Covering Up (alternate title: isn't there a war going on that we should be worried about?)

So, I've started this post a number of times, but have thus far been unhappy with the results. Lucky for you, dear reader, this morning I have both the inspiration and time to write about the veiling debate going on in the UK. Just to define terms for the unfamiliar, there are two main pieces of apparel that I will be referencing: hijab and niqab. The first is the the familiar head scarf that you see on many Muslim women. It covers the hair and drapes below the chin, leaving the face (and often some hair) exposed. The second, the niqab, is a piece of fabric that covers the entire face with the exception of the eyes.

After controversy broke out surrounding a British Muslim woman who was fired from her job as a teaching assistant for refusing to remove her niqab, Jack Straw, a top official in the Blair government, commented that he opposes women wearing a niqab because it creates an integration barrier that emphasizes the distance between British and Muslim cultures.

The predictable shouting match ensued between advocates and journalists, most of whom explored the role that the veil plays in the lives of contemporary Muslim women. To a greater extent that I have seen in the past, these articles touched on the multifarious motivations that inspire women to wear a hijab or niqab: religious devotion yes, but also political rebellion (which should not be new to anyone familiar with women in revolutionary Algeria who adopted hijab as a form of colonial resistance).

In Slate, Anne Applebaum argues that putting the current debate aside, Muslim women living in western countries should eschew the niqab because it's not polite. "Just as it is considered rude to enter a Balinese temple wearing shorts, so, too, is it considered rude, in a Western country, to hide one's face," Applebaum argues (http://www.slate.com/id/2152031/ for the full story. Side note, she uses the term "Islamic woman," does that strike anyone else as an adjective more fitting for an architectural style?). She goes on to argue that a"woman who wants to cover her face has no absolute right to work in a school or an office where face-to-face conversations are part of the job," but that she may do what she wishes in her private life. She does not recommend that the British government implement an outright ban on the niqab, but that it shy away from legally providing an "absolute right" for women to wear it in the public sphere.

Still with me? The western world's obsession with veiling has long fascinated me for a few reasons, but mostly because of what it tells us about our attitudes toward "foreign elements" who embrace a different paradigm:

1. Traditionally, pundits have looked at the veil through the lens of male domination and oppression. The veil was essentially a symbolic display of patriarchy imposed on a docile female population. This argument's flaws are many, the most extreme of which are that it unequivocally denies these women any agency (whose the patriachical one now?) and ignores the fact that symbols, and their significance, are subject to contestation as individuals renegotiate meaning. For example, a Slayer t-shirt on our good friend JB is a sign of heavy metal devotion, yet co-opted by a hipster, is meant to be "ironic."

The point is the significance we assign to various outward signs is in a constant state of flux. The assumption that veiling has one purpose, and that purpose is oppression, in reality demonstrates the prejudices of Western commentators: They lack the imagination to see hijab or niqab as anything but oppressive because "no rational woman" would ever choose to wear one. Thus women who do not wear veils are held up as examples of the modern, educated, independent Muslim woman (which explains much about why Turkey, long striving to prove its modernity, has banned them in its universities). And to the next point....

2. Time to question the criteria on which we base assumptions: If Foucault were here, he would ask why the a veil, a simple piece of fabric, is assigned the remarkable power to signify a woman's independence. Why not her level of education, her economic power or her role within the family? Jack Straw would have us believe that cultural integration can only be successfully executed if Muslim women acclimate to the British dress code. I would point out that in a shrinking world where massive migration has altered the national compositions, cultural integration can only be completed if we shift the criteria by which we judge it. After all, the young woman fired was a teaching assistant at a university. Has she failed to culturally integrate simply because she prefers to wear a niqab? Why is that six inches of fabric a more significant display of cultural integration than the fact that she is employed by a public university?

In short, though perhaps it is natural to first assess someone based on outward appearance (aren't we biologically programmed that way?), this is not an adequate index for a population's integration. If cultural harmony (as opposed to homogenization) is actually the goal, the paradigm needs to shift so that more substantive criteria are afforded equal if not much more significance.

To their credit, journalists are beginning to present a slightly more nuanced account of why women wear veils, recognizing that they are not necessarily synonymous with male oppression and religious fanaticism. However, I have yet to see a single one question whether this lowly piece of fabric is really worth all this journalistic sweat.

Finally, to circle back to the practical implications of all this, governments must have something better to do with their time. Though Western governments already regulate dress (think about it -- you just can't run naked down the street like in the old days), they usually err on the side of modesty. You can be too naked, but it has historically been difficult to be too clothed. Ms. Applebaum doesn't seem to recognize this qualitative difference between scanty and modest forms of dress (I suppose all visitors to Rio should be "polite" and simply go topless). Far more troubling than her false analogy is that she essentially advocates banning women who wear the niqab from any employment that requires face-to-face contact. By placing such significance in the veil, such that she would disqualify otherwise competent individuals from filling employment posts based on it alone, she is perpetuating the cultural rift by removing one of the most substantive sites for interaction between populations.

Shabbat Shalom!