What Not to Wear

It may seem silly, but the French Government is currently considering a law that will affect how women dress. After President Nicolas Sarkozy’s comment last June that burqas are “not welcome” in France, the country is now considering legislation that would ban women from wearing a burqa or niqab in state venues such as hospitals, public buildings, and on trains and buses. The proposed law would not extend to the public streets, but it is expected that the legislation may lead to similar edicts in stores as well. This law could effectively make women who wear the veil prisoners in their own neighborhood.

This proposal follows the 2004 ban of “ostentatious religious wear” in French public schools. The ban forbids students to wear large crosses or Stars of David, and even prohibits Muslim girls from wearing headscarves. The law was mostly used against headscarves and consequently met with a large outcry from the country’s sizeable Muslim population; numbering an estimated 3.5 million, France’s Muslim population is the largest in Western Europe. The 2004 law, however, provided Muslim families with options. As the law only forbids headscarves and other religious wear in public schools, parents could choose to send their children to private school. The proposed burqa ban would give women who wear the veil no choice but to discard it or stay at home.

Many question the logic behind the ban. Legislators claim that it is a security risk to have one’s face covered. President Sarkozy has stated that, beyond the issue of security, the practice goes against Western culture. He says that the West is open and the burqa and niqab are inherently closed. Some supporters of the law say it will be a good thing; they believe that many women are forced to wear the burqa by their husband or by other male family members, and that it indicates female subservience. But women who wear the burqa disagree. They state that they choose to wear the veil, some even against their husband’s wishes.

Still others suggest that the law stems from “Islamophobia,” with the knee-jerk association of Islam with terrorism. Many see a direct correlation between the full veil and extremism, and from there it’s not a far jump to terrorism. In France, however, this seems unfounded. Many of the 1,900 French women (approximately 0.038% of the French Muslin population) who wear the burqa or niqab are refugees who fled from the extremism in their home country.

So does the French government have the right to ban the burqa? Should the French government be able to dictate what women can and cannot wear, and to force citizens to alter their religious practices? It hardly seems either right or constitutional. The preamble of the French constitution affirms La Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen, or the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, which defines the “natural and imprescriptible rights of man" as "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.” It would seem, therefore, that women should have the freedom to wear a burqa if they choose. And whether or not Muslim women are wearing the burqa by choice or by order of their husband, well…that’s hardly something for the government to decide.

Should the French ban the burqa and niqab and deprive women of the right to practice their religion as they see fit, especially when they are not harming anyone else? Unless the French are willing to ignore what they themselves decreed as the natural rights of man, the burqa ban should not go into effect. France may be the fashion capital of the world, but the government should stay out of decision making in regards to what not to wear.

SARAH WENTZ