The Great Divider

I’m reluctant to discuss this topic, because it is so frequently at the center of debates over women’s rights that it risks reducing a large issue to a superficiality. But I’m currently in Cairo, and in Cairo the veil is an unavoidable topic. It’s striking and constant presence shocks visitors to the historically cosmopolitan city, beginning, unlike the poverty and pollution, even before they get off the plane. A recent (in the past 5-7 years) resurgence of conservative Islam in Egypt has transformed the city and prompted over 90% of Cairoan girls to begin wearing a veil - from simple and relatively small hair coverings to full blown burqas.
This veiling trend is disturbing for many reasons. First, the speed at which it happened in a relatively educated and open urban center (complete with internet cafes, sushi, Starbucks and Virgin Records Stores) indicates the power religious rhetoric still holds in the modern world. Secondly, the ubiquitous presence of the veil reinforces the power differential between men and women on the streets and in the home - giving men the sense of invulnerability that results in Cairo’s infamous sexual harassment, and further reducing women’s decision making power in the home. But conversations with Egyptian girls, reveal a deeper and more disturbing aspect about the veiling trend - the division and animosity it creates between women that could seriously set back any collective movements for advancing women’s rights.
Much of this division stems form confusion over the exact meaning of modest dress - resulting from the difficulty of interpreting an ancient text written in ambiguous language filtered over hundreds of years of patriarchal institutions. Plus, most girls start wearing the veil in high school between the ages of 13 and 17, when they are most susceptible to peer pressure and to teasing friends who dress differently. One girl explained to me that girls at each level of veiling think they are better than the others, and use the same arguments to convince others to follow their example. For example, a girl who wears long sleeves will look at a t-shirt clad girl and say ‘That is wrong. You are being immodest. This is the right way.’ But another girl with a hair covering will say to the wearer of long sleeves ‘ You are wrong. This is in fact what God intended.’ But the woman with a full face covering will say “No, you are committing a sin by showing your face. I know you are a good girl, you are already making an effort, just go the extra step to really please God by covering your face.” Finally, the girls who cover even their eyes will say “But if your whole face is covered except your eyes, than everyone will look at your eyes and since they are the most beautiful feature you are committing the greatest sin of all. Come on now and just cover your eyes.’ Women are recruited into the Muslim Brotherhood for this exact purpose- to convince other girls to dress more modestly.
When I asked if Egyptian men date girls who don’t wear veils, the girls I talked to told me “Yeah., they date non-veiled girls and then they marry a veiled girl, who has like never left her house and knows nothing about anything” – illustrating the resentment that can arise between girls who veil or not. Also, many educated and modern girls who work will wear the veil during the day to avoid harassment on the street and appear chaste at work, but take it off at night to go dancing, drinking, and smoking with friends – actions which, seen as hyporcritical by their friends, create even more resentment. Division also arises in families, between mothers who grew up in a more open environments and teenage daughter who want to fit in. And finally the veil divides strangers. Women recount the difficult of building relationships among neighbors because of the difficulty of recognizing each other by seeing only eyes and shoes – its hard to tell from day to day it is the same woman they smiled and said hello to.
The veil has proven itself an instrument not only of submission, but also of division capable of destroying any effective, united movement for the advancement of women's right.