As a (ex?) Muslim in Canada, and a member of the group, North Africans, that predominantly settle in Quebec, I have been feeling so conflicted with what Quebec is doing.
Muslim women, or women in general, rely heavily on government adjacent sectors such as teaching, healthcare, administration, and Canada’s second largest province shutting them out of such large parts of the economy is horrible. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE of empowerment. I hate it so much.
I am strongly in favour of secularism, as most people here are, and I am in favor of certain aspects of the bill (bans on public prayer), but banning the hijab is effectively banning muslim women and their ability to choose.
I am sharing the article because it talks about how Muslim Women are facing complete social death/loss of status in Quebec as PAQ has succeeded in normalizing ‘hijab’ bans. North Africans chose to settle in Quebec because they speak French, so moving to Anglophone Canada is not an option. So all this will mean is Muslim Women will leave the workforce and demand for welfare could increase.
Steamed_Clams_ on
Bans on religious attire is solely based on bigotry and a desire to exclude people, particularly Muslim women who wear hijabs.
Provided you are not going to breach health and safety laws and you are willing to perform all the duties expected of you by your employer than there is no logical reason to restrict religious attire.
-mialana- on
But without banning hijabs, how will I, a civilised western Christian white man, protect Muslim women from hypotheticals caused by their own backwardness and barbarism, which I consider oppressive? They cannot possibly decide for themselves what it’s liberating.
Eilemthxx on
>On the one hand, when Drainville says hijabi women “chose to lose their jobs,” he claims they’re actively resisting the will of the state.
>On the other hand, when Secularism Minister Jean-François Roberge testified before a parliamentary commission in February, he suggested these women needed to be liberated by the state.
This same dynamic has played out in France and other countries that banned Hijabs. Even if you think it’s an inherently oppressive symbol of sexism, the ″solution″ put forward ultimately in of itself is also a form of misogyny and oppression, but carried out by the state.
>Diab argues that the point of Quebec’s secularism laws isn’t to save these women but rather to exert control over them.
>“This is the same logic Canada used to justify the residential school system,” Diab said. “They were saving Indigenous kids by removing them from their communities, their spiritual practices, their language and assimilating them into a ‘superior’ culture. This is about the white majority in Quebec exerting control over its minorities. It is not feminism guiding their decision-making, it is colonialism.”
Couldn’t agree more with this. The Residential Schools themselves imposed strict dress codes that involved excluding or forcibly stripping minors, usually girls, of their clothes and hairstyles.
4 Comments
submission statement –
As a (ex?) Muslim in Canada, and a member of the group, North Africans, that predominantly settle in Quebec, I have been feeling so conflicted with what Quebec is doing.
Muslim women, or women in general, rely heavily on government adjacent sectors such as teaching, healthcare, administration, and Canada’s second largest province shutting them out of such large parts of the economy is horrible. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE of empowerment. I hate it so much.
I am strongly in favour of secularism, as most people here are, and I am in favor of certain aspects of the bill (bans on public prayer), but banning the hijab is effectively banning muslim women and their ability to choose.
I am sharing the article because it talks about how Muslim Women are facing complete social death/loss of status in Quebec as PAQ has succeeded in normalizing ‘hijab’ bans. North Africans chose to settle in Quebec because they speak French, so moving to Anglophone Canada is not an option. So all this will mean is Muslim Women will leave the workforce and demand for welfare could increase.
Bans on religious attire is solely based on bigotry and a desire to exclude people, particularly Muslim women who wear hijabs.
Provided you are not going to breach health and safety laws and you are willing to perform all the duties expected of you by your employer than there is no logical reason to restrict religious attire.
But without banning hijabs, how will I, a civilised western Christian white man, protect Muslim women from hypotheticals caused by their own backwardness and barbarism, which I consider oppressive? They cannot possibly decide for themselves what it’s liberating.
>On the one hand, when Drainville says hijabi women “chose to lose their jobs,” he claims they’re actively resisting the will of the state.
>On the other hand, when Secularism Minister Jean-François Roberge testified before a parliamentary commission in February, he suggested these women needed to be liberated by the state.
This same dynamic has played out in France and other countries that banned Hijabs. Even if you think it’s an inherently oppressive symbol of sexism, the ″solution″ put forward ultimately in of itself is also a form of misogyny and oppression, but carried out by the state.
>Diab argues that the point of Quebec’s secularism laws isn’t to save these women but rather to exert control over them.
>“This is the same logic Canada used to justify the residential school system,” Diab said. “They were saving Indigenous kids by removing them from their communities, their spiritual practices, their language and assimilating them into a ‘superior’ culture. This is about the white majority in Quebec exerting control over its minorities. It is not feminism guiding their decision-making, it is colonialism.”
Couldn’t agree more with this. The Residential Schools themselves imposed strict dress codes that involved excluding or forcibly stripping minors, usually girls, of their clothes and hairstyles.