Bill 94

Recently the government of Quebec has proposed to create a piece of legislation that will deny services to people who wear face veils. This legislation in many ways is directed towards Muslim women who wear the Niqab. Premier Jean Charest has stated that the reason for Bill 94 is to promote gender equality, and the secularism. Saving the Muslimwoman from the oppressive Muslim man is a common theme that has risen. This can be seen in many debates of the “veil” and whether or not it oppresses Muslim women. Cooke states that the “sign of the cage is the veil whether mandated or forbidden” (Cooke, 2008, p. 92). This cage exists to suppress Muslim women and keep them from the public sphere of life. The belief by most western feminists is that the veil is something imposed and forced upon the Muslim woman, and could never be a voluntary choice. Recently the veil has been a contested matter in the legal system and the banning of the veil has already occurred in a few countries. Whitlock states that the “liberal western consumer desires nothing more than to liberate and humanize by lifting the Burqa and bringing the Muslim woman alongside us in the west (Whitlock, 2005, p. 55).” It is important to learn about the desire of the Western feminist to “lift the veil” as it is a common theme that occurs in subtle ways within feminist literature. Whitlock further states, “no one can read the veil from a neutral disinterested space (Whitlock, 2005, p. 56).” As an outsider it is difficult to read such a religious symbol because there are underlying assumptions of why Muslim women veil and many of these assumptions come from Orientalist discourse that state such veiling is dictated by Muslim men. Often a negative image of Islam is “encoded by the oppressed Muslim women (Cooke, 2008, p. 93). Cooke states that there is a homogenizing rhetoric that reinforces and reproduces our own dominant paradigm (Cooke, 2008, p. 89). The importance of Cooke’s arguments are that we cannot dictate to Muslim women how to live their lives, if they should veil or should not veil, and attempt to “save” them from their faith. Ultimately no one has a right to dictate to any woman what she should or should not wear. Telling women what to wear is a paternalistic attitude. Furthermore by denying services to women who wear a face veil we are excluding these women from society. If a woman who wears a face veil is in need and turns to an agency for help to escape she in fact would be denied services. Reaching out to Muslim women means starting with ourselves and our own preconceptions and stereotypes that we already have about this segment of the population. It begins when we are able to deconstruct our ideas, and be willing to be self reflective about who we are, and how we have come to know what we know. The way to liberate women is not to dictate to them what to do. Knowledge is power, and we must start by knowing both others and ourselves.

Cooke, Miriam. (2008). Roundtable Discussion: Religion, Gender and the Muslimwoman. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 24:2, pp. 91-119

Whitlock, Gillian. (2005). The Skin of The Burqa: Recent Life Narratives from Afghanistan. Biography, 28:1, pp. 54-74.