Veiled Women Research Articles

The hijab north of Gibraltar: Moroccan women as objects of civic and social transformation

As the number of North African Muslim immigrants in Europe grows, questions of cultural assimilation have moved to the forefront of discussion. Treated as the quintessential Other, Maghribines' long-term presence in France prompted a 2004 ban on religious symbols in public schools; it went without saying that the hijab was the primary target of this restriction. Politicians and public figures in Britain have called Muslim women's veiling practices antithetical to democratic citizenship, while Dutch conservatives have promised a ban on veiling in all public places (Anon 2006a, 2006b; Morris 2006). Spain, however, has developed a more ambivalent cultural and ideological relationship with the Muslim world and with North Africa in particular. Approximately 10% of all immigrants to Spain are from the Maghrib, and about 90% of those are from Morocco (Instituto Nacional de Estadística). The proximity of Spain has made it an appealing entry point to the rest of Europe, as well as an accessible destination for work. This paper argues that Moroccans' vulnerability in Spain must be understood in terms of the unique ties between the two nations, as well as the specific brand of modern liberalism that has developed in Spain since 1975, the start of that nation's democracy. Key to Spanish liberalism is the defense of women's freedom, which finds voice in teleological narratives of liberation and self-actualisation. Concern over Moroccan women's subjugation to Islam and to male relatives has crystallised in discussions around the hijab, in particular. In this article, I analyse media coverage of hijab controversies in Spain, drawing also on my own fieldwork with Moroccan women and Spanish social service providers in Madrid. I argue for careful consideration of North African othering as a foil for Spanish discourses of progress and modernity – themselves historically situated and contestable variations upon wider European ideologies of liberalism.

Veiled Representations

This article argues that the political divide between Islamists and secularists is what shapes and manipulates the representation of female sexuality in Turkish media. As manifested in the 2007 post-election debate surrounding veiled women and the g-string, Turkish media have been incapable of reconciling a traditionally western signifier (the g-string) with a quintessential Islamic sartorial symbol (the veil). This alleged irreconcilability of the two symbols in Turkish print media thus indicates, on the one hand, the already existing ideological rift in Turkish society between secularists versus Islamists, but more problematically, it is what alienates the female body from itself, denying it an autoerotic sexuality, and making it the site of bio-political battle.

Morals, piety, and representations of veiled women in augustan rome

(2010). Morals, piety, and representations of veiled women in augustan rome. Material Religion: Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 377-378.

The racialization of Muslim veils: A philosophical analysis

This article goes behind stereotypes of Muslim veiling to ask after the representational structure underlying these images. I examine the public debate leading to the 2004 French law banning conspicuous religious signs in schools and French colonial attitudes to veiling in Algeria, in conjunction with discourses on the veil that have arisen in other western contexts. My argument is that western perceptions and representations of veiled Muslim women are not simply about Muslim women themselves. Rather than representing Muslim women, these images fulfill a different function: they provide the negative mirror in which western constructions of identity and gender can be positively reflected. It is by means of the projection of gender oppression onto Islam, and its naturalization to the bodies of veiled women, that such mirroring takes place. This constitutes, I argue, a form of racialization. Drawing on the work of Fanon, Merleau-Ponty and Alcoff, I offer a phenomenological analysis of this racializing vision. What is at stake is a form of cultural racism that functions in the guise of anti-sexist and feminist liberatory discourse, at once posing a dilemma to feminists and concealing its racializing logic.

