Hijab and the Republic: Uncovering the French Headscarf Debate

by Bronwyn Winter

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815631996
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	01/19/2009
Series:	Gender and Globalization
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bronwyn Winter teaches in the Department of French Studies at the University of Sydney, where she is program director of International and Comparative Literary Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures. She is the contributing coeditor of After Shock: September 11, 2001: Global Feminist Perspectives.

Editorial Reviews

Placing the 2004 law in the context of France's colonial past and also that country's centuries-long struggles over the place of religion in public life, Winter takes us through a series of crises beginning in the late 1980s and makes sense of the positions taken by the multiple characters in this 'psychodrama' Specialists and generalists alike will appreciate that, finally, we have an analysis based on careful research and presented with an even-handed perspective.

University of Maryland Claire Moses

A learned and riveting account of the controversial 2004 French law reaffirming secular and republican values in the face of religious reassertion and 'hijabization.'

Purdue University Valentine M. Moghadam

This is a wonderful book. Bronwyn Winter has done the seemingly impossible: with remarkable sure-footedness, she has led us, her lucky readers, across the rapids of the French 'headscarf debates.' We arrive on the far shore so much smarter (and careful) about nationalism, religious revivalism, secularism, cooptation, anti-racism, and feminism-and about French Muslim girls too.

author of The Curious Feminist: Searching for Cynthia Enloe

The hijab, the head scarf worn by many Muslim women, has been the subject of considerable Western attention, curiosity-and even condemnation. Winter (co-editor of After Shock: September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives) focuses on the vociferous debates raging in France, where an official policy of secularism has made wearing conspicuous religious attire the cause for legal battle and the topic of public discussions drenched in covert racism, classism and paternalism toward women. In France's nearly 20 years of argument over hijab, "women and girls were at the center of a debate waged largely by men," while "the participation of women themselves in the debate was... more as symbols than as social actors." Winter's feminist analysis suggests convincingly that the concept "women believe what they wish and wear what they wish... is one thing. The ways in which these beliefs and appearances are coded and put to the service of other agendas is another"-and that all cultures and societies must address male domination and religious interference in their own "backyards" rather than treating such issues as the exclusive province of an exotic Other. (Feb.)

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