Headscarf

meet an 18 year old, French born Muslim girl. Her and her family live in the outskirts of France, which is home to many immigrants. Her parents came to France from Morocco. She is a top-achieving student at her school. She has been rigorously studying for her test she must take to attend upper level school. She is passionate about her studies, and plans to do great things with her education. We begin to learn, in this film, that hate crimes against Muslims were on the rise. The term used to describe this hate is “Islamophobia.” Muslim is France’s second largest religion with Catholicism being number one. In September 2004, there was a ban placed on religious symbols being seen or worn at schools. This ban included the traditional, Muslim headscarf. This ban states “all religious symbols,” but it is understood that it is directed…

Is wearing the hijab a sign of faith or of religious oppression? That is the question that has concerned many scholars in the fields of religious studies and women’s studies. Shelina Zahra Janmohamed argues in Love in a Headscarf, that wearing the hijab a sign of her faith. She believes that it is her religious duty to dress modestly and practice veiling. For her, it is a mark of devout faith in Islam and a marker of the religion that she practices. Even though she faces the pressure of a local…

In “What Does my Headscarf Mean to You,” Yassmin Abdel-Magied is speaking about unconscious biases. Which is when we, as humans, make assumptions about people based on their gender, skin color, appearance, and even age. Yassmin Abdel-Magied expresses that making these assumptions does not make us less of a person, it is natural. However, it does make one realize how ethnocentric we actually are. Although, when it begins to affect your occupation or career or even one’s existence in society,…

Elauf was nervous about a job interview for Abercrombie & Fitch in 2008, because of her headscarf and Muslim faith but she never knew that it would turn out the way it did. A friend of hers actually recommended her for the job because she thought she was very qualified and well equipped for the job. But, from the start, Samantha was apprehensive about wearing her headscarf, even before she interviewed. She asked her friend if she thought it would be ok for her to wear her headscarf to the…

applied to all types of religions in France, but it targeted mostly Muslims. In particular, Muslim women were targeted for the use of headscarves, which is a piece of fine material worn by Muslim women to cover up their hair; the veil is a cloth that covers the whole body except the eyes. The law was made to ban all types of religious signs, but in reality, it was meant to target Muslims. In Joan Wallach Scott's book the Politics of the Veil, she addresses the reasons French officials saw the…

However, it is somewhat contradictory. The Hijaab is useful as a point of distinction for French secularity, the headscarf is presented in such a way that it comes to represent the oppression of women and the removal Muslim religion from the Public sphere becomes a feminist movement. While on the one hand, the intention is to mark French secularity as progressive and pluralistic, Wallach Scott discusses this as a form of French Racism. Scott continues by arguing that French feminists initially…

A Christian woman who was told to remove her headscarf for a driver’s license photo has sued officials of Alabama county, saying her faith convicts her to cover her hair. In December last year, Yvonne Allen of Tuskegee tried to renew her driver’s license, and she was told to remove her headscarf because “only Muslim women have the right to cover their hair.” On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on her behalf, saying the Alabama officials violated Allen’s…

EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) v. Abercrombie and Fitch Stores, Inc. was a case where the EEOC sued Abercrombie because the company refused to give a job to a woman named Samantha Elauf because of her head scarf. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc is a national chain of clothing stores that requires its employees to follow the “Look Policy” that reflects the Store’s style and forbids black clothing and any sort of caps. It claimed that the company violated Title Vll of the civil…

Secularism does not exist in a vacuum in France it builds upon the negotiation between the religious and secular and has done since 1905. The Muslim headscarf has been a matter of ongoing debate and controversy in the secular state that is France, this continually leads to an ostile image being constructed for Islam, despite the promotion of universality that is allegedly key to the French Republic. This essay discusses the Hijab in France in regard to Jeffrey Stout’s ‘The Folly of Secularism’…

In 2008, 17-year-old Samantha Elauf was denied a job at Abercrombie & Fitch in Tulsa, Oklahoma after she wore a hijab, a headscarf, to her job interview. Heather Cooke, the store's assistant manager became concerned that Elauf’s headscarf would interfere with the store's “look policy,” which does not allow any headgear, and promotes the retailer's brand by having their salespeople, or ‘models’ wear and advertise their clothing. Cooke was unaware that Elauf was a practicing muslim who wore her…