Just a few days ago, French President Nicholas Sarkozy appeared in front of Parliament and stated his contempt for the burqa and the oppression of Muslim women. Sarkozy is, apparently, so committed to ending the subjugation of women that he desires banning burqas from France all together.
Now, before all you Muslim women out there write letters to Sarkozy thanking him for saving you, I think we should first reflect. Is Sarkozy's opposition to the burqa really about women? I have a sneaking suspicion that Sarkozy's interest, and for that matter the entire world's interest, in the rights of Muslim women might actually be about something else besides a commitment to our liberation.
What might that "something else" be? It's important to remember that women have long been used as symbols of culture and values. How men treat women within a particular society has become a yardstick which we measure progress toward modernity. For example, when we ask "How well-educated are the women in your society?" we might also phrase the question: "Do the men in your society allow women to be educated?" If we ask, "How good is women's access to reproductive health?" we could also wonder: "Do the male religious leaders in your country actually let women have access to necessary health services?" In societies in which men have granted women a certain position we give them the gold star of progress.
Now this isn't always a bad thing. The problem isn't necessarily that we collect data in relative terms, nor that this data is used to galvanize activists and bring about change. The difficulty arises when an examination of women's subordination becomes a call for war or for the marginalization of a particular group. We have seen this dynamic play out in the past with President Bush's assertions that rescuing women from the oppression of Islam was a part of bringing freedom to Afghanistan and are seeing it today with President Sarkozy who claims to be liberating women from the stranglehold of their religious practice (i.e. Islam). In the case of both Bush and Sarkozy, this call to action seems to turn women's rights discourse into a strange sort of contest in which contenders insist that "my progress is bigger than your progress."
Sarkozy seeks to initiate a parliamentary commission to study the burqa and "methods to combat its spread." What will this commission look like? Given that France ranks amongst the lowest in percentage of women who are parliamentary members of OECD countries (less than 15% of all members of parliament are women) and that only 7 of the 860 members of parliament are minorities I would guess that this committee is going to be largely White and mostly men.
Other statistics might also help us understand why Sarkozy's words about Muslim women in burqas might be about something other than Muslim women's best interest. For example, although in France only 12% of the population is Muslim (due largely to migration from Muslim majority countries formerly colonized by France) 60-70% of those in prison are Muslim.
So now we have a bigger picture: Muslims as a "misbehaving" minority group, an ongoing war on terror and related distaste for all things Muslim, wide-spread discrimination against Muslims (1 in 3 Muslims in Europe have reported discrimination), desire to maintain a culturally homogeneous society, and, finally, a fascination with another man's progress. Put together, the something else is revealed: by highlighting the oppression of Muslim women Sarkozy is giving people in France more reasons to do what France is already doing pretty well-marginalizing its large Muslim minority.
But what if I have it all wrong? What if Sarkozy is really interested in the well-being of Muslim women? Well then I suggest he start by dropping his parliamentary commission designed to "smoke-out" the burqa (borrowing from ex President Bush here) and instead involve Muslim women in debate and dialogue to ensure that the burqa, when worn, is understood as symbol of personal choice and not of oppression.
