Feminist Blind Spots and the Affect of Secularity: Disorienting the Discourse of the Veil in Contemporary Morocco

Abstract

Based on extensive fieldwork with founding members of the Moroccan feminist movement who come out of a leftist political tradition, this article provides an ethnography of leftist feminist aversion toward the hijab (modern headscarf) in contemporary Morocco. I situate the preoccupation with the hijab among Moroccan secular feminists within a broader affective economy and civilizational discourse about the veil that contributes to its intensity and tenacity. I argue that this incitement to discourse about the hijab conscripts Moroccan secular-leftist feminists into a global moral panic that prevents them from engaging with veiled and nonsecular women on their own (diverse) terms or being in solidarity with them. It also keeps them conveniently invested in the Orientalist idea that feminism in places like Morocco requires vigilance against the threat of religion and tradition rather than the conscripting logics of colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberalism. In doing so, I suggest that the discourse of the veil not only perpetuates notions of Western superiority and makes lives less livable for Muslim minorities in the West, it also keeps postcolonial feminists embroiled in the Western battle of the veil and estranged from each other.