Hijab and the Republic: Uncovering the French Headscarf Debate

Part Three. Feminists Caught in the Contradictions

PartThree | Feminists Caught in the Contradictions 235 Y Feminist ideas and strategies are never the object of universal consensus , even in the countries where the activism occurs. Moreover, many feminist voices are silenced—by the media, government, the maledominated left, and even other feminists—while others are put forward as the only feminist voice in their country or on a specific issue (Winter 2001b, 56). I W ROT E T H E SE WOR DS I N I W ROT E T H E SE WOR DS I N 2001, in the context of a debate on the diversity of feminist activism and feminist positionings with relation to religion. Nowhere are they more true than within the French debate over the hijab and related issues, particularly in its third resurgence in 2003–6. Suddenly everyone was claiming to be the voice of feminism. Caught in the crossfire are members of a secular French left and feminist movement (of both European and non-European background), activists and intellectuals, who are attempting to articulate more nuanced feminist positions or simply express their anger and frustration at the hijacking of the debate by institutions and organizations that fundamentally do not have the wider interests of French racialized women at heart. Chapter 7 will look at the politics of hijabization today: who is wearing it, what their ethnic background is, why they are wearing it, and how these reasons are being politically deployed or manipulated by various players, including both the media and the girls themselves. Chapter 8 looks at the polarization between two camps: an “integrationist ” feminist camp grouped around NPNS on one hand and Une Ecole Pour Tous-tes (A School for All, UEPT), and, particularly, Les Indigènes de 236 | F E M I N I S T S C A U G H T I N T H E C O N T R A D I C T I O N S la République (“Natives” of the Republic, IDLR) on the other. Some, with reason, have accused the NPNS of being too pally with the French political class and having too narrow a focus on violence against specific groups of women by specific groups of men, which it links with the issue of secularism . It has also been rather eager to push a sanitized Westernized image of femininity that sits ill with its more feminist discourse on male violence. In particular, some of the IDLR women have accused NPNS of demonizing Arab men. On the IDLR side, there are some dodgy alliances with Islamist factions of the pro-Palestinian movement as well as French Islamists, and accusations of anti-Semitism and “Islamophobia” have flown. Most bizarrely, a “queer politics” critique of secularists and defense of Arab men against supposedly demonizing feminists has emerged. The chapter engages with feminist critiques of both sides of this polarization. Finally, chapter 9 looks at secular feminist antiracist analyses from both Muslim and non-Muslim women that, whatever their position on the law, situate themselves outside the NPNS-IDLR polarization and suggest ways out of the maze created by it. Unfortunately, these feminists also find themselves , once again, caught between religion and state, these last two not always, unfortunately, being clearly on opposite sides, and neither necessarily , particularly at this point in time in French politics, being a good ally for women. ...