Anti-veiling laws that govern Muslim women’s bodies and lives have
been passed without much concern for those bodies and lives.
https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-quebecs-bill-21-and-the-lessons-of-france?fbclid=IwAR27GY-_cO8-mI7ZEdpVJNHxaeloXos3pcb0OTo7X2DL2PhgEdmNpQE-e_A
In the wake of the National Assembly hearings on Bill 21, one might think that everything that needed to be said has been said. However, despite valiant efforts by a handful of civil society groups — most notably the Coalition Inclusion Québec and the Fédération des femmes du Québec — the voices of those most concerned by the application of Bill 21 have largely been left out of the conversation.
As a researcher who has studied anti-veiling legislation in France as well as in Quebec, and as someone who wears a head cover, I do not find the lack of consultation with those directly affected by the proposed law to be surprising. This same pattern could be seen during the 2003 Stasi Commission in France — where only two headscarf-wearing women were invited to speak out of hundreds of intervenors, and only as an afterthought. And again during the Gerin Commission that preceded the 2010 law restricting face-coverings, where a grand total of zero niqabi women were invited to speak before the commission. In both cases, commissions made up mostly of white men recommended laws that constrained the freedoms of a marginalized minority female population.
The reality is that anti-veiling laws that govern Muslim women’s bodies and lives have been passed without much concern for those bodies and lives. While some claim to be liberating Muslim women from their supposed oppression by their fathers-brothers-husbands and/or Islam itself, such laws are oppressive and do nothing to promote gender equality — much less integration ...
https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-quebecs-bill-21-and-the-lessons-of-france?fbclid=IwAR27GY-_cO8-mI7ZEdpVJNHxaeloXos3pcb0OTo7X2DL2PhgEdmNpQE-e_A
In the wake of the National Assembly hearings on Bill 21, one might think that everything that needed to be said has been said. However, despite valiant efforts by a handful of civil society groups — most notably the Coalition Inclusion Québec and the Fédération des femmes du Québec — the voices of those most concerned by the application of Bill 21 have largely been left out of the conversation.
As a researcher who has studied anti-veiling legislation in France as well as in Quebec, and as someone who wears a head cover, I do not find the lack of consultation with those directly affected by the proposed law to be surprising. This same pattern could be seen during the 2003 Stasi Commission in France — where only two headscarf-wearing women were invited to speak out of hundreds of intervenors, and only as an afterthought. And again during the Gerin Commission that preceded the 2010 law restricting face-coverings, where a grand total of zero niqabi women were invited to speak before the commission. In both cases, commissions made up mostly of white men recommended laws that constrained the freedoms of a marginalized minority female population.
The reality is that anti-veiling laws that govern Muslim women’s bodies and lives have been passed without much concern for those bodies and lives. While some claim to be liberating Muslim women from their supposed oppression by their fathers-brothers-husbands and/or Islam itself, such laws are oppressive and do nothing to promote gender equality — much less integration ...
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