A Woman's Right to Choose...the Veil
Evening Standard
I have a problem with veils. Part of my problem is emotional. There is something about seeing a woman shrouded in black from head to foot and peering through a slit which shrieks female oppression to me. However many times Muslim women insist that they are veiled of their own free will, I cannot quite believe it. For nearly a century European women have measured their emancipation by how much flesh they were allowed to show and the height of the feminist movement coincided with the shortest skirts in history. So I find myself thinking that showing no flesh at all must be a backward step. Intellectually, I suspect that veiling the face is more a cultural imperative than a theological one.
Middle Eastern women wearing veils predates Islam. Respected Muslim scholars say that the sacred texts say nothing specifically about veiling the hair or the face. And millions of devout Muslim women in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Indian sub-continent see no need to go veiled. But, although I am troubled by fully veiled women, I am even more troubled by the physical attacks on Muslim women triggered by recent debate. And I am disturbed by the racism and intolerance of cultural difference which underlies some comment on the issue.
I also know that for some young women wearing a veil is an act of political defiance. Shouldn't we as a society allow them the space for that? And, like many feminists, I am beginning to wonder if bare flesh and the objectification of women's bodies is quite so liberating after all. Is it possible that stepping out in your veil and getting on with your life might be a true liberation from the pressures of highly sexualised society with its insistence that women look 17 for ever?
I am also troubled that my colleague Jack Straw asks veiled women to remove their veil when they come to him for advice. I understand what he means about the veil being a barrier to communication, but his request still feels like a personal intrusion to me. Maybe my issues with veiled women are generational. My son thinks the whole debate is a non-ssue. From the age of four-and half he went to school with hijab-earing little girls. He never saw their hair, but thought nothing of it. As he put it, "That was just how they were".
So, despite everything, I find myself saying that "I may not agree with your veil but I will defend to the death your right to wear one".
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