At the end of the Second World War, in hundreds of cities and towns in the Netherlands, a strange ceremony was part of the festivities. The joy of seeing the German occupiers leave after five years, of regaining their freedom, of being able to eat their fill, all that was not enough. We wanted revenge, we wanted culprits. The soldiers having returned to Germany, only the collaborators remained. Indeed, some of them were convicted later, after more or less fair trials.
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We needed short-term justice. Fortunately, there were obvious suspects, easy to identify and in a low social position. Under the eyes of the provisional authorities, sometimes with their active collaboration, women were dragged before the delirious crowd. Their hair was cut and their heads shaved, before marking them with tar or paint. Voluntary executioners, there were enough of them. Men, exclusively.
These women were suspected of having had sexual relations with Germans. As a couple, as a couple, with a child, in secret, with several soldiers, it doesn’t matter. The rumor sufficed as proof, the crowd was the tribunal; the joy of witnessing the administration of the sentence was the conclusive argument for an immediate verdict.
The underlying emotion was bleak: our wives belong to us. They do not have the right to choose their emotional life. If you’re not sleeping with me or one of us, you shouldn’t be sleeping at all.
Obviously, men who had had a relationship with a woman in Germany were not targeted. Victory, we consume it in bed if necessary.
In history, examples of this misogyny accepted as a social value are legion. Think of witches, those women burned or drowned because their social behavior did not correspond to the expectations of the majority.
Today, we are witnessing similar incidents. Let us think of Mahsa Amini, this young Kurdish woman, who died after being detained by the Iranian police because her dress did not correspond to the expectations of the religious authorities.1. In this theocracy, morality has become the Law. The compulsory wearing of the veil is an expression of the chastity that is required of women in order to protect them. You have to hide your hair in public because it could arouse innocent men who would be unable to control their sexual urges.
Such constraints are imposed on women only. The social presence of men goes without saying. They will dress as they want, shave or not, and seated, spread their legs without embarrassment. They don’t care about other people’s eyes. The woman who looks too insistent, on the other hand, will be arrested, arrested, tortured if necessary.
In Quebec
Even in Quebec, this society which prides itself on promoting equality between men and women, this double standard is striking. Have you heard, during the debate on the secularism of the state, arguments against the wearing by teachers of the kaftan and other traditional clothes of Muslim men in North Africa?
On the other hand, when it comes to young women who decide to wear the veil, they are not asked if they do so to maintain the tradition of their family, their village or their tribe.
We blindly assume that it is to manifest their religion, with the prejudice as misogynistic as opportunist that this choice is imposed on them by men in authority.
The veil is a symbol of chastity invented by the Christians of Constantinople in order to give the Virgin an even more humble air, suggesting that virginity, that of women obviously, is an admirable quality, to be protected and promoted. After the fall of Constantinople, this symbol of chastity was adopted by Islam.
This is why with us the veil, charming on the head of Mary, provokes Islamophobia on the head of Fatima. Thus, it has become a moral, legal and obligatory argument in order to prohibit certain young Quebec women from emancipating themselves by choosing the teaching profession. All they have to do is take off their veils and show us their hair. Otherwise, let them become supermarket cashiers or stay at home.