Levy sisters are the problem to be analyzed by experts

E. Ministry of Education, 2004: is what is worn recognized as a religious symbol?
F. Power rests with the beholders

 

VII. "Saving" Women in Afghanistan

A. Lila Abu-Lughod: Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, Taliban misinterpreted as expressions of culture
B. Culture argument neglects history, US involvement, Cold War
C. Laura Bush's speech (November 17, 2001)
D. Abu-Lughod's critique: conflation, rhetoric of rescue, us/them divide