Control over female ‘Muslim’ bodies: culture, politics and dress code laws in some Muslim and non-Muslim countries

Abstract

Control of the female body is a key component of both the formation of Muslim identities and the control of Muslim communities in European countries. I will argue that the regulation of the clothing worn by Muslim women, both the restriction of its use (which occurs mainly in non-Muslim countries) and the requirement to wear a particular item, share the same goal: the control of women’s bodies. In this respect, I will consider both the legal regulations that require women to wear the so-called ‘Muslim’ clothing and those that restrict it as a way of disciplining the population, and will focus on the control of women as a privileged form of political control.

Keywords:

• women
• Muslims
• dress code
• regulations
• intersectionality
• Islamophobia

Notes

1. Hijab is the Arabic word for the headscarf some Muslim women use to cover their heads. Niqab is the veil that covers the face and reveals only the eyes, also called a face veil.

2. This article is the result of the research project, Culture and Power: Islam in Diaspora (UAM-CAM), begun in 2011 and continued in the project Culture, Gender and Power: Islam in the Diaspora (FEM2011-27161, 2012–2014). It is strongly based on an extensive review of documentation on the political and social processes that culminated in the creation of laws regulating Muslim clothing in different countries. This documentation includes academic literature (in Social and Legal Sciences); NGO’s and other organisations reports and an exhaustive work with newspaper news (see footnote 23). Everything is properly reflected in the footnotes and bibliography.

3. This article looks at the literature on clothing regulations. Another type of study focuses on the meaning of the hijab in contexts that are not legally regulated. These works are not included here because they do not deal directly with regulations. Studies of this nature include works by Tarlo (2007), who investigates the hijab in London as part of the Muslim response to transcultural urban encounters, by Moors and Tarlo (2007) on fashion, consumption and religion and by Moors (2009) on Islamic fashion.

4. A systematic review of these bibliographical frameworks is provided below.

5. Regarding Islamisms and women, see: Aldikacti Marshall (2005); Zeghal (2005); Browers (2006); Macías Amoretti (2008).

6. See the writings of Al Qaradawi or Amr Khaled. About the former, see also Gräf (2005) and Gräf and Skovgaard-Petersen (2009). About Amr Khaled, see Wise (2004) and Shapiro (2006).

7. The most recent event of this nature is former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal to penalise anyone consulting Salafi websites (Le Monde, 22 March 2012).

8. Mernissi (1992) refers to the frequency with which women in headscarves appear on book covers.

9. On Muslim family codes, see Esposito and DeLong-Bas (2001); Charrad (2001); Ramírez (2007); Aixelà (2007); Jeppie, Moosa, and Roberts (2010) and Feliu (2012).

10. www.hrw.org

11. www.wluml.org

12. In European countries, the niqab is usually called a burqa, taking advantage of the stigma attached to the former, which is associated with Taliban repression in Afghanistan.

13. A woman’s mahram is any male relative whom she is not allowed to marry and who serves as a guardian for women who are minors by law.

14. Cf. www.rawa.org. RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) is the most important Afghan feminist group, self-defined as ‘an independent political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan’.

15. Awrah are the parts of the body that Muslim men and women cannot show in public.

16. Vid. www.daralhayat.com

17. See also Joppke (2009); Motilla (2009) and McGoldrick (2006).

18. In 1989, in Creil (France), some girls were reprimanded in the public school they attended for wearing the Muslim headscarf or ‘foulard’. L'affaire du foulard or headscarf affair is the name used in France to describe the process that began then and culminated in a national discussion about the right or lack thereof to wear religious symbols in French public schools. See, among others, Gaspard and Khosrokhavar (1995); Lorcerie (2005).

19. Avui, 28 June 2010. See also 20minutos, 7 July 2010.

20. This substitution is a process similar to the construction of Islam in the West, which tends to homogenise Muslims using a broad racial label. At times, legal instruments are used for that purpose. Authors like Gana (2008) have spoken about the process of the racialisation of Islam (‘racing Islam’) that results from the action of specific laws in the United States.

21. To see the impact of Islamophobia on practical decisions regarding muhajabat students, see Mijares Forthcoming.

22. Queen Joanna the Mad enacted a law in Castile to prohibit morisco women from veiling their faces and wearing traditional garments.

23. In Ramírez (2010, 2011), the author analyses press images during the years of the different Spanish ‘headscarf affairs’ and compares them to other European cases (2011). The headscarf has largely come to be associated with backwardness, inequality and domination when it is not associated with fanaticism.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ángeles Ramírez

ÁNGELES RAMÍREZ is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, Spain.