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Abstract

In a phenomenological study with 16 American and French Arab Muslim women attending college in the United States and France, all self-declared as religious and half of them wearing the hijab, participants express strong arguments against stereotypes of oppression and submission. They affirm agency and personal choice with respect to veiling, in a context of ambient skepticism that is often endorsed by Western feminism. Attention to intersectional experiences of Muslim women and reference to feminist models centered on non-Western women may help understand how second-generation Arab Muslim women experience and express agency.

Keywords

agency France hijab United States young Arab Muslim women

Introduction

Politicization of Islam globally has reinforced the existing perception that Islam is not compatible with Western democracies’ values and that being a Muslim is often synonymous to being an Islamic fundamentalist (Read, 2007). In the United States and France, Muslim women are more targeted by exclusion and discrimination than Muslim men, as women wearing the hijab are perceived as a foreign cultural threat to Western modernity (Bowen, 2007; Caincar, 2009). Muslim women wearing the veil are being scrutinized and whether they wear it or not, hijab strongly characterize young Arab Muslim women in college. Both France and the United States discourage veiling, by law in France and by lack of explicit legal protection in the United States. In France, the legal bans that prevent girls from wearing hijab in public schools since 2004 and women from wearing the burqa in all public places since 2010 exemplify the negative focus on Muslim women in the Western society. This qualitative study explores how young Arab Muslim women experience and express agency vis-à-vis the veil, in France and in the United States.

Literature Review

The Veil as a Threat to Modernity

Scott (2007) stresses that although veils are not the only signs of Muslim religious belief, women wearing the hijab or burqa in France are seen as a more serious threat than Muslim men and are targeted by French laws. She criticizes French characterization of the veil as the ultimate symbol of patriarchy and resistance to modernity, as it suggests that patriarchal societies are essentially Muslim. Bowen (2007) identifies three perceived threats to French modernity that are emblemized by the veil: communalism (closing in of an ethnic community), Islamism, and sexism. In their effort to rally the French general public against the veil, most French feminists linked communalism and Islamism to the oppression of Muslim women in France and throughout the world (Bowen, 2007). Most members of the French Women’s Liberation Movement and affiliated groups opposed wearing the veil and supported the bans, stating that veiling was a sign of the oppression of Muslim women. As the antiracist association SOS Racisme defended the girls’ claim to remain in school, the organization was accused of violating women’s dignity (Bowen, 2007).

In contrast to most French feminists, other Western authors and activists such as American social philosopher Martha Nussbaum (2010, 2012) strongly support the right to veil for Muslim women. Nussbaum (2012) believes that the veil bans in Europe embrace politics of fear, and therefore compromise the freedom of conscience, civic culture, and empathy, which she states are essential values of a modern nation.

As Western feminists are split on the “issue” of the veil, Muslim feminists too disagree on its meanings (oppression vs. affirmation of freedom), especially in Muslim countries where women may be subjected to religious conservatism and Sharia law. Eltahawy (2009, 2012) believes that the burqa “erases women from society” and blames Islam for fueling hatred of women in the Middle East. She calls for a global feminist fight against misogyny, which she says is embedded in the Muslim culture and religion. Hassan (2012) campaigns against Sharia law and warns about the influence of conservative Muslim immigrants to Canada who promote strict allegiance to Islam, including the wearing of the veil. Shaikh (2013) points to the opposition that Muslim women who mean to rely on their education and their own readings of the Quran to foster their religious identity, encounter, both from conservative Islamists in countries like Pakistan and from liberal Muslim feminists in Canada.

In contrast, the Islamic feminist movement claims that patriarchy is not inherent to Islam, but rather is a result of interpretation of the Quran by men. Islamic feminism means to emancipate from both conservative Islam that prevents women from accessing religious knowledge of the Quran and Western feminism that “dictates to the women of the South the manners and framework of their emancipation, arguing that it is impossible to be both subject to God and freed from the power of men” (Crétois, 2013, p. 1).

