The politics of the veil

摘要

On 15 March 2004 the French national assembly passed a law prohibiting 'conspicuous' (ostensible) religious signs in public schools. "Although the law applied to Jewish boys in skullcaps and Sikh boys in turbans, as well as to anyone with a large cross around his or her neck", the renowned scholar of French history and gender studies, Joan Wallach Scott, convincingly argues that the law "was aimed primarily at Muslim girls wearing headscarves" (page 1). Scott's aim with this book is to find an answer to the question: 'Why the headscarf?' Or rather, if I may interpret her question more freely, why is the dominant white male and dominant secular discourse obsessed with the headscarf?