The headscarf is an increasingly contentious symbol in countries across the world. Those who don the headscarf in Germany are referred to as "integration-refusers." In Turkey, support by and for headscarf-wearing women allowed a religious party to gain political power in a strictly secular state. A niqab-wearing Muslim woman was denied French citizenship for not conforming to national values. And in the Netherlands, Muslim women responded to the hatred of popular ultra-right politicians with public appeals that mixed headscarves with in-your-face humor. In a surprising way, the headscarf—a garment that conceals—has also come to reveal the changing nature of what it means to belong to a particular nation. All countries promote national narratives that turn historical diversities into imagined commonalities, appealing to shared language, religion, history, or political practice. The Headscarf Debates explores how the headscarf has become a symbol used to reaffirm or transform these stories of belonging. Anna Korteweg and Gökçe Yurdakul focus on France, Germany, and the Netherlands—countries with significant Muslim-immigrant populations—and Turkey, a secular Muslim state with a persistent legacy of cultural ambivalence. The authors discuss recent cultural and political events and the debates they engender, enlivening the issues with interviews with social activists, and recreating the fervor which erupts near the core of each national identity when threats are perceived and changes are proposed. The Headscarf Debates pays unique attention to how Muslim women speak for themselves, how their actions and statements reverberate throughout national debates. Ultimately, The Headscarf Debates brilliantly illuminates how belonging and nationhood is imagined and reimagined in an increasingly global world.

The hijab is arguably the most discussed and controversial item of women's clothing today. It has become the primary global symbol of female Muslim identity for Muslims and non-Muslims alike and is the focus of much debate in the confrontation between Islam and the West. Nowhere has this debate been more acute or complex than in France. In Hijab and the Republic, Bronwyn Winter provides a riveting account of the controversial 2004 French law to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious signs from public schools. While much has been written on the subject, Winter offers a unique feminist perspective, carefully delineating its political and cultural aspects. Drawing on both scholarly literature and popular commentary, she examines the headscarf debate from its inception in 1989 through fluctuations in its intensity over the 1990s to its surging significance in the wake of 9 / 11 and the consequent shift in global politics.

Hilal Elver offers an in-depth study of the escalating controversy over the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves. Examining legal and political debates in Turkey, several European countries including France and Germany, and the United States, Elver shows the troubling exclusion of pious Muslim women from the public sphere in the name of secularism, democracy, liberalism, and women's rights. After evaluating political actions and court decisions from the national level of individual governments to the international sphere of the European Court of Human Rights, Elver concludes that judges and legislators are increasingly influenced by social pressures concerning immigration and multiculturalism, and by issues such as Islamophobia, the "war on terror," and security concerns. She shows how these influences have resulted in a failure on the part of many Western governments to recognize and protect essential individual freedoms. Employing a critical legal theory perspective to the headscarf controversy, Elver argues that law can be used to change underlying social conditions shaping the role of religion, and also the position of women in modern society. The Headscarf Controversy demonstrates how changes in law across nations can be used to restore state commitments to human rights.

Hilal Elver offers an in-depth study of the escalating controversy over the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves. Examining legal and political debates in Turkey, several European countries including France and Germany, and the United States, Elver shows the troubling exclusion of pious Muslim women from the public sphere in the name of secularism, democracy, liberalism, and women's rights. After evaluating political actions and court decisions from the national level of individual governments to the international sphere of the European Court of Human Rights, Elver concludes that judges and legislators are increasingly influenced by social pressures concerning immigration and multiculturalism, and by issues such as Islamophobia, the "war on terror," and security concerns. She shows how these influences have resulted in a failure on the part of many Western governments to recognize and protect essential individual freedoms. Employing a critical legal theory perspective to the headscarf controversy, Elver argues that law can be used to change underlying social conditions shaping the role of religion, and also the position of women in modern society. The Headscarf Controversy demonstrates how changes in law across nations can be used to restore state commitments to human rights.

