France’s recent ban on abayas continues the country’s history of discriminatory and arbitrary policing of Muslim women’s clothes. The ban is allegedly due to a 2004 French law that bans conspicuous religious symbols in public schools and government offices, in line with the country’s principles of secularism and separation of church and state.
The abaya, sometimes called an aba, is simply a dress-like garment that Muslim women wear in some parts of the world. While some consider it a religious symbol, others consider it more of a cultural symbol. The origins of the abaya are not religious; it’s believed they were introduced in Mesopotamia as practical garments well-suited for the desert-like climate. Later, they became associated with Islam due to the Qur’an’s emphasis on modesty and the abaya being both a practical and modest garment. Prior to 2018, many women wore abayas in Saudi Arabia to meet the country’s requirements for female modesty in public.
However, today, Muslim women wear abayas for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, it’s religious, but others wear it merely to celebrate their culture and identity, given the garment’s long history. Since it’s often not considered a religious symbol, it raises questions on what grounds France, a country with a growing problem of Islamaphobia, has to ban it in public schools.
French schools enact discriminatory abaya ban
France has already banned headscarves in public schools with its 2004 law and enacted a ban on full-face veils in public places in 2010; Muslim women and girls frequently wear both as part of hijab. As of September 3, though, the country is also targeting abayas. Schoolgirls are prohibited from wearing the garment in public schools across the country. The start of the school year on Monday saw 67 girls sent home for wearing abayas and refusing to remove them. On September 4, the law was appealed by the Muslim rights group Action Droits Des Musulmans (ADM).
ADM lawyer Vincent Brengarth pointed out that abayas have never been “formally classified as religious items.” Additionally, France’s way of enforcing the law is “arbitrary.” The law doesn’t even outline what qualifies as an abaya, considering modern abayas simply look like dresses. Hence, as one X (formerly Twitter) user pointed out, what’s a dress and what’s an abaya could be determined merely based on the color of the person’s skin.
Since abayas aren’t strictly religious and many wear them as cultural symbols or just as simple dresses, the ban has a stigmatizing and discriminating effect against Muslim women. Unfortunately, this is nothing new in France, which has a long history of policing what Muslim women wear.
France’s history of discrimination against Muslims
The abaya ban and the backlash against it are similar to the burkini ban at public swimming pools in the French city of Grenoble in 2022. Even though the 2004 ban only extends to schools and government offices, there have also been attempts to ban Muslim women’s clothing in public. In Grenoble, Muslim women could not use public pools after burkinis, swimsuits often worn by Muslim women, were banned. Despite the mayor of Grenoble fighting against the unnecessary ban, it was ultimately upheld. Even though Muslim women pay taxes for these public amenities, they can’t access them unless they submit to France’s unnecessary policing of what they wear, even in spaces where it doesn’t have jurisdiction to do so.
France’s attitude towards Muslim women’s clothing has roots in colonial times. The country showed discrimination specifically towards the Islamic countries it colonized, as seen with the Sétif and Guelma massacre and France requiring Muslim Algerians to renounce their religion and culture to be eligible for French citizenship. Meanwhile, the specific policing of women’s clothing was due to French colonials seeing Muslim symbols, like the hijab, as resistance to colonialism. They wanted to remove every aspect of Muslim culture from their colonies to assert control. This attitude still seems to prevail today, with France’s bans on religious symbols mainly being seen as a way to specifically target and vilify Muslims, especially women, and ban any symbols of Muslim identity.
These women aren’t trying to force their religion on anyone and have complied with hijab bans in schools and in government. However, they retaliate against the burkini and abaya bans for unnecessarily controlling their wear. They aren’t trying to force their religion on anyone; they simply want to access a swimming pool or go to school, but the country continually makes this harder with discriminatory and sexist laws policing everything they wear.
(featured image: Jordan Pix/Getty Images)
