The Muslim headscarf, or hijab, has been at the centre of numerous controversies in recent times. From government authorities to public intellectuals, debates surrounding the hijab have engaged a diverse spectrum of the society. But why the hijab? What is it about this seemingly ordinary piece of cloth that makes it so intolerable? Why has it become a source of such polarization within society? And what are the larger ideological bases upon which this opposition to the hijab rests?
Joan Wallach Scott, a pioneer in gender studies, tries to answer these questions in her book The Politics of the Veil. Scott’s study is specifically centred around the hijab controversies in France that came to be known as Affaires du Foulard and the 2003 hijab ban. She explores these issues by situating them within the broader social and historical context of French society and the political forces that contributed to this hostility towards the headscarf. She then proceeds with her inquiry by connecting these controversies to ideas of racism, secularism, individualism, and sexuality as they operate in French society.
Although Scott’s study is focused exclusively on France, the issues and underlying forces she identifies can also guide similar debates in other contexts where the hijab has been contentious, such as Turkey, Tajikistan, and, more recently, India. In the following review, we will first proceed by discussing the key themes addressed in the book and then go on to examine Scott’s contribution to the larger discourse on the intersections of religion, secularism, racism, and sexuality.
In Chapter 1, titled ‘The Headscarf Controversies,’ Scott presents three moments in French history—1989, 1994, and 2003—when the headscarf became the subject of heated public debate. She situates these controversies against the backdrop of France’s bicentennial celebrations and the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front party. Scott also shows how global events, such as the Palestinian intifada and Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, shaped public perception of the headscarf. France’s bicentennial celebrations posited republicanism as the bedrock of the French Republic, which was to be protected from foreign influence. This republican ideal invented a mythic ‘Other’ in the form of the Arab/Muslim/North African immigrant, from which the unified and indivisible Republic must be defended. In these instances, the headscarf was quickly transformed into a “veil,” a symbol that inherently implies “covering”, which was associated with ideas of concealment and oppression. For the republicans, the veil represented a threat to the foundational fabric of the French Republic and its secular nature.
In the second chapter, Scott examines the issue of the veil through the lens of French racism. She demonstrates how racism is so deeply entrenched in French society that it has become part of the everyday “common sense.” Tracing its historical roots to the conquest of Algeria in 1830 and France’s colonial “civilizing mission,” she highlights a fundamental paradox: the very characteristics believed to define colonized peoples were thought to preclude their capacity to become civilized. Scott argues that French racism is premised on a permanent and unbridgeable dichotomy of “us” versus “them,” denying any possibility of coexistence except through domination and subordination. Consequently, the veil is always understood through racist frameworks, whether worn as a political symbol or as a sign of personal religious commitment. It became a symbol of the inassimilability and irreducible difference of Islam. Following France’s defeat in the Algerian War, in which the veil played an important role, it was also seen as embodying national humiliation and shame.
The next chapter, titled ‘Secularism,’ introduces the French concept of secularism or laïcité, which separates the church from the state. The 2003 law banning “conspicuous signs” in public schools was explicitly justified as a defence of laïcité. Schools were portrayed as secular spaces that must be protected from religious intrusion, serving as the crucible where citizens of the republic are produced. Scott shows that French secularism is unique in attempting to enforce a single, universal truth and in warning about the dangers posed by religion and its associated truths. Islam, in particular, is treated as a homogeneous entity fundamentally opposed to the French Republic, ruling out the possibility that girls who wear headscarves are rational individuals capable of personal religious belief.
Another important point that Scott raises regarding secularism is that the 2003 ban initially applied only to primary and secondary schools. Women were still allowed to wear headscarves in public spaces and even in universities. This highlights the symbolic role schools play in establishing republicanism and state authority. Similar dynamics have been observed elsewhere; for instance, recent hijab controversies in India have similarly involved denying girls access to schools. This shows how schools serve as spaces for inculcating the ideals of secularism. Moreover, secularism in France is inevitably linked to nationalism and the unity of the nation and its values. Achieving this unity requires denying and eliminating differences. This conception of nationalism rests on the idea of a fixed and unchanging national identity. The headscarf’s symbolism was so powerful that the National Assembly treated it as a threat so grave that a group of girls wearing headscarves could supposedly destabilize and fracture the nation’s foundations.
Scott also highlights the dilemmas surrounding “integration” in French society. Foremost among these dilemmas was the denial of Muslim women’s agency. While struggles such as those of women and homosexuals were framed as individual, Muslim actions were automatically ascribed to communal identity, purportedly threatening the Republic’s unity. “A girl in a headscarf was a member of a ‘community,’” she asks, “but a girl in a miniskirt was expressing her individuality—was this an objective distinction, or one resting on normative standards disguised as neutrality?” She further goes on to expose the double standards within French ideals of individualism and republicanism.