In 2004, the French government instituted a ban on the wearing of "conspicuous signs" of religious affiliation in public schools. Though the ban applies to everyone, it is aimed at Muslim girls wearing headscarves. Proponents of the law insist it upholds France's values of secular liberalism and regard the headscarf as symbolic of Islam's resistance to modernity. The Politics of the Veil is an explosive refutation of this view, one that bears important implications for us all. Joan Wallach Scott, the renowned pioneer of gender studies, argues that the law is symptomatic of France's failure to integrate its former colonial subjects as full citizens. She examines the long history of racism behind the law as well as the ideological barriers thrown up against Muslim assimilation. She emphasizes the conflicting approaches to sexuality that lie at the heart of the debate--how French supporters of the ban view sexual openness as the standard for normalcy, emancipation, and individuality, and the sexual modesty implicit in the headscarf as proof that Muslims can never become fully French. Scott maintains that the law, far from reconciling religious and ethnic differences, only exacerbates them. She shows how the insistence on homogeneity is no longer feasible for France--or the West in general--and how it creates the very "clash of civilizations" said to be at the root of these tensions. The Politics of the Veil calls for a new vision of community where common ground is found amid our differences, and where the embracing of diversity--not its suppression--is recognized as the best path to social harmony.

This text explains why the French government decided to ban religious clothing from public schools and why the 2004 law, which targeted Islamic headscarves, created such a fury.

This book examines the issues and tensions aroused by wearing religious dress by considering questions of language, meaning and symbolism.

Hilal Elver offers an in-depth study of the escalating controversy over the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves. Examining legal and political debates in Turkey, several European countries including France and Germany, and the United States, Elver shows the troubling exclusion of pious Muslim women from the public sphere.

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject Sociology - Religion, grade: 1,3, University Institute of Lisbon, language: English, abstract: The basic assumption of this work is that the theme of the headscarf and the strands of association linked to this symbol, such as fundamentalist Islam, cultural archaism and female oppression, are instrumentalized for a number of socially relevant secondary discourses, such as the question of the identity of the French Republic in a society that is becoming increasingly pluralistic both religiously and culturally, and the handling of a steadily growing Islamic community in France. The work is also intended to draw attention to the topic and, for example, to deal in more detail with the gender debate that is developing in subsequent work. This analysis is based on two commentaries, each of which irradiates the headscarf debate differently. Talal Asad comments on the behaviour of the state, because it cannot take the right out of it to determine what religious signs or individual orientation is. Subsequently it will be discussed to what extent it seems impossible in our modern society to drop habitualized religious symbols. Finally, a comparison of these two approaches and a personal statement on this topic will follow. One of the motifs of the investigation is the question of whether and in what way the headscarf, "alienated" from the girls in the course of the debates, served various public discourses as a legitimate means of distracting attention from the experiences of racism and exclusion of the second and third generations, of working off problems within society, and of strengthening a common, French sense of identity.

This book focuses on the recent debates surrounding headscarves in public schools in France, where the wearing of an article of clothing became the focus of intense national debate. The book is divided into two parts. Part One, Framing the Discussion, includes the following essays: (1) Essay: Immigration and Integration in Europe (2) France; (3) The First Veil Affair; (4) The Ban on Headscarves in Public Schools; (5) Secularism in France; (6) Secularity in the French Public Schools; (7) Mixed Origin: Religious Groups in Contemporary France; (8) The Beur Generation; and (9) Implications for Education and Democracy: a Discussion. Part Two, Primary Documents, includes the following readings: (1) What Does It Mean to Be French?; (2) Integration and Exclusion; (3) The Veil and a New Muslim Identity; (4) a Brief History of the Veil in Islam; (5) Public Schools: Where New Citizens Are Made; (6) The Veil at School; (7) The Integration of Jews in Modern France; (8) Debating the Ban of the Veil in Public Schools; (9) France Bans the Veil in Public Schools; and (10) Europeans Debating the Veil. A preface by Adam Strom and an introduction by John R. Bowen are included. A glossary is included. Individual sections contain footnotes.