Bad feminist or bad hejabi: cultural identity and representation

Problem, Puzzle, Research Questions
The author critically examines all types of social controls on women, but focuses on laws related to the hejab in Iran. Neghibi (1999) claims that the Shah’s law that forbade the hejab and the Ayatollah’s mandatory hejab law had an ironically similar overall effect of controlling women’s bodies through a patriarchal state. The main difference is that the former aligned national identities in Iran with Western norms, and the Ayatollah/revolutionary approach created a national identity based on anti-Western and fundamentalist Muslim norms.
Theories and Concepts
The author works within several related theoretical frameworks: namely feminism, post-colonialism, and critical theory. Related concepts include the differentiation between the public and private space, the construction of gender norms, oppression, and the failure of feminism to find a universal voice. Another core concept is symbolism and symbolic-interactionism: the way the hejab can represent identity, rebellion, and subversion depending on how it is deployed.
Main Argument
The hejab has become a symbol of the oppression of women outside of Iran, in societies perceived as Western, aggressive, imperialist, subordinate, and hegemonic. In order to proudly assert or cleave to a Muslim, Persian identity, women in Iran used the hejab as a form of protest against colonialism and western hegemony in their society. After the revolution, the opposite occurred. To be truly effective, feminism needs to account for the way colonialism and imperialism are mirror images of patriarchy.
Empirical Evidence
The author uses an abundance of empirical evidence from historical sources as well as from secondary scholarly sources. Neghibi (1999) includes numerous footnoted references to scholarly sources that substantiate or inspire her claims about feminism in Iran.
Structure, Interactions, Actors
The strength of this article is the way the author situates the hejab in social, political, historical, cultural, and even economic contexts. Women living during the Shah recognized that the ban on wearing the veil represented patriarchal control over their own bodies and lives, and therefore wearing the hejab became a symbol of their sisterhood, solidarity, and subversive identity. Yet just a generation later, the entire society changed after the revolution. When the Ayatollah came to power, one of the first courses of action was the mandatory hejab law, which also represents patriarchal control over the female body. The hejab plays a different role depending on the social and political context and prevailing conditions.
Insights
This article is fascinating because it shows why many women wear the hejab for political reasons or out of cultural pride, not out of religious obligation. The hejab can be a source of empowerment and solidarity, but its meaning changes depending on the context.
Critique, Questions
Further questions would be whether similar situations have played out in other Muslim countries, or whether this situation is unique to Iran. For example, in Turkey do women also wear the hejab according to the political climate?
Connections
The hejab is a powerful symbol in non-Muslim societies, particularly those that have a problem with Islamophobia like the United States. As some nations like France have effectively banned the hejab, many Americans also believe that it represents the oppression of women yet do so without even consulting with Muslim women. Laws like these do not just represent patriarchal control over the female body but also imperialistic, colonialist, and hegemonic dominance over cultures that are perceived as subordinate.




References

Naghibi, N. (1999). Bad feminist or bad-hejabi? Interventions 1(4): 555-571.