The Newly Veiled Woman: Irigaray, Specularity, and the Islamic Veil

Transcription

The Newly Veiled Woman: Irigaray, Specularity, and the Islamic Veil
Author(s): Anne-Emmanuelle Berger
Source: Diacritics, Vol. 28, No. 1, Irigaray and the Political Future of Sexual Difference
(Spring, 1998), pp. 93-119
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566326 .
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VEILED
WOMAN
IRIGARAY,SPECULARITY,AND THE
ISLAMICVEIL
THE
NEWLY
BERGER
ANNE-EMMANUELLE
In 1995, in a piece published in a special issue of Les temps modernesdevoted to the
Algerian "Guerredes freres,"the late Monique Gadant,a sociologist of postcolonial
Algeria, called for a dispassionatereflection on the reasons why a sizable numberof
Algerian women, in Algeria but also in France,decided to wear the hijab, or "Islamic
veil," without, she said, being coerced into doing it. Warningagainst a naive French
ethnocentrismwhich may have led people to mistakethe hijab too quickly for a sign of
women's oppression,she wrote:
C'est s'aveugler que de ne pas voir qu'il y a de tres nombreusesfemmes qui
portentle hidjabsans y &treforc'esparpersonne. .... Avantde se dressercontre
le hidjab, riduit a' un symbole d'oppression (les femmes qui le portent itant
jugdes en contradictionavec ce qui est cense'etre leurs intirFtset la veriti sur
elles-memes dites par d'autres), on devrait prendre un peu de temps pour
riflichir aux motivationsde cesfemmes. ["Femmesalibi"228]
[One would be blind not to see that numerouswomenare wearing the hijab
without being forced to do it by anybody.
the hijab,
.... Before denouncing
conceived
as
a
women
reductively
symbolof oppression-the
wearing it being
to
contradict
what
are
to
be
their
interests
and
the truthabout
found
supposed
themselves as told by others-one should take some time to reflect on these
women's motivation.]
Indeed, a growing numberof women have adoptedthe hijab in the past decade, in
Muslim or predominantlyMuslim countrieswhere the "Islamicveil" has not yet been
made state law, as is the case in Iran.One thinks of Egyptor Indonesia,for instance,as
two otherexamples where-against weak attemptsby the governmentsin place to curb
the powerfuldevelopmentof Islamism,afterthey helpedfosterit-the hijabhas enjoyed
considerablethoughunequalsuccess. One shouldnot underestimatecoercionas a factor,
especially within the last few years,when terrorismdirectedagainstcivilians in Algeria
and ever-growingintimidationstemmingfrom Islamism's social success in Egypt have
undeniablyled tens of thousandsof scared,weary, or energetically"persuaded"women
to wear the veil. Nonetheless, I want to take up Monique Gadant'ssuggestion thatwe
seriouslytryto thinkthroughatleast some of the stakesof thephenomenonshe identifies:
an impressivenumberof women todayaffirmthatthey want to wear the hijab, andthey
do it. This raisesat least two seriesof questions:(1) if the hijabfulfills a wish, ratherthan
indicatinga stateof oppressionor alienation,one has to reflecton the natureandstructure
of this wish or desire, and perhapsask what the relationmight be betweendesireandthe
veil, or ratherthis veil. For the hijab,as it is called in Arabic,is indeeda new kindof veil,
or rathera new way of using an old Koranicprecept,one intendedto replacetraditional
modes of dressing and veiling. (2) If the hijab, and sometimes even the nikab and the
jelbab, which cover women's faces and bodies entirely,are willingly worn, shouldone
diacritics / spring 1998
diacritics 28.1: 93-119
93
take this as a particularlyblatanttestimony to the radicalrelativity of cultures,which
would in turnprecludeany "Westerner"or non-Muslimindividualsor groups,beginning
with women, from making any assumptionsconcerningthe condition of women or the
hermeneuticsof gender relationsacross cultures?This is indeed what Gadanthints at
when she denouncesthe "naive [French]ethnocentrism"[228] at work in the negative
responseto the hijab.'One encountershere,as we know,a mostdivisive, philosophically
crucial,and politically decisive issue, one that not only pitches non-Westernersagainst
Westerners,but sometimes equally forcefully, as in this case, "Westerners"against
"Westerners."Ethnocentrism,as a tendency to (mis)understanda differentculturein
termsof one's own, hence as a veiled formof culturalimperialism,shouldbe uncovered
and indeed denounced, wherever it is at work. There is, however, an unquestioned
assumptionin the customaryappealto the notion of ethnocentrism.Whatis assumedis
not only the meaningof "ethnos,"thatis, "culture,"as we translateit today,but also and
first of all that we are dealing with a "cultural"problem ratherthan, for instance, a
historicalor a politicalone. To privilegeor single out any one of these dimensionsseems
to me philosophicallyand politically questionable.
Thatthe (re)appearanceof the hijabis above all a matterof "culture"is indeedbeing
claimed by the tenantsof Islamism.AbderazakMakri,an Algerianmemberof Hamas,
describesit as a "culturalawakening,"or, quite arguably,as a formof "culturalrevenge"
againstcolonialism [150]. One should then ask again what defines culturalidentity,as
well as what entitles one to claim it. Gadant'sremarkdoes not speak to or for Algerian
(that is, Muslim) women2 who "oppose"the politics of the hijab, and who are still
numerous,albeit decreasingfor variousreasons.3Whether"culturalism,"as it is sometimes called today, is the best answerto imperialismand ethnocentrismis a questionI
cannot even begin to address within the frameworkof this essay, even though the
argumentI will try to develop begets it in some ways.
BeforeI enterintoa moreprecisediscussionof the"identity"andfunctionof thehijab
today,I would firstlike to turnto Luce Irigaray'sown speculationson veiling andsexual
difference,as she pursuesthemsteadilyfromSpeculumof the OtherWomantoAn Ethics
of Sexual Difference.This move may be construedas yet anotherinstanceof theoretical
imperialism,wherebya phenomenonoccurringin non-Westernsocieties or communities
is examinedthroughthe lens of a "native"and citizen of the West. I cannotdiscuss the
assumptions,relevance,or limitationsof this type of argumentwithin the frameworkof
this piece. Let me just say that I am acutely awareof the potentialmethodologicaland
politicalpitfallsof my endeavor.At any rate,I do notconceive the encounterbetweenmy
readingof Irigarayand my readingof some issues at stake in the wearingof the Islamic
veil as one betweenthe interpreter(Irigaray)and the interpreted(the phenomenonof the
Islamic veil), or betweenthe theoryandits empiricalillustration.Even when the hijabis
described as a facilitatorof economic activity for women ratherthan as a culturalor
religious sign, its efficacy and semiological characteristicsstill depend on a symbolic
systemas theoreticalandembeddedin discourseas Irigaray'sspeculationson veils. What
I mean to provide, then, is a forum for a dialogue between two "speakers,"the text of
Irigarayand a set of discoursesemanatingfrom within the political and culturalborders
of the Muslim world,throughandon theirrespectiveveils. This chanceencountermight
enrich our readingand analyticalunderstandingof the issues at stake both in Irigaray's
1. Interestingly,Gadant has been rebukedby scholars of the Maghrebon exactly the same
grounds; see Woodhull4, 204-05n2.
2. Islamis a state religion,accordingtoAlgeria's constitution,whichwasdevisedimmediately
after independence.Being Muslimis, then, an essential componentof national identity.
3. Themost recentreportsfrom Algeria actually signal a reversalof the tendencyto wear the
hidjabamong those who used it "strategically," since it turnedout to be inadequateprotection
against terroristtargeting.
94
notionof the speculardimensionof the phallocentricconstructionof "sexualdifference"
andin contemporaryuses of thehijab,as well as of theirrespectivesignificanceandscope.
Earlyin herwork,Luce Irigaraytriedto show the fundamentallyphallocentricnatureof
the speculardynamic,which, accordingto her, structuresnot only whatLacanhastermed
the imaginaryrelationto the self, which founds "identity,"but also the Symbolic order
throughwhich this identity,and especially sexual identity,is articulatedand stabilized.
Let me recallbrieflyIrigaray'sargumentin hermost-commented-uponessay, "TheBlind
Spot of an Old Dreamof Symmetry":readingFreud'saccountof the "discovery"by the
boy of the girl's castration,a discovery which, accordingto Freudo-Lacaniantheory,
promptsthe recognitionand subsequentarticulationof "sexualdifference"in terms of
having vs. not havinga penis,4Irigaraypoints to the alreadyphallocentricfunctioningof
the gaze, throughwhich "sexualdifference"is supposedto be discoveredor confirmed.
If Freud'snarrativemattersatall here,it is becauseIrigaray,muchlike Freudhimself,sees
it as a faithful reflection of a powerful, if historically contingent, social construct.
Widening the lens, she shows Freud's theorizationof this scene to be itself contingent
upon the foundingparametersof Westernmetaphysics.
If the "nothingto be seen"which characterizesthe girl's genitalsandherdifference
in the eyes of the boy is interpretedas a nothingto be, hencea being nothing,it is because
visibilityis notonly understoodto be theproofbuteven theconditionof presence,in other
words, the very mode of presentificationof presence. Such a notion of presence,which
can only be manifested and confirmed in the mirroring and reflexive moment of
representation,takes its source or justification, according to Irigaray,in what her
Americanreadershavecalled,quiteaccurately,in an attemptto summarizeherargument,
a "phallomorphicimaginary":it is predicatedon the visibility of the penis, a visibility
which in turnallows it not only to be seen, but to be specularizedand fetishizedas such:
"The little boy is narcissized,ego-ized by his penis-since the penis is valued on the
sexual market and is overratedculturally because it can be seen, specularizedand
fetishized"["BS"68].
Visibility, then, is not only the condition (and,as it were, the shape) of presencebut
the conditionof specularization,a mechanismof whatI wouldcall ocularmetabolization,
a formof assimilationor introjectionthroughthe gaze.5Irigarayconnectsit withthe onset
of two differentpsychic processesdescribedby Freud,idealizationand sublimation.The
formerties together,not unlike fetishism, the processes of overvaluingand formingan
image; the latteraccountsfor the formationof moral ideals and the ability to speculate.
One could be said to belongto the orderof whatLacanhas called the Imaginary,the other
to the Symbolic.
WhereFreud,then, makes the "discovery"of the girl's castrationinto the originary
scene of the establishmentof "sexual difference,"Irigarayreads it, or at least reads its
Freudianinterpretation,as the theoreticalmomentwhich reallyprecludesthe recognition
of sexual difference in favor of its phallocentricmake-up:a moment,then, of blinding,
ratherthan of revelation,or a moment of "revelation"which rests upon some form of
blinding.Not only is the girl's castrationinferredfrom the "invisibility"of hergenitals;
the invisibility of the other's sex also supports,accordingto Irigaray,the specularand
narcissisticstructureof male sexuality,insofaras the latteris indeeddefinedby the threat
of castration. (A male might not need to show it off, if it wasn't threatenedwith
disappearance.One could argue,then, thatthe particularvisibility of the penis is not so
4. Lacan subtly rearticulates this opposition as the "difference"between being actually
castrated (woman),and being threatenedwith castration (man).
5. Irigaray'sterminologyis always a little loose; she seems, however,to suggest a distinction
between specularizationand specularity,which designates more properly the mirroringmechanism.
95
muchaphenomenologicalgiven, as Simonede Beauvoirwouldhave it in TheSecondSex,
as an effect of the boy's buying into the fiction of castration.)
Now, to secure the success of the specular economy of desire upon which the
constructionof masculine identityrests, the invisibility of the "other"'ssex has to be
turnedintothe invisibilityof the othersex. Because thedeemed"invisibility"of the girl's
genitals, an effect of the castrationthreat,rendersthe possibility of castrationvisible to
the boy's eyes, he will striveto cover up this "invisibility,"to makeinvisibletheinvisible,
in orderto conjureaway the threat.Such an attemptcan take differentguises, whetherit
leads to fetishistic behavior(denial of man's potentialcastration)or to the prescribed
coveringof woman(denialof thecastratedwoman).Inanycase, thecomplexof castration
sets off both the vicious circle of the "invisibilization"of women, since the threatening
invisibilityof the girl's genitalsis covered up by a "veil"which bothcancels anddoubles
it, and the processof genderseparation,since from thenon the boy will seek to avoid the
woman's (his mother's) world and obey the father'sword.
Irigarayprovidesseveralaccountsof the effects of the other('s) sex's "invisibility":
on the one hand,the nonappearanceof womanas other"allows"herto functionas a mirror
who sendsbackto manhis own reflection.Thus,accordingto Freud,thegirlsees "herself"
as the boy sees her (thatis, castrated)at the scene of theirmutualobservation;she mirrors
the boy's vision of her,therebyconfirmingatonce herlackin his eyes andhis endowment.
This should alert us to the fact that,far from being a simple scene of mutualperception
of the bodily reality of "sexualdifference,"the scene of castrationrecountedby Freud
actually involves complex specularmechanisms.There are good reasons to read it as
Irigaraydoes (althoughshe faultsFreudfor not seeing what he actuallyshows), namely
as the scene of the rise of the specularsubject. Not only does the girl allegedly identify
with the image of herselfpresentedto her by the boy, but the boy can only see in the girl
the actualizationof the threatmadeto him, in realityorin (his) fantasy,by the father(don't
desire the motheror I'll cut it off), insofar as he sees himselfin the girl; her "castration"
threatenshim becausehe recognizesin hera versionof himself at the verymomentwhen
he "differentiates"himself fromher.In short,the scene of castrationis again,like thatof
the mirror,a scene of specular(mis)identification.
In Freud'sview, theknowledgeof hercastrationleadsthegirl to developpenis envy,
an envy which should attuneher to her feminine destiny (heterosexualpartnershipand
motherhood)--whenit does notturninto a sterilemasculineprotest-since it can only be
satisfiedby the bearingof a child as a substitutefor the missing attribute.This argument
is familiar.Ijust want to pointout thatFreudhimself stressesthe phallocentricnatureof
such a determinationand culturaloperationof "sexualdifference":the girl can become
a woman, or become "feminine,"only if and when she recognizes herself as missing a
penis,hence as a failed man,strivingfromthenon to acquirea substitutefor the organthat
would make her complete: femininity,then, is but make-upfor masculinity,one of the
guises of a male sexual economy centeredaroundwhatLacanwill termthe phallus.This
is why, accordingto Irigaray,"masculinity"and "femininity,"as they aredefinedby the
castrationparadigm,do not refer to two different sexual economies that would indeed
producesexual differences, but partakein the same (phallocentric)economy of desire,
hence the same sexuality. Underthe reign of the phallus,there is no sexual difference,
hence no basis for such a notionas bisexuality,and even more importantly,no room for
the developmentof heterosexuality,if one thinksof heterosexualityas the encounternot
only of differentsexes, butof differentsexualities,heterogeneousdesires.Whatone calls
"heterosexuality"in a phallocentricconfine is, once again,but a guise for what Irigaray
calls "hommosexualit6,"andwhichmightbe bettertermed"monosexuality,"to avoidthe
risk of homogenizingand essentializingmale sexuality [see Hope].
Commentingon the alleged universalityof penis envy, Irigarayinsists again on its
96
role in consolidating woman's cast as man's mirror,a specularspell which makes her
invisible to the looker and to herself. "Is it possible," she asks,
that thephobia aroused in man,... by the uncannystrangenessof the "nothing
to be seen" cannot tolerate her not having this "envy"? Her having other
desires, of a differentnaturefrom his representations....If womanhad desires
other than "penisenvy,"thiswould call into questionthe unity,the uniqueness,
the simplicityof the mirrorcharged with sending man's image back to himalbeit inverted.["BS"51]
Woman's "penisenvy," if she has it, locks in the mirrormechanism,which allows
man to see his desire for his own penis reflected in her. Here, Irigarayreadsthe threat
posed by the "uncannystrangenessof the nothingto be seen"less as a threatof losing the
penis thanas a threatto the narcissisticconstructionof masculineidentity,wherebyany
perceptionor assertionof the woman's differencewould risk makingthe mirrorshatter.
