Suchergebnisse

The "headscarf affair," Muslim girls wearing veils to school, has generated a storm of controversy in France. This study uses the headscarf affair to explore Muslim immigrant women's views of their place in French society and reveals that even those who disagree with French public opinion often invoke arguments that are more French than North African. Interviews with 41 North African women show that younger, well-educated women defend the headscarf as a matter of personal liberty and cultural expression. Older, poorly educated women either defend or reject the veil but never discuss the issue of secularism. In dismissing the veil, they rely on a different understanding of Muslim womanhood. A third group opposes the veil, arguing that the goal of school is integration. Respondents' answers are interpreted according to structural factors and cultural repertoires, both North African and French.

The issue of whether Muslim women should be permitted to wear headscarves in public domains in various European nations is addressed. The author's experiences as a member of the Turkish parliament in 1999 are shared to illustrate the degree of public condemnation Muslim women encounter concerning their wearing of headscarves in public places. Various pieces of legislation enacted in certain European nations that prohibit Muslim women's headscarves in public places are then reviewed. It is subsequently asserted that Western feminists have misinterpreted the symbolic importance of the headscarf. Rather than construe headscarves as reminders of Muslim women's oppression in Islamic societies, it is stressed that such garments possess tremendous religious & cultural import for Muslim women. Indeed, Western feminists are discouraged from generalizing Muslim women's experiences & imposing their cultural values upon them. J. W. Parker

Submission -- Purity, necessity unity -- Rebellion -- Feminism -- Submissive or subversive