A week after the ban was implemented, the level of opposition has been low.
There have been some acts of defiance – 67 girls refused to change out of their abayas on the first day of the new term.
But of a mass movement of resistance there is no sign. No mass-donning of abayas, no sit-ins.
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There never is. I mean, there never is a mass movement of resistance – to burqa bans, hijab bans, abaya bans – anywhere in the world. Wonder why not. Wonder where the masses of women who adore being fully, or mostly, covered are… Hmm… hmm…
Well let’s see. First of all, a lot of these girls and women come from subcultures where — I mean DUH. Why do you think they’ve been all covered up since they were five years old? The whole point is to make them invisible! So nu – you’re expecting them to mass on the Champs Elysees and get their picture in the paper? Not bloody likely.
As for secular, jeans-wearing Frenchwomen donning abayas for a day to express solidarity… I mean, look at the statistic in my headline, mes petites. I believe it’s finally gotten through to that demographic — along with virtually every other demographic — that abayas are an appalling constraint on young women, and no self-respecting liberal state should countenance them in its public secondary schools.
Okay, so then where’s the Muslim Brotherhood when you need them?
Er, not sure they’re too eager to be seen, en masse, in public either.
I think this only leaves that blithering idiot, Jean-Luc Melenchon.
A small handful of students at French public schools have refused to remove their full-body-swaddling abayas in response to a new government mandate. But even though it’s obvious that compliance is happening, people who think it’s fine to force veiling on children are squawking. Parents should be free to swaddle their ten-year-olds!
It’s such a grossly bad argument. Of course UD understands that some little girls who’ve been blanketed by their parents from birth because of their obscene female equipment must feel pretty shitty, pretty scared, at the prospect of anyone catching a glimpse of their ankle. I’m sure it makes them feel whorish and evil. But that feeling will pass; and after all they can still swaddle at will (at their parents’ will) outside of school hours.
No one ever said educating reactionaries in the principles of equality was easy. For some of them, you never will get there. But you can certainly educate their daughters.
And – go figure – France’s “socialists and communists have both welcomed [a new] ban” on the abaya in public schools. Throughout our long chronicle, on this blog, of some restrictions on girl-swaddling, we have needed again and again to correct the lazy claim that such restrictions are always about caving to conservative and reactionary pressures. While it’s true that those on the right in many countries tend to support such restrictions, it’s just as true that much of the left tends that way too.
You only have to look at the 77% figure up there to take on board the reality that some secular cultures really, really dislike overt religious constrictions on children and young women. Faith communities that believe conventionally clothed ten year old girls are seductresses whose sexual bodies must be severely hidden tend to offend modern, secular populations. Ol’ UD thinks they’re right to be offended: By definition, these girls and young women have no say as to whether they are swaddled; their invisibility cloaks are forced on them by their parents. Accessory to such dress is usually an insistence on gender segregation and the derogation of the female generally.
If you insist on swaddling your females from age 0 to 100, that’s your private business; but secular states like France are perfectly free to reject female-swaddling as a mode of self-display in various parts of the public realm.
Which France has now done: No student enrolled in a state school can hide her provocative eight year old curves under the copious folds of the modesty robe.
As with France’s burqa ban ten years ago, this one will generate a spot of outrage (and lots of support) and then disappear as an issue. You can’t fight city hall when city hall represents the will of a very strong secular majority (think also of Quebec).
One can only hope that, liberated to move through her school day without her male-inflaming face and body fully covered, this or that young girl will grow up with the conviction that she represents a free and equal member of a modern society.
An administrative court in Germany has ruled against her complaint about not being able to drive like this, but she’ll probably appeal to a higher court blah blah. ‘The judges do not think the ban violates the German Constitution, as it does not “severely restrict religious freedom.” Instead, the practice of religion is “only restricted in a narrowly limited life situation that is typically not essential for freedom of religion,” the verdict continues.’
Well but that assumes a woman not ruled by a man who will kill her if anyone gets a glimpse of her nose.
BTW: UD can’t help but notice that this woman’s hands are uncovered!
Philippe Guibert gets it said. And why hasn’t there been much backlash?
Because many people agree with him.
Because many people on the other side, who wear/promote the hijab, routinely call it a modesty garment and – like the embattled Iranian government – routinely identify women who don’t wear it as prostitutes.
