Discours Voilés Sur Les Musulmanes En Europe: Comment Les Musulmans Sont-ils Devenus Des Musulmanes?

Abstract

Islam has for a long time been perceived as a purely male religion. This is no longer the case nowadays in Europe. Various elements have helped the “feminization” of Islam in Europe, in particular at the level of its public reception. The veil affairs are among these. Political and scientific discourses have played a role in explaining that wearing the veil could be interpreted differently as the symbol of anti-modernity and backwardness. At the centre of this public dimension of veil affairs, a young woman pops up. She was born in the European country of which she is also a citizen. She belongs to various circles of socialization, not exclusively Islamic ones. Her faith is chosen, assumed and claimed. In a way, she reminds us of some Islamic militancies in the “societies of origin”. Can we consider the two sides of this commitment to a religious activism in public in a comparative perspective? What could then be learned as far as the public perception of Muslim women in Europe is concerned?

Not-/Unveiling as An Ethical Practice

“…The popularity of the headscarf among Muslim youth in Western-Europe (and the Middle East) can indeed equally be viewed as a reaction to secularist and neocolonial policies, and thus reduced to these power structures. This perspective has been adopted by scholars who have explained the popularity of the veil by pointing to the role of anti-colonial authenticity movements such as Islamist movements (Lazreg, 2009) or by viewing it as an affirmation of Muslim identity politics (Göle, 1993; Khosrokhavar, 1997; Roy, 2000; Amiraux, 2003). This perspective has, however, rightfully been challenged in its incapacity to account for the ethical agency of Muslim women and their references to the Muslim normative tradition (Mahmood, 2001).…”

Liberal feminism and postcolonial difference: Debating headscarves in France, the Netherlands, and Germany

“…Regardless of their criticism, many interlocutors, especially many German liberal feminists (both Muslim and non-Muslim), hewed to a narrow interpretation of women's oppression, rooted in colonial representations of postcolonial difference, with many seeing headscarfwearing women as victims of oppression (Taz, 23 July 2004;Taz, 19 October 2006;Taz, 20 August 2009). Some German Muslim women disrupted the connections made across anti-headscarf arguments, in which liberal feminism provides both a clear-cut analysis of the headscarf as oppressing women and a clear-cut solution, namely that it should be banned (see also Amiraux, 2003;Nyhagen, 2017). For example, Die Zeit reported that Saliha Kubilay, a young Muslim woman, asked Schwarzer during a public discussion at a university, 'Where in the feminist movement did you stop progressing so as to fail to grasp to this day that Islamic feminism has been long present in Germany?'…”

Women from Muslim Communities: Autonomy and Capacity of Action

“…Some studies have depicted how Islam could be harnessed for the control of MC women in British society within patriarchal family/community structures, particularly among socially disadvantaged strata (Macey, 1999). However, Islam can also be appropriated differently by educated women (Amiraux, 2003; Tietze, 2001).…”