The Controversy Over “the Veil”
by jennifer lai
This week in ASTU, I continued to learn more about Persepolis as well as I had to read Literary Scholar, Hilary Chute’s article “The Texture of Retracting in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.” I wanted to continue on my thoughts on Persepolis after analyzing the comic memoir furthermore.
In my Sociology class, Professor Dilley discussed on the topic about perspective conflict in Canada and focusing on Stephen Harper’s opinion on niqabs. Stephen Harper stated ” I will never tell my young daughter that a woman should cover her face because she is a woman. That’s not our Canada.” On the website http://cce-wakata.blogspot.ca/, the blogger points out that women should have the right to decide if she needs to cover herself and men do not have the right to tell her to wear a niqab/hijab. This made me do a little bit of research on the niqab/ hijab.
Just because men find it distracting to look at a woman, they have to wear a niqab to cover themselves. What if women find it distracting to look at men? Why don’t they have to wear something to cover themselves?
In my opinion, Steven Harper feels like this religion is not Canadian because it does not treat everyone equally. He wants to enforce a law to ban Muslim niqab for public servants. By making this such a hot issue, people are now taking more notice and are judging people who do decide to wear it. This immediately made me think of Persepolis and how the women are forced to wear “the veil” because it is a distraction to men. To a certain degree, I can see why Stephen Harper wants to ban the niqab. He feels like it is a security issue and a woman’s right issue. Marjane Satrapi would agree with him because she was against wearing the hijab. But I feel like Harper is also taking the women’s freedom away by doing so. A woman should have the right to decide for herself. If Harper wants equality, then I do not feel like he should ban it, he should respect a person’s religion. This was never really a big issue and I believe that it should have only been brought up if there was a big threat. I agree with Satrapi and how it is not fair to wear a hijab just because men cannot control themselves.
This is such a troublesome topic because if a Muslim women decides to not wear the niqab, the men in her life can punish her. An example from a National Post article, a father murdered 3 of his daughters because they have decided to live a ‘regular Canadian life.’ The issue was never the women, it is the men who believe they have control on the women in their lives.
I never really thought of the niqab/hijab as such a controversy topic. I respect a woman who wants to wear one but it should be their decision and not anyone else’s. They should not be punished for not wearing one. Banning the niqab is in a way just like how in Persepolis it was made mandatory for all women to wear one if they are in public. Either way, some women will feel out of place an pressured.
Here are some links to articles on this issue:
Link to the photo:
