I'm a Woman, Not a Headscarf: Debate in Canada, reflections from Turkey

The Gazette: MONTREAL – Proposed legislation that bans the niqab from government offices, the education system and health care reflects a broad consensus in Quebec that equality of the sexes is paramount, rights experts said yesterday.

But any further step to purge religious symbols from the public sphere would intrude on individual rights, said constitutional lawyer Julius Grey. “We shouldn’t follow France into secular radicalism,” he said. “I believe that is too dogmatic, and I do not think we should make secularism a religion.” Read more in The Gazette.

The niqab... a piece of garment that speaks a thousand words, as it veils the face of a woman, revealing the eyes only through a slit.

Under Bill 94, tabled March 24 in the National Assembly in Canada, "all public sector employees will be required to have their faces uncovered, as will any citizen using government services, for example, someone paying her car registration or applying for a medicare card. The ban on such face coverings as the niqab or burqa also applies to the entire education sector, from daycare centres to universities, as well as hospitals, public clinics and social services," The Gazette reported on March 26, 2010.


This debate sparked thoughts and memories from a sojourn in Turkey, where over 90% of the population is Muslim, and where it is prohibited to wear the headscarf in universities and schools.



"I'm a Woman, Not a Headscarf," features a series of portraits, backgrounders and analysis pieces that give the reader a glimpse of the situation of women in Turkey.


90th after 80 years offers background information about the general situation of women in Turkey. Thou Shall Not Cover, Modern Woman contextualizes the use of the headscarf in Turkey and explores various opinions and fears regarding the headscarf ban enforced since 1998. I Am a Woman, Not a Headscarf depicts the consequences of the headscarf ban on the lives of four women. Turkish, Woman and Successful challenges the stereotype that most women in Turkey are subservient and stay at home through the success stories of two women.

A few memorable quotes:

“I do not believe God is interested in my hair. This is a completely male way of interpreting religion,” said Canan Arin, a well-known Turkish feminist, activist and lawyer. “This means that God is a man only interested in man’s sexuality, so he tries to cover women, pushing them out of society. Our prime minister says women should have at least three kids. The more kids you have, the more you have to care for them, and so women will be closed from society."

"When the headscarf ban came into force, 35-year-old Esma Gokcen had the choice to take off her scarf or to leave her job. “When I speak to people from Europe, they are shocked I left my job
because of my headscarf and they ask me, who forced you? They think they have to get
us to take off our scarf to give us freedom,” she added. Gokcen started wearing the scarf
at the age of nine, even though her mother found her too young for it.

Her husband suggested she take it off to keep her teacher’s job, but she refused.

“I listened to God and I prayed. Then I left my school and my job,” the mother of two
said. She cried for a week. “I love my students like my own children and I love my job,
but I just couldn’t take off my scarf… It’s very difficult. Other people can understand, but
they cannot feel it.”

Zeynep Piyade fainted on a few occasions the first times she wore the headscarf. Her new
Muslim attire contrasted sharply with the skimpy bathing suits she wore in the coastal city of Antalya as an atheist and rebellious teenager. “I thought there was no point in covering yourself. I was pretty close to believing people should walk around naked,” Piyade said mischievously.

When she was four, in 1973, Piyade’s parents moved from Turkey to Australia. Her
father was a socialist – “that was the ‘out’ thing in Turkey at that time” – and the family
escape the country to avoid him being hanged like some of his friends.

“I adjusted pretty well I think, although the British Australian kids made fun of different
kids. They called us wogs, which is some form of illness,” Piyade recalled.

Picture at the top: the author (second from the left) during a visit to Turkey in 2008, with two friends and their mother. Many women choose to wear the headscarf, others decide not too. While she chooses to cover her hair outside of home, this mother leaves it up to her daughters to decide whether they will cover up or not.