An Iranian chess player who moved to Spain in January after she competed without a hijab and had an arrest warrant issued against her at home has been granted Spanish citizenship, Spain said on Wednesday.
Something very strange and interesting happened at the hair salon today. A woman came in with head scarves and shawls for sale. One of the salon’s stylists jokingly told her that people don’t buy scarves anymore, that it is no longer profitable and that she should change her job. In response, the woman said that was not true and that certain people are trying to promote secularism and prostitution in society. We were all stunned, but nobody said anything to her.
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One officer told a teenage girl to move and stand somewhere else. The young girl looked at him coldly and said, “Are we bothering you?” Another guy came and said to the policeman, “Reza, let it go,” and took him away. I looked at the young girl and blew her a kiss. She blew a kiss back.
BEAUTIFUL
Now we can eat in restaurants without wearing the hijab, and not a single person says, “Madam, put your hijab back on.” The university security no longer pesters students about their attire. People don’t defend this regime in classes anymore. It doesn’t matter that we don’t protest in the streets. People are kinder and look out for one another every day. If a guard or a security person bothers a student, everyone will come to the rescue. I think it’s beautiful.
BEAUTIFUL
There was one beautiful girl with short blond hair. At the start of the uprising, women were cutting off their hair as an act of protest and a sign of mourning. Seeing her got me emotional. For years we had fantasized about the day we would take off our scarves and let the wind blow through our hair. But now that we can be unveiled, we no longer have our long hair. We cut it for that very basic freedom. Our dreams are always one step ahead of us.
COOL
Today I was talking to my family about how much people check you out in Iran and how much time you spend thinking about what to wear. It feels like you’re under constant surveillance. But I’ve noticed a change in attitude among men. Before this movement, if I went out with my red hair showing or wearing a cool outfit, some men would follow or harass me. Cars would slow down and honk their horns. Now we go out without hijab, we wear what we want and men don’t say anything. They nod in approval. They smile.
THEOCRATS NEVER LEARN
A Twitter friend posted something interesting. Until four or five years ago, he wrote, he never missed a single prayer, but now every time he hears the call to prayer, he starts cursing. Many people around me are turning away from Islam. Some religious families have stopped practicing and even asked the women in their families to take off their hijabs. What will happen to those who no longer pray and are irritated by the call to prayer? Or those who even make fun of religion? How are they going to feel once their anger has subsided? What will happen when people are no longer humiliated and threatened in the name of Islam? When religion is merely a matter of the heart?
… Never in my life have I been so eager for a day to come. The government has announced that as of tomorrow, women cannot appear in public without a hijab, and those who do will be dealt with brutally. The problem is that they cannot force us anymore. I can’t wait for tomorrow.
… The number of hijabless women is increasing by the day. Boys are coming out with shorts now, too. People boycott stores that don’t offer services to unveiled women. The shawls that women used to have around their necks in case they were spotted by security forces are now in the back of wardrobes. Short shirts are replacing long coats. Skirts are replacing pants. Short pants are replacing long ones. There is more and more unity. People have the upper hand. The other side is nothing but bluffs.
… A few teenage girls with long hair hanging over their shoulders were standing [near me,] taking selfies in the mirror, without the hijab. It made me laugh. I rejoiced at their beauty and courage, in their simple and harmless way of exclaiming, “I exist!” The government is not afraid of women’s hair or the length of their skirts. They are afraid of our existence.
A feminist activist, who has been arrested since the protests began but is out on bail, told the BBC: “From what I have seen in the past few months, women will not surrender. Women seem to be unfazed by these new threats.”
[Iran’s theocrats intend to] double down on their efforts to force women to comply with a law that the vast majority of Iranians either despise or simply do not support... [A]s long as authorities insist on enforcing such unpopular laws, public order and civil unrest can be called into question over a few strands of a woman’s hair, potentially undermining one of the Islamic Republic’s last remaining—and increasingly defining—achievements: security… [T]he profoundly reluctant Iranian armed forces will ultimately be] called upon to restore public order by brutally cracking down on protests spurred by the stubbornness, indecision, and ineptitude of a hardline ruling elite that is both detached from the realities of Iranian society and feels shielded from the ramifications of social unrest.