Moving Away From Oppression: The Veil Expressing Multiple Meanings

In Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance, Fadwa El Guindy (1999) emphasizes the multiplicity of meanings of veiling practices, depending on local culture and personal context of Arab Muslim women in the Arab world. To oppression and control, she substitutes modesty, religiosity, and resistance to materialistic culture and to colonialism.

Illustrating El Guindy’s point, Sloan (2011) refers to her own experience as an American professor teaching social work in Qatar, to suggest that gender segregation, supervision of young women, respect for women’s roles, and widespread censorship that excludes pornography may provide a safer space for women than in the United States. She states, “I have begun to wonder about the price we pay for freedom in the United States, where one in three women will be raped in her lifetime” (p. 220).

In A Quiet Revolution: The Veil's Resurgence, from the Middle East to America, Leila Ahmed (2011) analyzes the multiple meanings of the veil in Egypt and in the United States. She first observed the resurgence of the veil in Egypt since the 1970s and in the United States with a negative assumption about the practice of veiling, but eventually reassessed her understanding of the veil: Among the multiple meanings she identified, hijab was also a strong symbol of activism for Human and civil rights, social justice, and social change.

Seggie and Austin (2010) point to the implications of veil ban in Turkey’s higher education for young Muslim women who are accustomed to wearing the veil as part of their traditional and religious practice. As they have to unveil to attend college, young Turkish religious Muslim women experience feelings of being undesirable citizens in society and of being politicized, as well as doubts about the strength of their religiosity and concerns about giving up part of their identity. As it is the case in France, secularism targets religious Muslim women—more than religious men—in the name of stability of a modern state.

Hijab Acquiring New Meanings in the West

For Read (2007), the Muslim Arab Diaspora in Western countries such as the United States and France displays a broad diversity in gender relations and the role of women. Some Muslim women wear the veil against the wishes of their husbands or fathers, as a means to handle the marginality they experience as minority members in their host country. Others use it as a means to avoid being judged as inappropriate by their own community when they access male-dominated activities and spaces (Read, 2007). Moore (2007) states that membership in a minority religion can be an important source of identity that may lead to the strategic decision of wearing specific clothing.

Gurbuz and Gurbuz-Kucuksari (2009) argue that secularization has stigmatized hijab and enabled it as a symbol of identity reconstruction. They identify two ways in which the stigmatization of hijab empowers identity reconstruction: as a reinforcement of personal identity, where the symbol of hijab is internalized independently of parents’ influence; as a reproduction of collective identity, with the feeling of representing Islam. Mir (2009) adds that young Muslim women both match their behavior with the Muslim image/expectations of non-Muslims on campus and, at the same time, fight stereotypes and try to assert their personal values regarding relationships with men in particular. Amina (2004) stresses that, in France, the veil among young Muslim college students takes an intellectual meaning that embraces feminism and that allows young Muslim women to affirm their identity vis-à-vis French society, the Muslim community, and their family. Succeeding at school becomes a means to affirm their legitimacy and once in college, where headscarf is allowed, wearing the headscarf completes their identity as both intellectual and religious young women with specific knowledge.

Contribution of the Study Regarding Young Arab Muslim Women’s Agency

Authors such as El Guindy (1999) and Ahmed (2011) have demonstrated the diversity of meanings of the veil in the Arab world, and multiple studies have stressed how young Muslim women affirm agency as a minority in Western secular countries. Nevertheless, in studies conducted in the United States, Muslims are often portrayed as a homogeneous group, without much exploration of racial, ethnic, and cultural differences among them. Research on Muslim women’s agency is still limited, with an increase in the recent years (Laird, Marrais, & Barnes, 2007). This study identifies Arab Muslim women as a group particularly stigmatized that faces unique challenges with respect to integration, from both dominant society and their own community. In France, studies on young Muslim women most frequently focus on North Africans and Arabs, due to the fact that Arab Muslims represent the largest minority group in France (Keaton, 2006). However, there are relatively few empirical studies available, and a good part of the published literature on identity of young Arab Muslim women in France is conceptual. This study provides empirical data on agency of young Arab Muslim women in France and in the United States. Finally, in this study, agency of young Arab Muslim women is explored from the perspective of those who veil, as well as those who do not but consider the possibility of veiling, reject it, or have experienced it and chose to unveil.

Conceptual Framework

Globalization has produced a universal dominant discourse on women’s rights that promotes Western values as being superior and desirable for all women. In parallel to the discursive construction of “Third world” women as homogeneous and disempowered, religious women, and Muslim women in particular, are perceived as either oppressed or victim of false consciousness (Salem, 2013). For example, Critelli (2010) emphasizes that veiling women in Pakistan are perceived as submissive and oppressed by Islam, while state, social, and cultural contexts are ignored: Dictatorship based on distorted interpretation of Islam, underdevelopment, poverty, and tribal traditions are the main factors contributing to the low status of women in Pakistan. Critelli notes that women’s status vary considerably with socioeconomic factors and that some Pakistani women are at the forefront of women’s activism in the Muslim world. Agency of Muslim women cannot be understood in reference to mainstream feminist models; instead, there is a need to incorporate Muslim feminist perspectives and models centered on women from developing societies.

Intersectionality and Agency of Muslim Women

In Western feminist discourse, agency and choice with respect to religious women are associated to liberal concept of emancipation. The focus on autonomy and choice implicitly refers to secularism (Salem, 2013). In such framework, religion is perceived as oppressive and modernity is secular. Salem suggests that “one way to reconcile agency with religion is to reconceptualize the concept of agency itself” (p. 3) by focusing on the lived realities of women who are religious, using intersectionality as a framework.

Intersectionality constitutes a major contribution to feminist theory. In the 1980s and 1990s, black feminists such as Audrey Lorde, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill-Collins challenged feminist’s homogeneous approach to women by identifying the interrelation of race and gender in the experience of women of color. Crenshaw (1991) introduced the concept of intersectionality of identities for women, stating that gender needs to be understood in relation to other social identities such as race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. As intersectionality may be extended to multiple identities, Mehrotra (2010) asks “who is intersectional?” and brings attention to lived experiences of nation, colonialism, sexuality, class, religion, age, and ability. She emphasizes that “processes of colonialism, globalization, racism, gender oppression, and other discourses are viewed as interlocking, fluid, and coconstructive of identity and experience” (p. 425). Regarding Muslim women’s experiences in Western countries, Barkdull et al. (2011) note “the fluid intersections of gender, class, education, nationality, immigration status, and other variables related to identity and social location” (p. 150). Hulko (2009) makes a distinction between intersectionality as a theoretical concept and social location, which is the practical outcome of interactions of identities. She stresses that people and groups’ social location is context dependent and not a static or fixed category.

Ast and Spielhaus (2012) advocate for an intersectional approach to discrimination of Muslim women as opposed to the commonly endorsed argument that discrimination of women wearing the headscarf is based on religion only. They argue that the latter approach “does not take into account the multiple identities of the victims as women and believers and therefore the intersection of gender and religion” (p.357). For Salem (2013), an intersectional approach to Muslim women and religiosity allows for Muslim women’s religious experience to be part of the narrative of their own stories. Finally, in an attempt to address their assumption that religion is the main component of identity for all minority ethnic people, Macey and Carling (2010) promote a “communal identity” that incorporates the intersectionality of race and ethnicity and religion.

Alternative Frameworks Centered on Non-Western Women

Over the past 15 years, Islamic feminism has developed in Muslim societies as well as in Europe and North America (Ahmadi, 2006; Badran, 2006). Islamic feminist movements are being created in the United States (Progressive Muslim Union) and Europe. In France and Belgium, the movement Muslim Presence has been challenging the French bans on the veil and claims the right to veil as a matter of personal choice, not religious obligation (Fournier, 2008). For Badran (2006), Islamic feminism derives its understanding from the Quran and pursues gender equality in the state, civil institutions, and everyday life. Mashhour (2005) and Shah (2006) emphasize that the deterioration of women’s rights in many Islamic countries is due to their patriarchal nature, not their Islamic nature, and that the intention of the Quran was precisely to raise the status of women in the society.

Most Muslim women may reject the feminist label as Western and neoimperialist, while some Western feminists may reject the possibility of women fighting patriarchy within an Islamic framework (Cooke, 2000). Bilge (2010) adds that there is a need for an intersectional approach to the agency of veiled Muslim women that moves beyond subordination to men versus resistance to Western hegemony. Badran (2006) argues that there is no line between East and West with respect to Islamic feminism as it is an inter-Islamic phenomenon developed by Muslims throughout the world, which promotes both gender equality and social justice in the East and more pluralistic societies in the West with equal rights for all, whatever ethnicity, religion, or gender.

Other frameworks are being developed that center on women from developing societies’ perspectives. Singh (2007) states that the current understanding of women’s needs in developing countries refers to the gender and development paradigm, which is development focused and centered on Western feminism ideals. She emphasizes that Western feminism’s primary goal of equality between men and women does not correspond to most women’s reality in developing countries as they are dependent upon their husband and family for survival and financial support. Singh advocates for the use of “identities of women” as an alternative framework that is centered on individual women’s self-perception of their environment and their agency within their individual contexts. She rejects generalizations about women’s identity and instead promotes the “acknowledgment of an individual woman’s ability to have multiple identities and to negotiate new ones” (p. 105).

Methodology

This article is part of a larger phenomenological study exploring identity negotiation of young Arab Muslim women attending college, which I conducted in 2012, in the United States and France. Here, I focus on agency and aim to answer the question: How do young Arab Muslim women in the United States and France experience and express agency vis-à-vis hijab? Following Giorgi’s (1975) and Colaizzi’s (1978) descriptive phenomenology research’s framework, I interviewed eight American Muslim women and eight French Muslim women attending college in the United States and France, all self-declared as religious. Half of the participants in each sample wore the hijab.

Sampling and Recruitment

Participant recruitment took place through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling in four public universities in Paris, one private university, and two public universities in Chicago. In France, a student acted as a recruiter and contacted both veiling and nonveiling friends to ensure diversity of sample. Participants contacted other friends in turn. Data saturation being a key factor in phenomenological studies (Groenewald, 2004; Guest, Bunce, & Johnson, 2006; Wertz, 2005), I conducted preliminary data analysis and determined that I had reached data saturation with four veiling and four nonveiling French participants. In the United States, initial recruitment of participants took place through a member of the Muslim Student Association, a national nonprofit student organization that promotes various programs and events about Islam and its teaching. The student recruiter contacted participants who in turn contacted friends. Then, based on the French sample and preliminary analysis, I built a comparable American sample of four veiling and four nonveiling women.

The French sample included eight second-generation Muslim women aged 19 to 25. All participants were born in France and were French nationals. Participants’ parents were of Arab origins and were born in Northern Africa; in every case, both parents were from the same country. Four of them were of Algerian ancestry, three of Moroccan ancestry, and one of Tunisian ancestry. The American sample included eight second-generation American Muslim women aged 19 to 23. All participants were born in the United States and were American citizens. Their parents were of Arab origins. Four of them were of Palestinian decent, with both parents being Palestinians. Two of them were of Syrian decent and both their parents were Syrian. One participant was of Egyptian decent from both parents, and one participant had a Moroccan mother and an European American father who converted to Islam. In each sample, four participants veiled and four did not.

