The politics of covering the face: from the ‘burqa ban’ to the facekini

Abstract

In 2009, the French government established a commission to study the controversial practice among a minority of Muslim women of wearing the ‘voile integral’ (full-face veil). This led to the passage of a law the following year—widely referred to in the media as the ‘burqa ban’—designed to curtail what many lawmakers had described as a discriminatory, oppressive, and gendered practice that contravened the French values of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. The actual text of the law, however, simply banned citizens and visitors from covering their faces in public. As the law went into effect, the rhetoric shifted from symbolism to security. Five years later, linguistic confusion and increased concerns about security led to bans on the ‘burqini,’ a full-body swimsuit that does not cover the face. A few journalists, questioning the underlying rationale for the bans, compared the burqini to the ‘facekini,’ a face-covering swim garment from China invented in 2004. Although Chinese men and women wear the facekini for various reasons (primarily for protection from jellyfish and from tanning), it does not have any religious or political significance.