Joel Schalit, in Wednesday's Equal Times.
Watching this whole mess is really weird and when I first heard about it made me reevaluate how I perceived France. I wonder if the irony of imposing their will on women in order to combat other's imposing their will on women is lost on the french government. It also reminds me of some state legislatures which have tried banning anything being based on Sharia law but had to word it so it wasn't discriminatory and this banned applying 'foreign law'. Weird stuff.
France has definitely had its ups and downs with its Muslim population. When I was there in 2005, the riots were just about to begin. This is all a part of what bothers me about the popular view that a global economy and relative ease of travel have somehow "shrunk" the world. If anything, I truly believe that it shows us just how vast it is and how vastly different the cultures that inhabit it can be. On the other hand, check out what's been happening in Sweden.
Also, what about Audrey Hepburn, would the French arrest her? I think not.Though dubbed the ‘headscarf law,’ as it was aimed at hijab-wearing Muslim students, the French legislation was worded in such a way as to avoid being charged with prejudice. Hence it’s outlawing of all forms of over religious expression at school, not just headscarves.
-Does this mean that people couldn't wear their crucifix necklaces or pendents? What about Ash Wednesday when catholics walk around with soot on their foreheads in a smudging shape of a cross? Would that be unacceptable too? Honestly, if they were to ban all forms of religious expression, and they truly enforced it without prejudice, then that's quite a different thing.
It's a stupid law, because it is trying to be simultaneously trying to regulate the behavior of a specific group, while also being politically correct. The two are at irreparable odds. The intent of the law, as I understand it, is to make young Muslim women see the Western liberal way of thinking; that is, that head scarves are a symbol of oppression of women via their association with forced modesty or even shame. However, orthodox Jewish women cover their heads (as do the men!), and we have no problem with that (possibly because the main method of head hiding is by wig and not by scarf). The problem is that Muslim women don't see the scarf as a symbol of oppression, but more likely as a cultural norm (at least the ones I've spoken with--and I live in a heavily Muslim area). The fact remains that Muslim cultures do oppress women far more than Western cultures. France has the wrong idea how to deal with it. If this isn't the worst case of treating the symptom and not the disease, then I don't know what is. All this law has accomplished is to piss people off (although with the French, maybe that is their goal!). They would be better served by an aggressive ad campaign in their Muslim neighborhoods espousing Liberalism and equal rights. They need empowerment, not this silly idea that the way to fight oppression is with repression.