The Underpinning Of The Veil Bans For Muslim Women In France

The French veil ban is thus particularly problematic because it implies that there is an idealized essence of Frenchness that Muslim women must acquiesce to, in order to be functioning and valuable members of French society. This essence of Frenchness is not dissimilar from the essences of citizenship found in other countries - most certainly America encourages “outsiders” to adhere to American “values” and assimilate to American “culture.” However, the French are unique in that their sense of secularism in the public sphere is much more prevalent than in most other Western countries, and no doubt French society is much more secular than American society; as such, Islam’s place in French society is under scrutiny from both cultural and racial

Can France’s secular society really not cope with allowing Muslim women to wear the religious items of their liking? The theoretical underpinning of France’s veil ban is that it protects the egalitarian public sphere of laïcité. This sphere, ideally, operates on the spectrum of religious and cultural blindness; that is, in order to remove the French state from any perceived religious biases, either for or against, laïcité establishes a public sphere that is adamantly against overtly religious symbols. Of course, the implementation of this policy is less egalitarian and less effective in actuality than it is in theory; this is evident in the application of the veil ban law. The politics of religious blindness and egalitarianism, while noble in their efforts to eliminate oppressive religious forces from public life and give the people the ability to have as many personal freedoms as is allowable, fail in their execution. Simply, it is not possible to disconnect nominally egalitarian policies from overwhelmingly affecting one particular group, especially if the policy began because of controversies surrounding one particular group, as in the case of the veil ban.

While it seems as though the veil ban targets only the outward appearance of Muslim women, its effects go much deeper. The veil ban is an ideological - and, clearly, physical - attack on Muslim women. It is an attempt to assimilate and secularize a “different” people, a people whose existence, as outsiders, threatens the systems of power in France. Veiling women who challenge French ideas about religiosity, womanhood, and sexual liberation - which is “dangerous” if the status quo is to be kept in