Veiled Constellations

The “Veiled Constellations: The Veil, Critical Theory, Politics, and ContemporarySociety” conference took place at York University’s Keele Campusand at the University of Toronto on 3-5 June 2010. Sponsors included theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the TorontoInitiative for Iranian Studies, the Noor Cultural Centre, the Canadian Councilof Muslim Women, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations,and multiple departments and associations at both universities. The two graduate students who co-organized the conference, Melissa Finn and ArshavezMozafari, did an excellent job in choosing papers that highlighted the veil’smulti-faceted appearances both in contemporary society and academic discoursesas something that is under-theorized and overlooked at the same time.The event’s advertising and signage played with the tropes of overwrittenand overlooked, suggesting that veiled women can be both silenced andsubjected to “therapeutic, punitive attention” (Edward Said, Covering Islam,xxxv-vi). For example, www.veiledconstellations.com shows two facelesswomen veiled in black, a torrent of water flooding the scene and pouring overthem and through the ovals where their faces should be. This serves as a kindof natural disaster or Armageddon trope on the body of Muslim women. Aprominent poster pictured a profiled woman wearing hijab, her face overwrittenwith overlapping Arabic words, while alternating pink lines radiatefrom behind her face, as if it were giving off light. A third poster offers thecommon image of the exotic woman behind-the-veil, a partial photo of awoman wearing niqab, her perfectly arched eyebrows perhaps challengingthe viewer to respond with the intrigued gaze, the desire to unveil her. Whilethese posters meant to undo tired images of Muslim women, their ambiguousnature sometimes reinforced those very stereotypes ...

Prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in a North London antenatal population

BackgroundCalcium levels in adults depend heavily on concentration of vitamin D, and its deficiency in a pregnancy may lead to impairment of fetal skeletal formation and increase chronic disease susceptibility...

Perceptions of female Muslim students who veil: campus religious climate

This article is based on a small qualitative case study that examined the perceptions of undergraduate Muslim American and Muslim international female students regarding the campus religious climate in a predominantly Christian four‐year research university. Specifically, it seeks to understand the opportunities and challenges of female Muslim students who veil on campus during their college years. Due to the small sample size, findings should be taken as indicative rather than definitive. Findings indicate that despite the fact that female Muslim students who veil perceive the campus religious climate welcoming to a certain extent, they still experience feelings of mild exclusion and marginalization. The findings indicate that the perceptions related to campus religious climate for Muslim American and Muslim International students are similar. This study reveals that religiously diverse students, specifically Muslim veiled women, share some of the same experience as culturally and ethnically diverse students. There is much that higher education institutions can do to provide support to this population of students such as accumulating knowledge regarding the needs of these students so the institutions are equipped to provide support and able to assist these students in finishing their degree programmes.

Beyond Subordination vs. Resistance: An Intersectional Approach to the Agency of Veiled Muslim Women

Engaging with a figure that came to operate as a powerful cultural signifier of otherness in debates over migrant/Muslim integration across the West, the ‘veiled woman’; the paper questions the idea of agency that inheres in the contemporary feminist discourses on Muslim veil. After showing the shortcomings and adverse effects of two dominant readings of the Muslim veil, as a symbol of women's subordination to men, or as an act of resistance to Western hegemony, it explores an alternative avenue drawing on both the poststructuralist critique of the humanist subject and feminist intersectional theorising to answer the question of what kind of conception of agency can help us to think about the agency of the veiled woman without binding a priori the meaning of her veiling to the teleology of emancipation, whether feminist or anti-imperialist.

