Of Veils, Veiling Practices, and Muslim Women

"The veil, which since the nineteenth century has symbolized for the West the inferiority of Muslim cultures, remains a powerful symbol both for the West and for Muslim societies. While for Westerners its meaning has been static and unchanging, in Muslim cultures the veil's function and social significance have varied tremendously, particularly during times of rapid social change. Veiling is a lived experience full of contradictions and multiple meanings. While it has clearly been a mechanism in the service of patriarchy, a means of regulating and controlling women's lives, women have used the same social institution to free themselves from the bond of patriarchy. Muslim women, like all other women, are social actors, employing, reforming, and changing existing social institutions, often creatively, to their own ends. The static colonial image of the oppressed veiled Muslim women thus often contrasts sharply with the lived experience of veiling. To deny this is also to deny Muslim women their agency."

Homa Hoodfar, 2001, 421

"The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads: Veiling Practices and Muslim Women" in 

Women, Gender, Religion: A Reader, ed. Elizabeth A. Castelli