Data Collection and Analysis

I conducted audio-recorded, open-ended interviews in person with each participant. I asked four main questions to participants: (1) What is it like to be a college student in the United States/France? (2) What five words would you use to describe yourself? (3) How do you make the choice to veil or not to veil? and (4) What are your goals and how do you see working towards them? With respect to ethical considerations, a signed consent form was obtained from each participant to the study, both in France and in the United States. The English version of the consent form was translated into French and exact transcription of terms was ensured. Trustworthiness of all interviews was ensured by member checking: I sent each participant their interview transcript via e-mail and they had the opportunity to view the raw data of their own interview and to comment on its accuracy. Member checking represents a powerful verification strategy that is endorsed by feminist research as a process that encourages collaborative and empowering relationships between participants and researchers (Kluge, 2002). No translator was needed for the French interviews as I, the researcher/interviewer, am French. I subsequently translated into English the content of the French interviews. Translation accuracy was ensured by checking for comprehension and testing for naturalness and readability.

Following the methodology of descriptive phenomenology, I focused on participants’ experience of the phenomenon “being a young Arab Muslim in college” while setting aside my own knowledge of it as well as personal bias (bracketing). I reflected on my relationship with participants as a researcher who is part of mainstream society, as well as on the assumptions that may interfere with my data analysis in terms of staying true to the meaning of what participants expressed. In France, I was a French non-Muslim white researcher interviewing young Arab Muslim women participants who were very much aware of dominant negative perception of their culture and religion, including that of French feminists (Bowen, 2007). In the United States, in addition to being part of mainstream society, I was French American and therefore from a different culture, as participants were themselves. With respect to the notion of the researcher being the “stranger” and to relations of power, authority, and difference between researcher and participants (Hamzeh & Oliver, 2010), I was particularly attentive to trying to determine if participants were genuinely motivated by my research, or if they were mostly trying to please or to impress me. It only took a few interviews to realize that the young women I was interviewing were highly motivated, very articulate on the topic of identity, taking my project seriously, and having a lot to communicate. I was the one who needed to take my participants seriously.

With respect to analysis of findings, I allowed for themes to emerge from data (Giorgi, 1975) and used the computer program NVivo 10 to proceed through theme analysis and description of common experience among participants, independently of their history and context (Giorgi, 1975).

Limitations of the Study

The use of a small sample size in each country may be perceived as limiting with respect to exploitation of findings. In qualitative research, data saturation is a key factor in determining sample size (Groenewald, 2004; Guest et al., 2006; Wertz, 2005). In this study, data saturation was reached with eight interviews in France. The same number of interviews were conducted in the United States and data saturation was also reached in the American sample.

Conducting a cross-national study in the United States and France involves experiences of young Muslim women attending college that are influenced by two different contexts. Due to differences in backgrounds, past opportunities, and current perspectives, the two samples may seem hardly comparable. However, in a global postcolonial Western environment, young Arab Muslim women attending college may in fact face common oppression from dominant discourse.

The need for translation of French data into English introduces a layer of complexity that may raise issues of trustworthiness and authenticity. In this study, researcher and translator are the same person. As much as one tries to stay true to original meaning and to check for comprehension, naturalness, and readability, translation is not neutral, it is a social practice (Temple & Young, 2004; Wong & Poon, 2010). In this study, translation becomes part of the subjective process endorsed by researchers in phenomenology.

Findings: Young Arab Muslim Women in the U.S. and France Claim Agency

One important finding of this study is participants’ claim of agency as young Arab Muslim women living in a country whose values are often at odds with that of their country of origins. Other findings of the study are discussed elsewhere. In this article, I relay participants’ point that wearing hijab is their private choice. Eight participants across sample wear the veil and eight do not. All but one participant across sample emphasize that wearing hijab is a religious achievement. Several interviewees acknowledge that some women may be forced to wear hijab but they believe that in the end it is their choice to keep it on or take it off. Six women across sample describe their own experience of taking off hijab at some point in their life. Participants refer to three types of experiences regarding hijab: choosing to wear hijab, being forced to wear it, and taking off hijab.