In this sense, the mirrorin her account does standfor the penis in Freud'saccount,and
conversely,the "penis"is understoodto be not so muchthe organandtool of satisfaction
of incestuousdesires as both a prototypicmirror(a speculumturnedback on itself) and
the image in the mirror.6This makes the penis from the start into a fetish, thereby
precluding a reading of Irigaray's notion of a phallomorphic imaginary as being
predicatedon organicreality.Some critics have contendedthather understandingof the
function of the "penis"is regressive with respect to Lacan's. The latter,as we know,
arguesthatthe "phallus"is neitherthe erectmale organnoreven its imagebutthe"missing
piece of the desiredimage."To be missed and to signify castration,the phallushas to be
"missing."Yet what is "desired,"all the more since somethingis missing, is indeed,for
Lacanas well, an "image."As the hole in the image (or the whole outsidethe image), the
phallus might still partakein the metaphysicsof vision.
In a slightly differentbutconcurringversion of the effects of woman's invisibility,
Irigarayrepeats the argumentfirst made by Freud and developed by Lacan regarding
feminine narcissism:namely,thatthe only way in which a woman can appearand show
herselfwithinthe phallocentricclosureis indeedin theguise of the "penis"(which,again,
is to be understoodnot as an organicbody partbutas the standardof the visible, the image
of images, in other words, alreadya fetish):
She will representthepenis. Her "phallicized"body will supportits currency,
prop it up, defend its exchange rate. [73]
The "physical vanity" of woman, the fetishization of her body--a process
patternedafter that of the model and prototypeof all fetishes: the penis--are
mandatoryif she is to be a desirable "object"and if he is to wantto possess her.
[114]
It is Freudwho firstsuggestedthatwoman's narcissism(moreproperlycalledvanity
in this instance),being impairedby castration,can only consist in "proppingherself up"
in orderto mask her lack, in disguising (making) herself into the object of desire (the
phallus,accordingto Lacan), in pretendingto be, in Lacan's words, what she does not
have. Woman's castrationprecludesher reliance on an image of herself as whole, the
achievementof wholeness being, according to Lacan, the very functionof the mirror6. Irigaraydescribestheoedipalwishas essentiallynarcissistic,ratherthanas theprototype
whatthemalewouldattemptto "see"inside
of object-love
for themale:withthepenis-speculum,
thewoman-substitutedfor
themother-whomhepenetrates,
is thebirthofhimselfhisownorigin
["BS"41].
97
image. In otherwords, woman's narcissism(if narcissismmeans one's desiringrelation
to one's image) can only be derivedand secondary:having no image (thatis, no penis),
she can derive her image of herself only from his image of himself-castrated or
phallicized/fetishized,which is to say, always cast in the phallocentricmold.
Does this mean that one needs a "penis"in order to have a (positive) image of
oneself?7In Freud'snarrativeof the "discovery"of hercastration,thegirl readilyaccepts
the boy's perceptionof her lack. It is as if she had always alreadydisappeared(or never
appeared)in her own eyes. If, then, the structureof representationis bothphallomorphic
andphallocentric,whichis to say, in a word,fetishistic-and this is certainlyan argument
at work, in more or less explicit ways, throughoutSpeculum-does this imply that one
(womanor man) shouldstriveto avoid the gaze?This, of course, is a questiontackledby
manycommentatorsof Irigaray.Yet, as manyreadershave also noted,Irigarayplaces an
equal emphasis in "The Blind Spot" on the necessity for women to achieve selfrecognitionby "imagining"theirbodies8andlookingat themselvesoutsidethe castration
paradigm,thus implying thatsome kind of specularity(self-reflection) is and shouldbe
involved anyway in the process of elaborationof sexual identityand sexual difference.
What may appear as an aporia, or worse, as a symmetrical claim for women of the
advantages of a narcissistic foundationof sexual identity, is, however, progressively
rearticulatedin differenttermsin Irigaray'ssubsequentworkandparticularlyinAnEthics
of Sexual Difference.
In "TheBlind Spot,"Irigaraystressesthe possibilitiesoffered by female homoeroticism, which, being to some extent pre- or nondialectical(inasmuchas a woman indeed
faces a version of herself and enjoys "hersame" in the other woman), reproducesthe
condition predatingthe "discovery"of "sexual difference"and its deadly dialectic of
"recognition"through erasure. In other words, the obviously specular structureof
homoeroticismdoes not rely on the denial of (or blindnessto) the othernessof the other
at workin the phallocentricconstructof the heterosexualencounter.Therefore,andalbeit
paradoxically, it even opens up the possibility of difference by not reducing the
necessarily unbridgeable "interval"between the two women inasmuch as they are
"subjectsin love"; for love, as Irigarayconceives it, is impossiblewithouttheopening up
of the space or intervalof difference.Recalling Lacan's own provocativeassessmentof
so-called heterosexualrelationswithin the phallocentricorder-namely, thatthereis no
sexualrelation,a relationneedingat least two termsto be established-one could say that
where and if there is a sexual relation,then and therearises difference,regardlessof the
sexes involved [see Grosz].
