Decolonization Of Women In Frantz Fanon's Algeria Unveiled

This week in class we discussed an important decolonization movement launched in Algeria. There was two main sources in which we took into consideration, when discusses the Algerian revolutionary period from the 1950s and 1960s. The first source is the movie Battle of Algiers, a 1966 historical war film, and the latter source is Frantz Fanon’s work, Algeria Unveiled. Both of these works actually put emphasis on an aspect of the Algerian revolution and its colonization, that isn’t really emphasized as largely as it should and this is the role of woman in both colonization, and even decolonization. Even though Fanon’s article put more emphasis on describing this aspect than the film did, the film still illustrated many of Fanon’s main points.

Fanon does discuss the veil in Algeria and how Algerian women’s perception on it changed, how is was used in the revolutionary efforts, and how the French utilized the veil. In reality the article discusses Algerian women’s role throughout colonization and decolonization. At first the French used the idea of a veil as a target to destroy to be able to maintain control in this colony. The French, as many other colonizers, wanted to insure that any elements of culture that belonged to the colonized people was destroyed. This was done so that those colonized would not identify with their culture to recognize themselves as a nation, and pursue a revolution. The French knew how the Algerian society worked, and they believed if we change the way woman think and act, we would destroy the Algerian family norms and views. In destructing the family unit, you destroy the basic unit of society. If the Algerian society becomes that similar to the French, the want to rebel would die down. The men in this society were the ones with power and control over their wives, as the colonizers thought. According to this colonial power, If men were to be challenged by their woman, it would create a radically new society, one that was to be assimilated to be just like the French one. If woman embraced western ideals, they would no longer just listen to their husbands, who in reality were more likely to rebel. Men were more likely to rebel due to the fact that they were more exposed to the public realm, while woman were not and were for many years not included in the revolutionary efforts. If the woman was to be “liberated” the men (who are more likely to rebel) would lose his power, and the French sought to achieve this by trying to rid these woman of wearing the veil. The veil as viewed by the French was a system of control, enforced by the men. If woman were free from this control, they would