Choosing to Wear Hijab

All but one of the interviewees make the point that hijab is a private choice that is not dictated by parents or the Muslim community. They state that wearing hijab demonstrates a high level of religiosity that can only be attained through personal quest and that should be respected as so by parents, Muslim community, and state. One participant explains: “In our religion, when a girl gets her first period, she’s supposed to wear it…Some girls wear it when they first get to college, some girls wait till they’re done with college, and some people never wear it.” She also stresses that wearing hijab is “not easy at first because…it’s more restriction in what you wear, then you still have to be a good Muslim, be very modest, humble, very kind to others.” One participant describes how she made the decision to veil:

In 8th grade, I told my mom I wanted to wear the scarf… She said “you’re too young, I don’t want you to wear it before you’re well informed of it.” I really commend her for that because she let me decide on my own when I wanted to wear it… I started wearing it and then you think, is it worth it to take it off and not get those stares from people or is it better to keep it on and have people be curious and you can answer their questions in the right way? So, I had to make the decision and I told my mom, “I want to wear it because I would have to be the first one to learn about it so that I can answer people when they ask me.”

Another interviewee emphasizes the spiritual aspect of the veil as a reason why it can’t be forced on someone:

Some people let the veil come to them gradually and some act very quickly… The veil is primarily a quest for spirituality that really expresses the culminant point of our religious practice… My parents never discussed the veil with me. I knew about the veil but no one ever told me that I had to wear it, ever.

In addition to a religious purpose, one participant mentions that for her, veiling is “about self-respect and rebelling against what the media say… The media tell women…you’re more valued as a person if you take off more clothes; if you put on more clothes, you’re obviously less valued.” Finally, as one interviewee describes various profiles of hijabis, she links ways of wearing hijab and Western lifestyle:

There’s like four hijabis: Hojabis, blue jean hijabis, fashion hijabis, and ninjas. The hojabis are the ones who don’t do justice to the hijab; they wear super tight clothing and just way too much make-up. Then the blue jean hijabis are kind of relaxed, they’re like, yes, I’m going to be modest but we live in this country and blue jean is like America… So, they’re cool. Then the fashion hijabis, I feel like they’re more modest; but they want to be unique at the same time. Sometimes people think that wearing the hijab means that you’re going to be a hermit, you wear black and you don’t care. I feel like the fashion hijabis say, no, women are beautiful, they should be beautiful and present themselves with style. And then the ninjas, they just cover themselves.

Being Forced to Wear Hijab

All participants believe that women should not be forced to wear hijab. Some participants across sample do acknowledge that there are women and girls who are forced or pressured to wear the veil. One of them, who expresses strong feelings against the veil states, “we are more mature but when I see children who are forced to wear the veil, for me it's like a good little soldier obeying without any real explanation and they impose something that makes no sense.” Other interviewees across sample believe that even if some women are forced to veil, they will eventually either understand its purpose and embrace it or they will reject it and not veil any longer. One participant says “some parents want to force their kids, but parents are encouraged not to force their kids, because if they force them, then they’ll take it off later.” Another participant adds, “I know some people who are pressured to wear it because everyone else is wearing it…and then later they take it off, so they were doing it for the wrong reason.” Another one believes that “a lot of times women who are forced to wear it eventually sort of end up liking it and understanding the reasoning of why you need to wear it and appreciating it.” One participant expresses how young Arab Muslim women’s desire to follow their parents’ will may create internal conflicts: “if she later figures out that she doesn’t want to wear it, let her take it off. But for now, if she respects her parents and her parents are saying, you ought to keep it on…that’s a tough call.” In contrast, other interviewees declare that no one is forced to wear the veil in Western countries: “personally, I’ve never heard someone say ‘I was forced to wear the veil’ I only see it on TV…it doesn’t exist” and “To the contrary, I have rather seen cases where parents forbade it.”