Introduction

Introduction Gayle Gullett and Susan E. Gray Dear Readers, In this issue, for the first time, Frontiers publishes images in color. We thank the University of Nebraska Press, especially Manjit Kaur and Terence Smyre, for making this possible. We are excited about our new resource because it gives us the ability to expand the kinds of artwork we can offer to our readers. To give one example, we have long been interested in the work of the artist Susan J. Sauerbrun, whose images we feature in this issue; but, we refrained from publishing either her paintings or drawings because neither reproduced well in black-and-white. When you view Sauerbrun's images, you will quickly see how much they depend on her striking use of color. Given that these color images make this issue historic, we find it fitting that Sauerbrun entitles her paintings, including the one on the cover, Magdalena Donneworth, for her female relatives, dating back to the seventeenth century. In this issue Eileen Boris, Hull Professor and Chair, Department of Feminist Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara, continues her interactive column "Feminist Currents." A year ago Boris posted a question about the relationship between feminism and clothing on the Frontiers Web site (http://shprs.clas.asu.edu/frontiers) and on our page in Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28584178375). Many readers sent in their varied and often conflicted responses; clearly the women's movement has not resolved this old question. Boris, undaunted, weaves their answers together in her column and poses a new question about the heated debate over national health care: what are women's concerns as women regarding health care politics and policies? You can post your thoughts on Facebook or e-mail them to us at frontiers@asu.edu. If you wish to read the column "Feminist Currents" on our Web site, note that we have a new URL, http://shprs.clas.asu.edu/frontiers. We think you'll enjoy the Web site for a variety of reasons. You will find expanded presentations [End Page ix] of some of the art that appears in Frontiers, and you can keep up with Frontiers news. For example, you can follow the progress of our upcoming special issue, "Gender and the City," guest-edited by Maureen A. Flanagan and Maryann Valiulis. Turning to this general issue, we believe you will find it to contain a particularly rich mixture of articles. Our editorial eye, which seeks commonality even among the most heterogeneous pieces, sees the six articles in this issue forming three distinct groups. The first two articles, by Shameen Black and Srimati Basu, respectively, analyze the possibilities and perils for women in our world of increasing global connections. Black argues that cookbooks, in particular those written by Madhur Jaffrey, can encourage various kinds of cosmopolitanism, including the cosmopolitanism of sensory pleasures. Basu, on the other hand, who examines The Vagina Monologues, points out that the monologue allegedly given by a "veiled woman" does not allow this woman to speak for herself, a trick of ventriloquism that undermines possibilities of dialogue, much less of global feminist solidarity. The next two articles call upon academics to rethink certain assumptions that they have embraced sometimes as nearly canonical. Novian Whitsitt observes that most scholars accept Harriet Jacobs's assertion in her narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl that she, as Linda Brent, successfully evaded her slave owner's sexual demands; Whitsitt posits, however, that Jacobs, using the African American technique of "masking," includes in her narrative a second, more plausible story of how she, a victim of rape, survived and kept her children. Dana R. Bennett writes that academics who study women's political history in the 1920s have tended to focus mostly on suffrage with an occasional look at women's participation in national politics. To understand the decade's gendered politics, Bennett posits that we must study as politicians the women who ran for and served in local offices, particularly state legislatures. The authors of the last two articles chose the same research tool, oral interviews, the better to study how women construct their identities. Kathleen S. Yep interviewed Chinese American...

A Postmodern Christian-Muslim Feminist

A British feminist visited me in Cairo in 1982. She was writing a book about Muslim feminists in the Middle East. “I am not a Muslim feminist and I live in Egypt, in North Africa, not the Middle East,” I told her. “Where do you live?” “I live in London. England is my country.” “So you are from the Middle West.” She laughed, it was funny to abolish the name England and put Middle West instead, but to abolish Egypt and put Middle East was not a joke, it was a serious reality. Then she asked me, “If you are not a Muslim feminist, how do you describe yourself?” I said, “Please describe yourself to me first.” “I am a Christian feminist.” “Do you believe in the Bible?” “I have a different interpretation of the Bible,” she said. “Eve was not a sinner and Christ was a black lesbian woman.” “So why do you call yourself Christian?” “It’s only a matter of culture, I mean my cultural identity, my authentic identity.” More than twenty years passed and I was walking in the Gezira Club in Cairo when a veiled woman stopped me. I didn’t recognize her. It was the Christian feminist, having converted to Islam after marrying an Egyptian doctor. “I chose Islam and the veil of my own free will,” she said. “I am a Muslim feminist and the veil is part of my Islamic identity. Did you read my new book about Muslim feminists in which I...?”

INHALATION D’ÉPINGLE : PARTICULARITÉS DE CE CORPS ÉTRANGER

The inhalation of scarf pin is a phenomenon increasingly common in countries where women wear the veil and whose consequences can be grave. The aim of this study is to emphasize the danger of holding this object in the mouth and to describe through a retrospective study the diagnostic, the clinical features and the management of 24 cases of inhalation of this foreign body. Results : All cases were young veiled women aged between 13 and 23 years, all victims of accidental inhalation of a metal pin. The most frequently reported symptom was cough in 58% of cases. Chest radiography helped confirm diagnosis and guide the location of the foreign body which was in equal frequency at the right and left bronchial tree (46%) and 8% in the trachea. Flexible bronchoscopy, performed by first intention in all our patients, helped to locate the pin in 19 cases and its extraction in five cases. Rigid bronchoscopy was then performed in 14 patients but one case ended in failure hence the indication of its surgical extraction. The spontaneous expulsion was noted in five cases. Conclusion: the inhalation of pin is a pulmonary emergency where endoscopy occupies a primordial place. Prevention remains the best treatment.