Scott’s analysis of choice and individualism in the context of the headscarf in Chapter 4 is particularly insightful. One rationale for the law was the claim that girls were being “forced” to wear hijabs by parents and communities. This assumption denied their agency and choice, casting every action of these girls as emanating from communal pressure rather than personal conviction. Scott recounts the girls’ own testimonies, who often thought of the headscarf as part of their self-identity. Their narratives reject the artificial public-private divide of the state and religion and the inner-outer divides of the self produced by secularism. For them, wearing the veil was a personal journey of self-discovery and an expression of individualism that lawmakers failed to comprehend. The lawmakers viewed their act solely as a denial of freedom from the community or a loss of reason on the girls’ part. Their conception of individualism sought to separate an individual’s religion from their group affiliations and relegate religion to a private matter. According to this standard, Muslims could only become truly French if they detached themselves from communal ties. On the other hand, opponents of the ban presented the complexity of both French and Muslim identities, arguing that the hijab did not represent a single, homogenous idea but may entail multiple meanings.
She then moves on to the final chapter, “Sexuality,” where she examines how the discourse surrounding open and closed models of sexuality shaped the headscarf debate. Among Arab Islamic populations, a system of closed sexuality was valued, where a woman’s modesty and honor were considered paramount. In contrast, the French embraced an open sexuality system, where the exhibition and visibility of the female body were not regarded as detrimental. While not all French feminists supported this “open” system, in the aftermath of the headscarf controversies, many fully embraced it as a means to oppose the veil. Equality became closely linked to sexual emancipation, which was in turn associated with the public visibility of a woman’s body. This conception of gender relations was presented as the sole legitimate path to becoming French. It marked the most visible difference between Islam and French ethos; thus, anyone who did not adhere to this “open” system was perceived as inferior and incapable of fully assimilating into French identity.
Scott’s approach to understanding the contrasting conceptions of sexuality in Islam and French republicanism is particularly interesting. She characterizes them respectively as a “psychology of recognition” and a “psychology of denial.” The psychology of denial aligns with the idea of the French citizen as an abstracted individual—essentially human irrespective of differences of race, class etc. Yet, the issue of women’s equality posed a fundamental dilemma: women, as the defining sex, could not be fully subjected to such abstraction. This inherent tension between republican political theory and women’s sexual difference created a paradox for the republicans.
Conversely, the psychology of recognition circumvents this contradiction by openly acknowledging the complexities of sex and sexuality. While women’s headscarves and men’s loose clothing recognize the potentially disruptive forces of sexual relations, they also affirm and contain these forces by confining them to the private sphere. This explicit acknowledgment of sexual dynamics by Muslims generates anxiety among the French, whose framework relies on denial. This anxiety, in turn, reinforces their opposition to the headscarf.
The Politics of the Veil is written in a lucid style and is a pleasant read, although it can be quite dense at times. Scott’s analysis is a significant contribution to the ongoing discourse on the veil. Her insights into racism in French society stem from her close observations and personal experiences of French society. Moreover, her contribution on the role that sexuality plays in shaping understandings of the hijab—a subject formerly untouched—is particularly original. Her critique of Western conceptions of sexuality and women’s emancipation, often presented as ‘universal’, is also important.
However, despite these contributions, the book is not without limitations. While critiquing France’s racist attitudes towards its Muslim and immigrant populations, she nonetheless argues that France should be more “tolerant” and accepting of these differences. This position, too, is problematic. As Mahmood Mamdani convincingly illustrates in his book Neither Settler nor Native, nationalism inherently strives to create a homogenous population that rejects differences of those who defy conforming to the dominant views. Thus, a narrative of ‘inclusion’ or ‘tolerance’ cannot be realised in this context.
While Scott links the specific targeting of Muslims to the immigration and the race problem, she fails to see how Islam itself can be seen as a challenge to French ideals. She treats Islam as just another religion. Why, given that France is home to several faiths, is Islam specifically perceived as a threat to the Republic? This question leads us to consider Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s and Talal Asad’s theses on religion as a modern concept arising from secularism, and how Islam resists easy incorporation into this framework. While other religions have largely acquiesced to the public-private divide, Islam is deeply embedded in every aspect of its followers’ lives, making it difficult to confine simply to the category of “religion.” This inherent resistance to the Sacred-Profane binary is a major reason Islam is perceived as a threat to France’s ideal of laïcité.
Despite these limitations, The Politics of the Veil is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding not only the debates surrounding the veil but also broader discussions on race and belonging (who belongs?), secularism (is the divide between religion and state permanent?), individualism (who performs the action: the individual, the community, or both?), and sexuality (is the Western conception of ‘sexual emancipation’ universal?).