Later,though, Irigaraywill insist on the necessary reconfigurationof the heterosexual encounter,rearticulatingthe problematicsof woman's visibility (to herselfandto
men) in terms of the necessaryrecognitionof the othernessof a personof any sex by a
person of the other sex: woman's as well as man's narcissisticenjoyment,ratherthan
beingtheother's deadend,wouldthendependon whatone can only call anethicsof sexual
difference:it would dependon the possibilityof appearingas otherin the eyes of another.
This is also a way of complicatingthe narcissisticillusionby suggestingthatone can only
see oneself on the conditionof being seen as otherby another.This in turnbringsus back
to the forgottenmomentof the narcissisticstructure:accordingto Freud,I indeedappear
Sex.
7. Simonede Beauvoir comes close to makingthis argumentmore than once in The Second
8. Irigaray uses both the words imagine and symbolize-she speaks of symbolizingone's
relationto one's origin (conceptionand birth)-thus referringloosely to theLacanian "orders"of
the imaginaryand the symbolic. Even though the articulation of these two orders is obviously
neitherprecise nor really thoughtout in her essay, the appeal to these notionssuggests once again
that her approach to the questionof sexual "identity"is not naively and simply realistic.
98
to my eyes such as I appearedin the eyes of the (m)other.
I would like to look moreclosely now at Irigaray'sdescriptionof the fetishisticeconomy
of representationsupportedby woman's veiling.
In "TheBlind Spot,"Irigarayfirsttakesup the issue of the veil, whichis to say of any
veil, in connectionwith the questionof the fetishizationof woman's body. Paraphrasing
Freud,she reads woman's use of make-up andjewels as an attemptto "competein the
phallic economy" [114]; in keeping with her superimpositionof Marx's on Freud's
speculum, she stresses both the analogy and the complicity between a phallic and a
capitalisticeconomy by suggesting furtherthatmake-upandjewels arepartof women's
phallo-capitalisticstrategyto increasetheirown value,andmorepreciselyto turntheiruse
value as reproductivechannelsinto an ever-increasingexchange value as commodities.
In this context, again paradoxically,the veil is presentedas both the reversaland the
originaryfold of this exhibitioniststrategy:womanexhibitsherself,shows herjewels off
in orderto betterhide her genitals. She is immodestout of modesty, displayedbecause
veiled: "Ensuringthisdoublegame of flauntingherbody, herjewels, in orderto hide her
sex organsall the better.... To sell herself, woman has to veil as best she can how priceless she is in the sexual economy" [115].
The "doublegame,"then, implies a double veil. For where thereis duplicity,there
is always a fold. And indeedif woman's fetishisticexhibitionhides the veil thathides the
sex, it means thatat least two modes of veiling are at work, apparentlycontradictingbut
really reinforcingeach other.
IrigarayhumorsFreudon the question of women's specific and supposedly only
contributionto civilization:the art of weaving. Accordingto Freud'scastrationtheory,
women weave to hide their genitals. In so doing they both imitate and supplement
Nature's work,whichhas at once left themlackingandprovidedthemwitha prototypical
veiling supplement:the pubic hairs. Without this veil, you might see: nothing, Freud
warns.But Irigaraysums up Freud'sargumentin a way which suggestsanotherreading,
hence anotherway of looking at it: "womanweaves to sustainthe disavowalof her sex,"
she writes [116]: if what the woven veil does is "sustaina disavowal,"one should on the
contrarystop weaving and take off the veil in orderto let down the disavowaland begin
to see something:woman's sex.9
At thispoint,Irigaray'sweaving of Marx'sveil-which is to say, thewrappingof the
commodity-within the folds of Freud'sproducesinterestingconnections.For whatshe
reads in the (double) veil, which is manipulatedby the woman caughtin the fetishistic
economy, is notonly thefabric(ation)of castrationandits by-product,thephallus,butalso
what I will call provisionallythe fabricationof generic womanhood:
Thereforewomanweaves in order to veil herself maskthefaults of Nature,and
restoreher in her wholeness.By wrappingher up. In a wrappingthatMarxhas
told uspreservesthe "value"fromajust evaluation.Andallows the "exchange"
of goods "withoutknowledge"of their effective value. By abstracting "products,"by makingthemuniversaland interchangeablewithoutrecognizingtheir
differences. [115]
Here the veiling gesture,which has become the industryof wrapping,is described
less as a means of covering up woman's threateningsexual "difference"(that is, lack)
from man than as a means of masking differences between women, renderingthem
9. NoteIrigaray'smobilization
of theambiguityof theFrenchidiomhere:thewordsexe in
Frenchmeansundecidably
thesexualorgans(thegenitals)andsexualidentity.