Veiled Communication: Is Uncovering Necessary for Psychiatric Assessment?

Facial expressions are significant to decipher information during a dialogue and more so in a clinical consultation. Veils (Niqab) worn by Muslim women may pose a clinical dilemma for the psychiatric assessment especially if clinicians are not aware of their religious significance. To investigate whether clinical judgment is affected if full facial expressions are not accessible, we conducted an email survey of psychiatrists and psychologists across the world who frequently work in these situations. Of 25 colleagues contacted 16 responded and 11 of them agreed for their comments to be included in the study. Nine out of 11 believed clinical assessment may be compromised, although respondents were aware of cultural sensitivity around the issue. Two out of 11 however, felt fully able to assess the mental state of a veiled woman. Some professionals reported that they feel unable to assess or treat if the request to take the veil off is declined. This small survey demonstrates the diverse opinions on whether unveiling is necessary for psychiatric assessment. Further qualitative examination of this area is needed to develop wider consensus and guidance to mental health care professionals who may be dealing with these groups.

Art and Transcultural Resistance

In a globalized culture dominated by ICT, video‐art, photomontage and mediatized installations and events, the question of authenticity – in the sense of being true to oneself – is posed in terms of artistic expression. How can one go about re‐creating oneself and the world through the subversive power of art, while retaining a degree of freedom? The same artistic criteria are imposed for forms of expression for the works of non‐European artists, and particularly artists from former colonies like the North African countries. Today, artists from these countries are quite at home with new techniques, but post‐colonial stereotypes (pictures of veiled women or oriental violence) continue to prefer artists who meet these expectations. So for these artists, creating means ‘resisting’, to quote Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The new generation of Tunisian artists, which includes many women, seems to deliberately ignore the problem of identity, the better to appropriate the uniqueness of each artist. Their imagination is a driving force for moving borders and preventing people from clinging to ethnic identity.

The influence of the hijab (Islamic head-cover) on perceptions of women's attractiveness and intelligence

This study examined the effects of wearing the hijab, or Islamic headwear, on men's perceptions of women's attractiveness and intelligence. A total of 57 non-Muslim men and 41 Muslim men rated a series of images of women, half of whom were unveiled and half of whom wore the hijab. For attractiveness and intelligence ratings, a mixed analysis of variance showed a significant effect of hijab status, with women wearing the hijab being rated more negatively than unveiled women. For attractiveness ratings, there was no significant effect of participant religion, although non-Muslim men rated unveiled women significantly higher than veiled women. For intelligence ratings, non-Muslim men provided significantly higher ratings than Muslim men for both conditions. In addition, Muslim men's ratings of the attractiveness and intelligence of women wearing the hijab was positively correlated with self-reported religiosity. These results are discussed in relation to religious stereotyping within increasingly multi-cultural societies.

Towards an adequate intake of vitamin D. An advisory report of the Health Council of the Netherlands

In this report, the Health Council of the Netherlands advises the government on the best policies to achieve an adequate vitamin D supply for the Dutch population. People with a dark skin, those who spend little time outdoors, pregnant and lactating women, veiled women, elderly and children who do not receive vitamin D supplements or infant formula are at risk of vitamin D deficiency. To improve this, more consistent information about vitamin D should be provided. Spending at least 15 min a day outdoors in combination with a healthy diet generates sufficient vitamin D in children and adults with a light skin. All other groups need additional vitamin D from supplements (10-20 microg/day). Fortified foods can only provide part of the additional vitamin D needed.