Je dois dire I too am stunned that courts all over Europe are currently dragging this poor man into aggravated rape proceedings. Sure everyone knew big deal he got violent with the sex slaves brought to his hotels if they refused to be raped! But mon dieu who’d have thought this Oxford don actually raped? Coulda knocked me over with a burqa.
The hijab for me exemplifies fear and humiliation. It symbolizes a system based on misogynist ideology trying to eliminate women from society.
As an Iranian woman, I’ve worn a piece of cloth on my head for years, which served not only to cover my hair and body. I viewed it as a tool to suppress, control and turn women into second class citizens.
We were taught that the “awrah” (private area) for a woman is her entire body except for her hands and her face… We were taught that the Islamic hijab is an order from God, and not a choice… Most Muslims … tend to see the veiled woman as “pure” and therefore more deserving of respect, while an unveiled woman is seen as a “fitnah” (corruption)…
In recent years, the West has seen movements normalizing the headscarf, which I am not entirely opposed to. I do not believe that veiled women should be attacked or face discrimination in the workplace. However, considering its history as well as the way it is used in Islamic theocracies, I do not think the hijab could be feminist nor be truly “empowering.”
While Western feminists may support Muslim women’s right to wear the headscarf, they should remember that there are those of us who seek the liberty to remove it — both in theocratic states and in Western nations. Many of us may not be controlled by a mullah but by our families and communities.
Between 12 and 14 ain’t so cool either, and 7, as this writer correctly notes, is absolutely out of the question – parents are in the position of forcing modesty garments on someone too young to choose to wear them.
The parents are doing it because you want to get your daughter used to thinking that covering up is her only option in life. It’s the only thing she’s ever known. She’s always hidden her hair (and probably her body – such girls are often put in body-hiding robes).
The observation in my headline is one of many comments on a NYT article about multiple lawsuits, character-assassination, and life-destruction resulting from a seconds-long incident in which a 7 year old hijabi’s teacher touched her hijab. Was it an innocuous effort to clear the girl’s vision, which seemed to the teacher for a moment to be obscured by the hijab? Was it a vicious humiliating “stripping” of the girl’s clothing, self-respect, and personal integrity?
Another commenter:
[W]hy is a seven-year old girl wearing a hijab? A hijab is a statement of modesty, a way of deflecting unwanted attention from unrelated males. The girl is seven! In what culture are such innocent creatures the objects of unwanted sexual attention?
The answer is clear: You want girls from the moment they enter the public realm to see themselves as destructive temptresses; and you certainly want them to regard all males as people to whose drives and dominance they must in every way from the very beginning of their conscious lives defer.
Another commenter:
I’m sorry, why is a seven-year-old girl covering her hair? What does she have to be modest about at age seven?? I thought girls were only put under hijab when they began menstruating? How early in our lives do girls and women have to have others’ expectations and projections of what it means to be a “good girl” or “ladylike” foisted upon us?
Another:
I am mostly sorry for the child. Having lived in very conservative parts of the Middle East for some time, I know that seven-year-old children typically don’t wear hijabs unless their parents are really extreme religious fundamentalists.
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In Muslim countries where I lived, hijabs are not worn by 7 year olds. Girls starting puberty wear them. Forcing a 7 year old to wear one sounds…
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[T]he early Muslims including Prophet Muhammad PBUH did not preach covering the heads of pre-pubescent girls. This trend simply marks the increase of religious conflict and religious fundamentalism (across many religions).
Tarek Fatah on Twitter: “Forcing #Hijab on a 7-year-old American girl? Has my Muslim community lost their bearings? Imagine telling a child, her hair triggers sexual desire among men! What has gone wrong with my Muslim community? What next? A hijab for newly-born infant girls?”
…. but time and time and time again the court affirms the right of businesses to ban hijabs.
Relying on two previous headscarf-related rulings, the five-judge panel held that employment policies that ban head coverings do not violate EU employment law so long as they are applied in “a general and undifferentiated way.”
Not sure why, given airtight certainty that they won’t win, the cases keep coming.
The solution for women who absolutely refuse to part with their modesty garments seems pretty obvious: Try to get a job at the tons of other workplaces in Europe that don’t object to modesty garments, or perhaps try to move to a part of the world (Indonesia, for instance, is full of hijabs, and lacks Iran’s violent insistence on them) where no one is going to object to them.