Taking off Hijab

Six participants report having been confronted to taking off hijab. Three of them took off hijab after realizing that they were not ready to wear it, and three reported that they were asked to take it off at some point in their life. In both cases, they mention that it was a difficult process. One participant states, “I made the choice to wear it at one time…before entering university… I was too hasty…which meant that I dropped it as quickly as I had picked it up.” Another participant recalls,

I used to wear it in 8th grade, so I was 13. I did it just because I knew it was our religion but I didn’t understand the depth of it…once I found out the depth and reality of wearing the veil, it hit me so fast. I went from a normal girl to someone getting weird stares and attitude. My life was completely turned around… Now that I’m older, I would know how to answer people right away if they were to ask me “why are you wearing this?” But when I was younger, I just didn’t get it.

One interviewee took off her veil in college, after wearing it for several years. She emphasizes the gap she experienced between what she looked like and what she felt:

In my sophomore year, I was still wearing the hijab but I was having a lot of struggles internally because I wasn’t praying… I didn’t feel religious and I wanted to take it off to feel more comfortable in my own skin because I really didn’t like people looking at me as the good girl. There’s this huge issue with the non-hijabis and the hijabis and it’s like, they would look at you wearing the hijab and they would mark you off as almost perfect and I didn’t want that. I wanted people to meet me, and then make a judgment about me, instead of seeing something physical about me and make all these assumptions about my character, my personality and who I am. Because I was a lot more liberal than I was showing myself to be.

In France, three participants were confronted to the veil ban in high school. One refused to remove the veil and therefore had to study from home: “It didn’t work for me to…have to remove it for the whole day of school… So, I decided to study from home… Rather than learning alone, I’d rather learn with other students, that’s for sure.” Another participant states that having to remove the veil at school left her with strong negative feelings: “I would remove the top part so that my whole head could be seen. Retrospectively, I had feelings of regret not to have taken my exams as an independent candidate…I felt so much anger, sadness.” Finally, one participant describes how she eventually adjusted to the ban:

I started wearing it when I entered the 6th grade…when the 2004 law was passed… I didn’t understand because I was not doing anyone any harm. I didn’t understand either the girls who refused to go to school because they refused to remove it… So, I arrive at school, I keep it on my head and then the assistant principal calls me… and she says, “you can’t keep it on.” I wept, I removed it and then I went to the school playground and all my girlfriends took me in their arms and told me “it's nothing, don’t worry, it’s going to be ok.” The first days were hard but I eventually got used to it and I realized that in the end, it’s only hair… I ended up accepting it but I’m happy not to be asked to remove it in college.

Discussion

Global politicization of hijab affects young Arab Muslim women in the United States and France as it misrepresents their motivations vis-à-vis the veil. Most participants, veiling or not, insist that their family and community would never have forced them to wear hijab (although I never asked any of them if they had felt pressured to wear it) and declare hijab as a free choice. As emphasized by Ast and Spielhaus (2012), an approach to discrimination of Muslim women at the intersection of gender and religion allows taking into account the multiplicity of their identities as women and believers. The authors also point out that Muslim women as believers are challenged by the controversy over gender equality with respect to hijab. As Mehrotra (2010) suggests to include into intersectionality lived experiences of nation, colonialism, sexuality, class, religion, age, and ability, young Arab Muslim women’s experience may be understood at the unique intersectionality of gender, religion, ethnicity, and politicization of hijab in both Western and Islamic words. In addition, approaching the notion of hijab and free choice, as expressed by participants, from an intersectional perspective places young Arab Muslim women’s religious experience at the center of the narrative of their own stories (Salem, 2013).

As much as they believe that women should not be forced to wear hijab, participants also accept the eventuality as part of what some Muslim families do. They identify two “natural” consequences to it: Either the girl will take hijab off later or she will eventually understand the reasoning of why women should veil and appreciate it. Participants to this study express that the main reason for agreeing to veil despite personal hesitation—or disagreement—would be the desire to respect parents’ and community’s will. Models centered on women from developing societies’ perspectives may help understand participants’ will to comply with traditional and community rules that are at odds with Western feminist global ideal of gender equality. For example, Singh (2007) suggests an alternative framework that is centered on individual women’s self-perception of their environment and their agency within their individual contexts: Young Muslim women would choose allegiance to their community and compliance with their parents’ will, as both contribute to their identity as young Arab Muslim women. Defying their parents’ authority or confronting their community’s influence would isolate them from their own core values, without necessarily ensuring better integration in main stream society.