THE SPATIALITY OF VEILING – MUSLIM WOMEN LIVING PRACTICES IN MINNESOTA HOMES

Although much controversy surrounds the Muslim veiling tradition, little has been studied about how immigrant Muslim veiled women navigate the practice of veiling while living in western-type houses. Through interviews with ten Muslim veiled women in Minnesota, this study explores the relationship between veiling and domestic environments. The findings point to both dress and interior spaces as being forms of enclosure, one being mobile (dress), that help women construct their cultural and religious identity while providing them with privacy, protection, and a sense of control. Residing in typical, suburban American homes however, the women we interviewed experienced difficulties being unveiled in one of the few places where the veil can come off. Designers who are cognizant of cultural differences in housing needs can create homes that support various ways of living, that is, culturally sensitive housing.

Nowo odkryty relief wotywny z Ptolemais (Libia)

During the archaeological excavations conducted by the Institute of Archaeology of the Warsaw University in Ptolemais (Libya) a very well preserved votive relief was discovered. The relief displays an iconography typical for this group of objects. The main figure – although not the founder of the ex-voto – is a hero depicted mounting an upraised horse. Before him a young man, unproportionally smaller, is shown running. Facing the two male figures stands a veiled woman holding in her hand a sacrifice vessel. As has been proven in the case of several other similar, locally produced objects, the running figure portrays the founder of the relief – a young boy taking part in some gymnastic activity. The chronology of the object can only be established basing on stylistic elements – the archaeological context is not an indicator as the relief was found in a destruction layer dated to the mid Roman period and must have been displayed by the owner of the villa as an object of art or of a cult. The analysis of the facial features and hairstyle of the hero – the most distinctive elements of the represented elements – in reference to numismatic portraiture seem to point to a Hellenistic date – perhaps IIIrd c. B.C. The article also presents several analogous, previously published or unpublished reliefs produced locally in Cirenaica.

Kønsforskel og neutralitet – danske tørklædedebatter set gennem Luce Irigarays teoriom kønsforskel og den anden

This article adopts a philosophical approach to Danish media and parliamentary debates on Muslim headscarves. Through the use of Luce Irigaray's theories on sexual difference it suggests a new perspective. It argues that the debates have generally failed to recognize the other (i.e. the Muslim veiled woman) as the other. Ultimately this is due to dominant (white, Christian) culture being unable to accept and understand difference - in particular sexual difference as its foundation. In the meeting with the other, the other is reduced to the same.

New Veiling in Azerbaijan

In the past few years, the growing presence of veiled women in Azerbaijan, particularly in the capital city, Baku, has been striking. This article traces the background to Islamism in Azerbaijan under the state dogma of atheism, and the post-Soviet changes that have facilitated a resurgence of religion in the country. It examines the motivations and the generational divide among women who have recently adopted veiling. Notions of `traditional' and `modern' are questioned here, pointing out the impact of identity politics and foreign Islamic forces on Azerbaijani society in today's increasingly globalized world. Furthermore, the article reveals the tensions and insecurities in the independent era that have reinforced the rise of Islamic ideology in the country and the contradictions involved in new veiling for Azeri women.

Veiled bodies — naked racism: culture, politics and race in the Sun

The context in which the current `debate' about Muslim women and the veil is taking place, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, is that of the new orthodoxy, the `clash of civilisations'. This attempts to explain much of the world's political turmoil in terms of a clash between the (`secular modern') West and the (`traditionalist religion') Islam. The increased visibility of veiled bodies in Britain today has stirred a response that draws on long-standing orientalist oppositions and reworks them in the current climate of the `war on terror', connecting them to parallel racist discourses about `threats' to British culture. Sections of the British media have homogenised the variety of Muslim veiling practices and have presented the veil as an obstacle to meaningful `communication'; an example of Islamic `refusal' to embrace `modernity'. Veiled women are considered to be ungrateful subjects who have failed to assimilate and are deemed to threaten the `British' way of life. This paper reviews the debate over the veil in Britain in the context of British foreign policy, attacks on civil liberties, the further marginalisation of poor communities and the politicisation of British Muslims, where the veil is an increasingly political image of both difference and defiance.