99
100
invisiblein orderto makethemlook identical,hencereadyforbothinfinitesubstitutability
andcommercialcirculation.FollowingMarx,Irigaraydistinguishesthe wrappedobjects'
undecidableexchange valueandillusoryequivalencefromwhatshe calls their"effective
value." She describes the process of wrappingas one which turnshumansubjectsinto
commodities or "products,"one which, by the same token, rendersthe "products"both
and "interchangeable,"hence identifiableonly
"universal,"as opposed to "particular,"
insofaras theyareidentical.Indeed,Irigaray,along withothertheoristsof thesameperiod
(one thinksfor instanceof Jean-JosephGoux), describesthe fetishisticeconomy as one
which enforcesor facilitatesgeneralizedsubstitution,a processpredicatedon a notionof
the phallus as "general equivalent";where the "phallus"operates, there can be no
particulars,only generic "subjects"or objects.The "veil"in this sense is shownto be that
which turnswomen into generic objectsof consumption.As a fetishizingdevice, it both
erases differencesbetweenwomenandlends them(phallic)value;it thusmakespossible
the exchange of women. One should note, moreover, that Irigaraycharacterizesthe
process wherebydifferences are erased in favor of a so-called "universal"and uniform
product as one of "abstraction."This seems to suggest the spectralizationor at least
disembodimentof the wrapped-hence-genericobject. The connectionsbetweenveiling,
fetishizing, commodifying, and abstractingare made even more explicit in Irigaray's
subsequentpiece, "Womenon the Market,"whereshe talksof the "phantom-likereality"
of the marketedwomen [ThisSex WhichIs Not One 175]. Once again, the image of the
"phantom"evokes the veiling of a void. It is as if, in this instance,the "phallus"operated
not only as veiled, as Lacan says in "TheSignificationof the Phallus"-for, if it wasn't
veiled, one might mistake it for the penis-but as (the) veil itself.
In order,then, to fully graspthe scope of Irigaray'sstatement,namely thatwoman
"weaves"to sustainthe disavowalof hersex, one shouldperhapsweave togetherthetwo
threadsI have tried to unravel:the disavowal sustainedby the veil could indeedbe not
only, as in Freud, the disavowal of sexual difference as he understandsit (that is, of
castration),but also the disavowalof sexual differenceas Irigarayunderstandsit. For, in
Irigarayanparlance, "sex" does not only refer to "genitals,"even though Irigarayis
interestedin the phenomenologyof sexual experience, hence in its connectionwith the
body. "Sex" also figures a difference neither erased nor determinedby castration.It
designates what resists "phallocentric" operations of generalization (or
ho(m)mogenization).Itmarks,then,thepossibilityof heterogeneity,notonly betweenthe
two sexes, but among personsof the "same"sex, or of one given sex, since one's sex "is
not one." "Sex,"in this sense, may finally standin oppositionto "gender,"if by "gender"
one means the productionand instrumentalizationof a generic "woman,"or, for that
matter,"man."
I have up to now stressed the inscriptionof the woman's veil, as both Freudand
Irigaraydepictit, withina fetishisticeconomy aimedat securingthe symbolicvalue(and,
adds Irigaray,the market value) of the male organ for both sexes. As both mask and
supplement,the veil seems to stage or posit the spectralpresenceof the "phallus."Before
I discuss Irigaray'ssurreptitiousattemptto turnthis veil inside out, or ratheroutside in,
let me first try to sort out some of the threadswoven into the hijab as a contemporary,
concrete, and non-Westerninstantiationof woman's veiling.
It is impossible to discuss the intricaciesof the hijab withoutmentioningthe context of
its display, namely what one has widely come to call Islamismin the past decade.
The word Islamism encompasses a variety of stances taken in the name of Islam,
notwithstandingnationalspecificities,differencesin politicalstrategies,oreven theological differencesamong alleged Islamists.It is also rightlyperceivedas pejorativeby the
supportersof the movementsit attemptsto designate;yet it connotestheexplicit andself-
101
consciousclaim to unityof the Islamicworldcharacteristicof the movementsit conflates.
I use the termby default,for lack of a betterword,since othercurrentdesignationsof the
phenomenon in Western media such as fundamentalism(intigrisme, in French) are
equally inadequate.Both sympathizersof Islamism and specialists of Islamic Studies
have warnedagainst Islamism's ethnocentricand deceptive confusion with Christian
fundamentalistmovements, whetherpast or presentones. oThey arguefor instancethat
Islamist"literalism"-that is, the alleged returnto the letterof the Koranand the Sunna,
and the dismissal of Ijtihad (the traditionof free albeit religious exegesis of the sacred
or the French
texts)-does not amountto the same thing as Protestant"fundamentalism"
Catholicintigrisme which firstemergedat the beginningof the centuryin reactionto the
church's attempts to modernize the Catholic liturgy, and in the context of militant
governmentalsecularism."The context and institutionalframeworksaredifferent.So is
the statusof the sacredtext andthe meaningof religiousliturgy.Intigristes were andare
traditionalists,whereas the relation of contemporaryIslamism to importantIslamic
traditionssuch as the cult of saints is complex and polemical.It sharesa stateddesire to
shake off "old superstitionsand customs" [see Makri 152-53] with previousreformist
movementswithinIslam,while operating,contraryto the Ulemamovementfor instance,
withina politicalframeworkandwith a politicalgoal. It is once againlargelybeyondmy
scope and capacity to discuss either the roots of the present Islamist movement or its
relationto pastreformistmovementswithin the Islamicworld,andmoregenerallyto the
original doctrineand history of Islam. Let me just say that, as a neologism, the word
Islamismcaptures,albeit imperfectly,the ambiguousmix of old and new, of new ways
to claim ancientways which characterizecontemporarycalls to Islam.