Participants who took off hijab voluntarily explain that they were not ready to face non-Muslims’ scrutiny or/and Muslim community’s expectations, and they did not want to feel categorized. As young Arab Muslim women evolve within their individual context, they may develop agency beyond both the notion of subordination to men and that of resistance to Western values (Bilge, 2010). Young Arab Muslim women in the United States and France, whether they veil or not, may endorse Islamic feminism’s goal in Western society of moving away from patriarchal frameworks while achieving equal rights for all, whatever ethnicity, religion, or gender (Badran, 2006). This study’s findings on young Arab Muslim women’s agency illustrate the importance to consider alternative approaches to dominant discourse on women’s rights in order to best support young Arab Muslim women’s needs in Western countries such as France and the United States.

Implications of Findings for Social Work

The results of this study regarding agency of young Arab Muslim women may have implications for social work research, practice, education, and policy.

Implications for Research

This study highlights the religious aspect of veiling as well as participants’ agency, which they define in their own terms. Authors (Bilge, 2010; Salem, 2013; Singh, 2007) point to the need to reconceptualize the notion of agency in order to incorporate into the understanding of non-Western and Muslim women’s experience, new forms of agency that are not taken into account within Western feminist frameworks. Bilge (2010) calls for an intersectional approach to agency of veiling Muslim women that moves away from the dichotomy between liberal discourse of subordination and postcolonial framework of resistance, in order to address religious reasons for wearing the veil. Using the theoretical framework of intersectionality of gender and religion while taking into account secular context will allow social work researchers to provide an understanding of young Arab Muslim women’s agency that is not ideological but informed by these women’s experiences, bringing to light new forms of agency that had been previously ignored.

Implications for Practice

As discussed by Hulko (2009), intersectionality is a theoretical concept that is not easily applicable to people’s everyday life. Instead, she suggests that social location is the practical outcome of interactions of identities, as a context-dependent and fluid category. She defines social location as the “relative amount of privilege and oppression that individuals possess on the basis of specific identity constructs” (p. 48). With respect to young Arab Muslim women who are religious, attention to their social location would allow social workers to take into account tensions between secular environment on one side and religiosity and community rules on the other, while keeping in mind that each woman’s social location may be different and may evolve in time. In particular, it would be helpful for social workers to be aware of and to value new forms of agency of Muslim women as identified by social work research.

Implications for Education

Intersectionality provides social work educators with a very helpful framework to explore issues of diversity, globalization, feminist practice, and social justice (Mehrotra, 2010). It is important to introduce to the classroom new intersectional identities, beyond that of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation as identified by Crenshaw (1991), that incorporate women’s experiences of religion, secularism, postcolonialism, and minority community. In a context of post 9/11, in which the media and dominant discourse stigmatize Arab Muslims and young Arab Muslim women who veil in particular, it is important to discuss in the classroom the notion of agency of young Arab Muslim women, beyond polarized arguments of submission versus resistance.

Implications for Policy

As it shows that young Arab Muslim women who are religious do experience and express agency, this study contradicts Western dominant discourse on oppression and submission of veiling Muslim women. This study does not support the French bans of 2004 preventing Muslim girls from wearing the veil in all public schools and of 2010, forbidding the burqa in all public spaces. Young Arab Muslim women wearing the hijab are neither oppressed nor dangerous for the stability of secular state. Instead, they may help fight patriarchy throughout the world as feminists who promote gender equality and social justice in Islamic countries and equal rights for all in Western countries, whatever ethnicity, religion, or gender (Ahmed, 2011; Badran, 2006).

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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