Jane Vinocur

Chapter four, “Veiled Intentions” can best be summed up by the definition of “veil” that it offers: “according to the fourth entry of the Oxford English Dictionary's definition: "to conceal from apprehension, knowledge, or perception; to deal with, treat, etc. so as to disguise or obscure; to hide the real nature or meaning of something, frequently with implication of bad motives.”” Americans view the veil as something that oppresses women in Muslim and Arab nations, not realizing that women are oppressed everywhere. They take the physical sign of oppression – the veil – and give more weight to it as evidence that that is backwards. The story of the National Geographic 1985 and 2002 covers really surprised me. I had grown up thinking that National Geographic magazine and the National Geographic television channel was as objective as you could get, but this chapter changed my opinion. Starting with the fact that the “Afghan Girl” was anonymously named because the photographer, Steve McCurry, never bothered to get her name, to the fact that “any hesitation on her part to speak with McCurry and his colleagues is ascribed to her absolute submission to the patriarchal codes of her culture, rather than to the suspicious project McCurry has taken on to find her”. Sharbat Gula had her photograph taken, and, as the author notes, the photograph has become worldlier than her. It has traveled the world, while she has stayed pretty much in the same place. However, this does not mean that she is naïve or uneducated. Although National Geographic implies that the patriarchal norms of her culture subdue her very will to even exist, she “requests financial support from National Geographic, the U.S. government, and US. Citizens to enable members of her community to be educated, thereby demonstrating her under­ standing of who holds responsibility for her current circumstances”.

In the article “The Other Side of the Veil: North African Women in France Respond to the Headscarf Affair”, issue of Muslim girls in France was brought up. The article states that “In 1989, three teenage girls of North African origin arrived at school in Creil, France, wearing veils that covered their hair.’ Despite warnings to remove them, they refused and were eventually expelled”. The article goes on to talk about how North Africans are attempting to integrate into France. When I was a junior in high school, my French class watched a video on this exact issue. It juxtaposed the struggle of Muslim girls to assimilate in the U.S. with the assimilation of Muslim girls in France. Although not entirely socially accepted here, a Muslim girl cannot be told she is not allowed to wear her veil to school or anywhere else – it is a decision entirely up to her. As one girl mentioned, she was raised in a Muslim household and when she was 12, she decided that she wanted to consider wearing a veil. Her mom forced her to do a lot of research on it and understand why it was important to her. She told her daughter that it is a big decision to make because once you decide to start wearing it you can’t just decide to stop. This is the same as in France. These girls make personal decisions that are important to them and their religion to start wearing a veil, so the French government shouldn’t be allowed to tell them that they’re not allowed to wear something. It is their religious freedom. As stated in both readings, the veil is seen as evidence that it is a backwards religion from what we are used to in the West. I believe that religion is a private matter, and that the French version of separation between church and state should protect these girls and women who choose to wear their veils. The only reason that people have a problem with a woman wearing a veil and not a woman wearing a cross is that Islam is a religion that many people are not familiar with, and they fear the unknown. Rather than just learn about it, they believe biased things that they have heard. If more people sought to learn about what the veil means and why it is important, then there would probably be more acceptance towards it.