The Hijab and Integration

Several interesting links up on Andrew's blog Multicultural Meanderings.

There is, of course, the continuing controversy over the Quebec Charte des valeurs.  Identity politics are a nasty business and this fight is no exception.  Thus far, at least one of the casualties is the perception of women as strong and capable and able to discern their own interests and desires. Adults able to decide for themselves what they want and how they should dress.  In this article there are claims that women who choose to dress a particular way (the hijab) are "crazy" and "manipulated."  As a feminist may I say that this kind of discourse is not helpful to women anywhere as it portrays us as gullible infants easily swayed by men into doing foolish things.

May I also respectfully point out that having the government tells us what to wear isn't fundamentally any different from having our menfolk do so.  One patriarchy (the state as "Papa") is picking a fight with what they perceive is another patriarchy (migrant men) over the hearts, minds, and bodies of women.

This is, alas, a political strategy that seems to be bearing fruit if the polls in Quebec are accurate.  This argument over symbols (religious and cultural) serves no one except those who wish to make political hay.  

Quebec (and other places) are trying to judge what is inside someone's head by what he or she wears on their bodies.  It's matching insides to outsides - always a perilous undertaking fraught with error and misunderstandings.  If one thinks it is possible to see a "message" and make judgements about a woman based on what she wears, then it follows that all women everywhere can be judged that way.  So then, what does it mean, mes amis, if a woman wears a short black skirt, a tight blouse and high heels?   What "messages" is she sending?  And are we allowed to treat her differently because of how we interpret her intentions manifested through her fashion sense?

Do we really want to go there?  For that matter, weren't we there a few decades ago?

The hijab/burka has become a symbol in two levels.  In some minds it stand for a degradation of women's rights and is something that women should be liberated from for their own good.  For others it is about integration:  a sign that a woman and her family do not wish to be a part of, and don't share the same values as, the culture of arrival.  If I may be so bold, I believe this says very little about migrants and a great deal about the insecurity of the culture in Quebec and France.  The French-Canadians (and the French too) seems to have lost faith in their ability to embrace migrants and convince them that the values they find on arrival are worthy of emulation and respect.

When a few women migrants (and it is is a very few) wearing hijabs can send an entire culture into a panic, that's not a good sign, is it?  It reeks of fear.  And perhaps I was incorrect about the power of women since these women, just by being and putting on a few more clothes than the average native, are causing such a fuss and provoking such extreme emotions.  Clearly, we are dangerous creatures and who knows what we might do if we were allowed to dress ourselves without guidance.

Here is what I know as a woman and a migrant - integration almost always comes eventually but it takes time. Yes, the culture of arrival competes with the culture of origin in one's head.  It can't work any other way - a migrant does not simply drop to her knees and start genuflecting to the superiority of native culture the moment she gets off the plane.  Stepping out of one world (a world that may have been the whole world for most of that migrant's life) into another is just as scary for the migrant herself.  In some cases a very few things about the former life are held as precious, not because there is no desire to integrate, but because they are the things that keep us from losing our minds as we sense that we are losing important parts of ourselves.  The whole process of detachment and re-attachment happens differently with each individual and some land harder than others depending on where she came from and what the new culture requires.

When the receiving culture screams at us, "Not good enough!" and demands further sacrifice - integration on their schedule, not ours - it has precisely the opposite effect.  No one likes to be forced into anything or told that their culture of origin is "bad" or talked down to as if she were a small child.

Because if that is the vision we get of the native culture - abusive, intolerant, controlling, quick to judge, slow to accept - then we really have to wonder why we would ever want to be a part of such a society at all.

French Feminism: Seduction and The Cultural Exception

There is a fascinating exchange going on right between the American historian Joan Scott and some (not all) French feminists.

In the June 9th on-line edition of the French paper, Liberation, Joan Scott very thoughtfully writes, not about the DSK affair itself, but the reactions to the affair and the internal debate going on in France right now about what it means.    She questions the assertion that there is a «féminisme à la française» - that, for cultural reasons, feminism in France is not, can never be, and no one wants it to be, like feminism in other countries.   She quotes Irène Théry who defends the uniqueness of the French approach to sexual equality by saying:

«Il (ce féminisme) est fait d’une certaine façon de vivre et pas seulement de penser, qui refuse les impasses du politiquement correct, veut les droits égaux des sexes et les plaisirs asymétriques de la séduction, le respect absolu du consentement et la surprise délicieuse des baisers volés.»
(This (French) feminism is made of a certain way of life and not simply a way of thinking, which refuses politically correct dead-ends, wants legal equality between the sexes and the asymmetrical pleasures of seduction, has total respect for consent and the delicious surprise of stolen kisses.)

Scott attacks this on several grounds.  She certainly does not believe, for example, that the French "Game of Seduction" is based on any kind of equality between the sexes.  You can read Scott's entire article here.  There is a reply by Claude Habib, Mona Ozouf, Philippe Raynaud and Irene Thery Ehess here.

After reading the entire debate, I personally have the following objections to the arguments proposed by the defenders of the French Feminist Exception:

Forsakes Any Claim to Universalism - if French feminism really is particular to France then it could follow that French feminists have little or no relevance in matters pertaining to sexual equality at the international level and have absolutely nothing to offer the rest of the world in this matter.  If feminist ideas born here can only be understood and applied in a French context then you might as well stamp the work of many brilliant French feminists "Not for Export" which I think is absurd.  

Dons the Dangerous Cloak of Cultural Exception - I have found that people really don't understand how cultural exceptions are a double-edged sword.  Once you claim it for yourself and your culture, you can't really complain when someone from another culture uses it as a reason for a cultural practice in their part of the world.  I once stopped an argument cold over the death penalty in the U.S. by simply saying that it was part of American culture (part of our history, mentality and so forth).  If you can have your cultural exceptions, I said, so can we which means that this debate is now over.  Match nul.

Treats Culture as a Fossil - And not as a river that flows and ebbs and changes course over time.  100 years ago French people (and all other people on this planet) had ideas and rules and laws and morals that are vastly different from what we see today.  It is a fact that things changed - sometimes in very radical ways but more often slowly over generations.  As I sit here typing this I am almost certain that 100 years from now what French and American culture becomes will be quite foreign to us and that our descendants will find many of our ways to be, at best, rather quaint.  To say that something is a "part of our culture" is misleading.  More correctly we should say that such things are a "part of our culture today" and may or may not be there tomorrow.  "Culture" and "Eternal' together is an oxymoron.

I do not pretend to know which way the winds will blow French feminism or French culture for that matter.  For the time being, I am very happy to sit back and watch the debate unfold.  Hold onto your hats, this is going to be interesting.