In the ongoing controversy about the proposed burkha ban in
France, the voice of one group of people is strangely obscured. Muslim women
who do not wear the burkha or the headscarf do not feature prominently in this
debate. We do hear a great deal about the importance of preserving the choice of
Muslim women who want to wear the burkha. But in any community, the choices of
some people impact the lives of others. The presence or absence of the choice to
wear a religious garment that is meant exclusively for the female members of a
religious group affects gender relations and gender hierarchy in the community
as a whole.
I am a Muslim woman and I do not wear the burkha or the
headscarf. The constant reference in liberal media to those women who choose to
wear it has made it increasingly difficult for the countless Muslim women such
as myself to express our discomfort with it. This is because any outright
criticism of the garment comes across as an intolerant attack on the religion of
Islam as well as the Muslim women wearing it.
The reality is that many women have reason to dislike the burkha
even when they do not harbour any Islamophobic sentiments. The fact is that the
burkha is often imposed on women by hard-line states or religious groups. The
Saudi Arabian government forces women to wear the burkha in all public places.
It also prohibits women from driving or travelling without a male relative. The
Taliban imposed the burkha on women when it controlled Afghanistan before 2001.
Today it forces women to wear it in areas it controls in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. In societies in which women are punished severely for not wearing it,
the burkha is a part of a range of laws and policies designed to suppress women.
It is not hard to see why many women in these societies associate the burkha
with a highly repressive patriarchal structure that subjugates and confines
women in the name of Islam.
But then the argument goes: surely for the women who choose to
wear the burkha, the garment is a choice, not a tool for suppression. This
argument obscures the fact that there is pervasive, sexist propaganda in many
Muslim communities in favour of the burkha. Many women are vulnerable to this
propaganda and so their so-called choice to wear a burkha may not be the result
of independent, informed decision-making. Moreover, even an independent decision
to wear a burkha is not carried out in a vacuum. It is important to understand
the effect of this choice on other Muslim women, many of whom may be trying to
resist the pressure of their relatives, their community or their governments to
wear the burkha. Their resistance is undermined when the burkha becomes
increasingly common in public places and becomes more closely associated with
the religion of Islam.
But then wouldn’t the burkha ban be a major impediment to the
freedom of women who feel compelled, either due to internal or external
pressure, to wear it when they are out in public? Perhaps, but on the other
hand, it may provide much needed respite to the many Muslim women who are
compelled to wear the burkha by their relatives, friends or religious figures in
their community. The ban might encourage them to resist the pressure to wear the
burkha. It might also encourage the Muslim community to think critically about
the garment and whether it is compatible with a modern, secular society in which
women and men are equals.
Another important question that does not receive much attention
in the media discourse about the burkha (perhaps because the answer may be too
obvious) is this: why do many women dislike the burkha? Why might some women
consider the burkha to be an imposition on their freedom?
The burkha is a big shapeless tent around a woman’s body. In the
public place, a woman wearing a burkha does not have an identity. When she walks
down the street, you know you see a woman but you know nothing more about her:
what she looks like, whether she is smiling or frowning, does she seem kind or
unfriendly. If you see the same woman the next day, you will not be able to tell
it is her. In some sense, a burkha leads to the most perverse kind of sexual
objectification – a woman wearing it is identified by absolutely nothing other
than her sex: she is a nameless, faceless, shapeless "woman" and nothing more.
I do not mean to pick sides in the debate on the proposed ban on
the burkha by the French Parliament. The decision about whether to ban the
burkha should be made in the context of French society and politics and the
positive as well as negative consequences of the ban must be carefully weighed.
In any discussion of the ban however, an important consideration must be the
impact of the ban on all women in French society, including the
Muslim women who want to resist the veil.
