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between Islamophobia and post-feminist agency: intersectional trouble in the European face-veil bans

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Feminist Review

Abstract

Women’s equality claims have occupied the forefront of the European debate on face-veil bans; most claims have been denounced as mere manipulation for anti-Islamic and/or anti-immigrant political agendas, and the dilemma between anti-sexist and anti-racist struggles has been argued to be false. This article examines how opportunistic manipulation of gender equality claims and the ‘ethnicisation’ of sexism have been assessed and confronted in the scholarly debate opposing the bans, as well as the impact that this debate has had on women’s equality claims and the intersectionality issue. I argue that the women’s oppression argument has not been fully considered, because it would have disrupted the anti-racist struggle due to unresolved problems with understanding intersectionality.

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Notes

  1. Actual or intended bans are examined in country-specific chapters in Brems, ed., (2014): France (Bouteldja, 2014), Belgium (Brems et al., 2014), the Netherlands (Moors, 2014) and Denmark (Østergaard et al., 2014). Draft legislation is pending in Italy (Draft Acts C.2422, of 6 May 2009 and C.2769 of 2 October 2009), and in the autonomous region of Catalonia in Spain the regional Parliament passed motions (in 2009 and 2011) urging the regional government to adopt a general ban.

  2. Certain positions, particularly in political debates, have used face veils as the demarcation line with practices that, unlike the simple headscarf, imply a breach of women’s equality or dignity. In contrast, in scholarly debates, differences between an Islamic headscarf and face veil, from the perspective that I assess here (i.e., the principle of equality between women and men), are not considered relevant (Laborde, 2012, pp. 398–410). I agree with Laborde that the differences between the various Islamic veils are insignificant in meaning and in relation to a higher or lower level of wearer freedom or autonomy. The political meaning underlying a reference to face veils as burkas is analysed by Mancini (2012).

  3. Although the presumption on the coerced nature of the face veil has permeated legal debates in France and Belgium, the Exposé de Motifs of the French law referred, for example, to the republican social contract and a need to safeguard social cohesion and the dignity of the person. Similarly, notwithstanding claims by politicians that a face-veil ban in a municipality northeast of Spain was fundamental for advancing equality between men and women, the Spanish Supreme Court decision that annulled the ban did not consider this argument, and it was marginally employed, even in the allegations by the parties (Tribunal Supremo, judgement of 06-03-2013 [Rec. casación num.: 4118/2011]).

  4. A fundamental difference is that G-strings and hyper-sexualised attire cannot claim fundamental rights protections, which can be applied to the veil. Fundamental rights restrictions must be provided by law according to international treaties on human rights and many European Constitutions. A recent Spanish Supreme Court judgement precisely recalled this requirement in annulling a local authority decision to ban face veils from municipal buildings (Tribunal Supremo, judgement of 06-03-2013 [Rec. casación num.: 4118/2011]). G-strings and hyper-sexualised attire can be (and often are) forbidden in schools through internal regulations.

  5. This notion of women’s oppression has spanned (with important variations) many feminist elaborations of the second half of the last century, from Simone de Beauvoir to Nancy Hartock’s feminist historical materialism, Catherine MacKinnon’s critique of equality and anti-discrimination law, and Nancy Fraser’s conceptualisation of power in social theory.

  6. Currently and based upon a description of the veiling practice from veil wearers (Brems, 2014), face veils are a gendered practice that affects the principles of sex equality and non-discrimination both through its meanings (decency, modesty, purity, chastity, protection from sexual aggression or harassment, etc.) and based on the underlying understanding of sexuality, particularly female sexuality, and the conception of the relationship between the sexes, which is not equality, but complementarity and equity (Jouili, 2011).

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Acknowledgements

This article builds on the findings of the project ‘Integrated initiative for the prevention of violence and discrimination against second generation migrant adolescent girls and young women’, funded by the European Commission (Daphne III programme). It is part of a wider research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (nº CSO2011-24804) ‘Nuevas demandas sociales y prácticas de armonización de la diversidad religiosa en el espacio público local o regional’.

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  1. Dolores Morondo Taramundi
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Morondo Taramundi, D. between Islamophobia and post-feminist agency: intersectional trouble in the European face-veil bans. Fem Rev 110, 55–67 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2015.13

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