As forthecontextof Islamism's emergence,dependingon theirpoliticalappreciation
of the phenomenon and their positioning outside or inside the Islamist movement,
commentatorsinvoke endogenous culturalfactors or resortto exogenous and secular
explanations,such as the political reaction against the adoption of liberal economic
policies by rulersof the Islamicworldpreviouslyinclinedtowardmorepopulistpolicies;
the Islamistmovementis thenseen eitheras theexpressionof populardissatisfactionwith
economic liberalismor on the contraryas an offspringof the rulers'fight againstsecular
socialism in their attemptto establish a "new order."
Whethersympatheticto the Islamistmovementor not, all commentatorsandplayers
of the field point more or less explicitly to a majordeterminantof both the contentand
politicsof today's Islamismwhichmakesit differentfrompast reformistmovementsand
other forms of religious revivals within Islam, namely the colonial legacy. Islamismis
fundamentallydialectical:it inheritsand revives boththe traumaof the modem colonial
encounterwith the West, generallytracedback to Napoleon's Egyptian"expedition"an event which seems to have erasedfor all the concernedpartiesthe memoryof earlier
andmorepeacefulencountersacrossthe Mediterranean-andthe ambiguousdialecticof
subjectivationand alienation, so well described by Fanon, at work in the subsequent
independencestruggles."Islamism,"then,is constitutedby its oppositionto the "West."'2
It sees itself in the eyes of an understandablyantagonized"other"and makes itself seen
by it. Or perhaps,it sees Islam as it has not been seen by the West and strives to make it
"visible." In this sense, it might be read as a symptom of-and reaction to-the
10. In an obviously tactical move during a recent interviewon CNN, however, President
Khatamiof Iran drew an extensiveparallel between the IranianIslamic revolutionand the early
seventeenth-century
puritanicalmovementin WesternEurope,whichled itspersecutedproponents
toflee andfound what was to become the UnitedStates.
11. Thismay be its mostfundamentalandfar-reaching differencefrom Christianfundamentalisms.
12. On the question of terminology, see for instance Francois Burgat, L'Islamisme au
or BrunoEtienne,L'Islamisme
radical.
Maghreb,
102
longstanding"specular"relationentertainedby the West towardIslam. KeepingIrigaray
in mind,I call "specular"heretheimaginaryrelationof theWest to the "Orient,"predating
and preparingits colonial takeover,wherebythe latteroccupiedthe place of the feminine
onto which fantasies of domination and appropriationas well as fears of loss were
projected,as postcolonialcritics have long noticed. How does one resist one's "feminization"?Are all politics of resistanceto it, conversely, politics of phallicization?
Some, including sympathizers of Islamism, date its real beginnings from the
aftermathof the Second WorldWar,clearly linking it to the decolonizationprocess and
the development of Arab nationalism,ratherthan, for instance, to nineteenth-century
reformistmovements such as the Ulemas' in Egypt or Algeria, which welcomed some
aspects of "Westerncivilization"while fighting its imperialistgoals. Yet its relationto
decolonizationstrugglesis not a simple one. Seyyid Hossein Nasr, professorof Islamic
Studiesat Harvard,and a shrewdexplicatorand proponentof today's Islamic"revival,"
describesit as the returnin theformof a politicalclaim of the "cultural"elementrepressed
by modernpolitical strugglesfor liberationthroughoutthe Islamic world;he arguesthat
these strugglesparadoxicallyfosterednot less butmoreculturaldependenceon the West.
Islamismwould thus attemptto restoreor refoundthe relationof politics to "culture,"a
relationdisturbedor severed not only by colonialism but by the subsequentpolitics of
decolonization.'3(Onemightwonderwhereexactly "culture"is locatedin thiscase, since
these "culturalpolitics"usually involve the condemnationof ancestralcustoms and the
denial of regional heterogeneity.) The ambiguity of its relation to past and present
historicalconditionsis reflectedin the ambiguityofIslamism's politicalandcivilizational
project:revolutionor restoration?Each, however, entails a breakingaway frompresent
historical conditions. It is this will to break away from the present which makes it
"modern,"whateverits relationto what it calls "tradition."
In this context and similarly,the wearingof the hijab can be seen as both an old and
a completely new device, as well as symbol. The choice of the name, hijab, now widely
adoptedto designate the "Islamicveil," is itself interesting,althoughthe semanticshift
it operatesis not directlycommentedupon by its users.Althoughthe design (boththe cut
and symbolic function) of the hijab and the Iranianchador are indeed the same, as
opposed,for instance,to the traditionalAlgerianhaik,the wordhijabhas come to replace
the term chador popularizedby the Iranianrevolution, as a properly Arabic (hence
Koranic) designation. This discursive shift points to the successful reclaiming of the
nationalrevolutionin Iranby a transnationalpan-Islamicmovement,whose languageof
referencecan only be KoranicArabic.But above all, the adoptionof the hijab as both a
piece of cloth anda piece of text operatesand marksanotherinterpretiveshift withinthe
Koranicreference.Proponentsanddetractorsof the hijab alike quote the Koranto make
their argumentregardingthe status and terms of the alleged obligation of the female
believer to wear a veil. El-Mounquid,the newsletterof the FIS (FrontIslamic du Salut
[IslamicSalvationFront])quotes(in French)an abridgedversionof sura24, whichorders
all believersto be chaste andto discipline theirgaze while asking women specifically to
veil their chest and show only "whatis apparent,"an allowance El-Mounquid'seditor
liberallyunderstandsas designatingthe face andhands.'4Anothersura(33, v. 57) actually
prescribesthe veiling of the face itself. The problemis that neitherof these instancesof
prescribedveiling refersto the hijab. In sura24, the chest veil is called a khimar,and in
sura33, the face veil is called ajalabib. Both of these veils referto alreadyexistingmodes
of female clothing, whose systematizationAllah is asking the Prophetto enforce.
