Follow up: Muslim women and the veil

So I was thumbing through my January/Februry Playboy and flipped to my favorite part of the magazine, the reason I continue to spend $30 a year to keep my subscription, the Forum. This month the featured a fascinating piece by Malise Ruthven called “Decoding the Veil: There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the women of Islam.” Timely, considering my rant on the same subject. I really wish I could find it on-line so I could share it with you, but a summary should do, along with a few words about how it confirmed my opinion on France proposing to ban the burqa.

Ruthven’s history lesson started in the days of slavery. In the days of Islamic colonization, they took many slaves in the communities they conquered. These slave women, who were often hired as concubines, were allowed to bear their entire body, except from bellybutton to knee (the men had to be able to see what they were purchasing). When they got married they were no longer considered to be slaves. They would proudly wear the veil, a status symbol of respectability that told people they were wives, no longer slaves.

This symbol of emancipation is still alive in Islam today. “A thousand years of history in which women are the guardians of family honor and respectability is equated with concealment and physical display with slavery are not going to fade overnight,” Ruthven writes. He goes on to explain how the veil also symbolizes resistance to foreign conquest. This connection still stands today. Ruthven states:

In Western cultures, where personal worth is often judged by appearances, [the veil] still symbolizes a type of resistance. The veiled woman defies the tyranny not so much erstwhile colonial masters (though the associations may be there) but of a globalized fashion industry that diminished women who fail to conform to its youthful and elegant norms. Young women who don the veil in Western countries often explain that it gives them back control of their bodies, making them feel less like sex objects.

So, as in most issues, there is much more to the story than we might have thought. This all reinforces my point that the veil is not strictly religious; it’s also a powerful cultural symbol with multiple meanings. France can talk a mean game about keeping religion out of the public sphere, but do they know, or do they care, that they’re also keeping other’s culture out of the public sphere? It also explains why so many Muslim women want to wear the burqa. It’s not that all of them are brainwashed by their religion or forced by their husbands. Because of the deep history of the veil, many women in Islam are proud to wear it. They should have the choice to do so.