Here’s another Canadian woman who has totally fucked up her career as a teacher because wearing a religious veil is not an option for her. Nuns have the option not to wear habits. But not this woman, a member of no religious order. She’s being asked to take it off only during public-facing public-sector working hours, because she lives in a secular state. But her commitment to expressing her identity – every single non-negotiable hour of the day – is so overwhelming that she’d rather be unemployed.
I mean, UD has to respect her obstinacy. Presumably many women in Quebec who might prefer to display their piety decide not to do it while engaged in public sector work. They are less obstinate. Perhaps they appreciate the appropriateness of sensitivity to prevailing values in the region in which they have chosen to live. This woman has chosen to have no choice in the matter: She MUST veil herself every waking hour of the day.
Her only hope is the Canadian Supreme Court’s incipient review of Quebec’s secularism laws.
February 6th, 2025 at 12:54PM
I’m not sure what purpose is being served by this anti hijab law. Because it doesn’t feel like a pro secular measure as much as an anti Muslim measure. The issue in the US is Christian fundamentalism is encroaching on public schools. They would love a law like this with an exception for the one true faith of course
February 6th, 2025 at 2:19PM
Matt: I think there’s a difference between how such laws feel to Americans, and how they feel to French Canadians… and indeed to the French, who have profoundly influenced Quebec, and who share a set of secularity laws.
That is, this feels to you, as (I assume) an American, a discriminatory move against religious people. Ours is a profoundly religious nation, and we see nothing wrong with all forms of religious expression. We don’t see any of it as a threat to our national identity/history.
I think you’re wrong, for instance, that Christian fundamentalists here would like Muslim-dress-suppressing laws. They rightly regard strict Muslims as being a lot like strict Christians. They share a lot of the same values.
The French and French Canadians, OTOH, see this sort of religiosity as threatening the secular foundation of the nation/province. They don’t see themselves as discriminating, but rather as asserting/defending a certain set of essential truths about the state.
From an editorial in Le Monde about veils in schools:
The need to preserve this fragile balance and to protect both pupils and teachers from religious pressures and quarrels should guide political leaders, particularly those on the left, for whom secularism has long been a central marker… The concept of secularism deserves to be more widely taught as a historical achievement rather than an abstract theory. It also deserves to be defended, certainly not as a means of discrimination, but as a guarantee of concrete freedoms for all, in particular the right of women and men to choose and live their identity independently.
While virtually our entire political class, shepherded by Pastor Trump, must flaunt their piety, the opposite is true for places like France/French Canada.
For many truly fundamentalist Christians here, women in hijabs, and especially women in burqas, represent I’m guessing an admirable modesty/women-suppressive gesture. Americans have no objection to – rather a fascination with – polygamy (a fundamentalist Mormon and Muslim thing) and male dominance in the family, and other scripture-related stuff that pertains as much to fundamentalist Muslims as to fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalist Judaism – the most enthusiastic Trump-voting demographic in the country – also of course covers up and subordinates its women. Secular places like France and Quebec don’t like this sort of thing. They prefer equality. They think secular laws are one way to express the will of the people (large majorities of French and French Canadians support these laws) that the public-facing state do what it can to uphold secular values.