Modesty, liberty, equality: Negotiations of gendered principles of piety among Muslim women who cover

Abstract

This article draws on a qualitative research study with Muslim women who cover to investigate how they represent the Islamic virtue of modesty. The article details findings that Muslim women elaborate modesty as an autonomous labour of ethical self-regulation and a relational virtue that is concerned with devotion to family and the de-sexualisation of day-to-day social interactions. It argues from analysis of representational content and dynamics that these accounts of modesty involve processes of affirming as well as resisting the liberal norms of equality, sexuality and agency that define Muslim veiling in the eyes of others.