Comment & Debate
Leslie Cannold. “For equality, ban the hijab in public schools”. The Age. August 31, 2005 – “It is largely Muslim men who are insisting that “their” girls and young women will be upset, concerned or made fearful by the banning of the hijab from public schools. But given such leaders are rarely democratically elected, little less by a voting base that includes women, how can we know whose interests they really represent? This seems a particularly pertinent worry in light of the third largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic Organisations in France, supporting the ban and the insistence of some Muslim women that the hijab is an inescapably oppressive garment that both perpetuates antiquated notions of female “purity” and helplessness, and insults the moral agency of men (who at the sight of any part of any female’s body have no recourse but rape).
When we remember rumours about some French Muslim schoolboys standing over their non-veiled classmates until they covered up and that, once implemented, the French ban led only 72 of 12 million school children to disobey, concerns multiply about the quality of our knowledge about what young Muslim girls really want — and what is best for them — when it comes to the veil.”