What does the hijab originallyname, then, if not a woman's veil, and how can we
13. For a clear presentationof his argument,see "Islamand the Responseto Modernism,"a
public lecture deliveredat Cornell University(Fall 1997).
14. El Mounquid28, text by MokhtarAniba, quotedin Al-Ahnafet al.
103
account for its present "takingover" and catachreticuse to designate specifically the
requiredformof female veiling underIslamicrule?The hijab is mentionedseveraltimes
in the Koran,includingin sura33, where one of the veiling prescriptionsI just referred
to appears.In verses 51 to 53, God ordersthe believerswho have enteredthe houseof the
Prophet to talk to his wives only through a hijab when they want to ask them for
something;the hijabherecould literallybe translatedas "curtain"or, as the Iranianexiles
ChahlaChafiqandFarhadKhosrokhavargloss it in Femmessous le voile, "barrier"[42].
The hijabis thusintendedto separatenotonly or not primarilymen fromwomenbutmore
preciselythe householdof the Prophet,which shouldremaininvisible fromall outsiders.
The invisibilityof the Prophet'swives, renderedas it were visible by the hijab,marksthe
place of God andconfirmsHis presence,while securingthe wives' placewithinthe sacred
space. Fatma Haddad,a professorof philosophy at the University of Tunis, who first
attractedmy attention to the original discrepancy between the hijab and the other
women's veil(s) in the Koranictext, reads this particularinstance as an allegory of the
modus operandiof religious power within Islam. The inside/outsideopposition delineated by the hijab would markin this instancethe separationbetween the sacredsource
of power, in whose intimacythe Prophet'swives rest, and the zone of influenceof this
power.In sura 19, Mary,who is aboutto receive the announcementof Jesus'sconception,
places a hijab between herselfandthe rest of her family, thus isolatingherselfin God. In
sura 17, verse 45, the hijabdesignatesonce againa thickpiece of cloth hunglike a curtain
between the prayingProphetand the nonbelievers.Here, there is no particularmention
of women in the space configuredby the hijab, underlyingthe "unisex"use of the latter.
On the other hand, the hijab clearly separates, once again, the religious from the
nonreligious, again renderingvisible the opposition it creates between inside(rs) and
outside(rs),or inclusion and exclusion.
According to the Koran,the hijab then makes visible a symbolic border,the very
borderthatdefines andprotectsIslamand allows it to operate.Inasmuchas today'shijab
retainsthe featuresof the Koranicone, it turnswomen into the site of the border,without
which Islam would not appearas such: for women are now the ones to delineate the
religious space as they wear the hijab.. Like the Koranichijab, today's hijab may thus
enclose the communityof believers, sealing off theiridentity as Muslims regardlessof
their sex. But at the moment when it identifies Muslims (with each other), it also
underlines women's irreducible specificity and responsibility for achieving the
community'sidentity.The role,bothimaginaryandsymbolic, of the femalewearerof the
hijab as purveyor and representativeof a defining enclosure may actually recall the
underlying logic that Irigaraysees at work in the constitution of another primary
enclosure, the "receptacle,"whose figures and function in the Western philosophical
traditionshe attemptsto uncoverin Speculum.
WhatI want to emphasizefor the momentis thatthe contemporaryuse of the hijab
seems to ignore or negate sexual differencein the theological orderby helping to define
and asserta single, overarchingIslamicidentity,while at the same time firmlyestablishing women's specific role in the process:it is as thoughthe particularinvisibilityof the
hijab wearersenabledIslam to stand:in their place.
In "La sexualit6 dans le Coran"[Maghrebpluriel 170], the Moroccanwriterand
essayist Abdelkhebir Khatibi has already noted that, while gender roles are strictly
definedin Islam,a notionof sexual differenceis, if not irrelevant,at best secondaryfrom
an Islamicpoint of view; for the significantdifferencelies between the believersand the
nonbelievers;the believers are one in the Umma(communityof Muslims), the oneness
of the Muslim communityreflectingthe oneness and indivisibility of Allah. It is not by
chance, however, thatthe most fundamentaldifference(thatbetween MuslimsandnonMuslims) is precisely signified, in keeping with its Koranicfunction,by recourseto the
hijab.Women,as thosewho wearthehijab,arein chargeof figuringIslam's"difference,"
104
hence identity, but they must do so at the expense of their, or a, sexual identity, the
renunciationof which is figured by the covering (spectralization)of their sexed body.
Whatis obscuredat the same time by the hijab is each woman's "individuality"in favor
of her public personaas a generic Muslim (woman).It is as if, in this case, the covering
up of sexual differenceor its deprioritization,farfromdisablinggenderroles, helped put
them in place. This disjunctionbetween gender roles and sexual difference may again
recall one of Irigaray'smost controversialhypotheses, that is, the idea that women's
alienation may stem not so much from their social reduction to some biologically
determinedfunctionbutfromtheirenrollmentin a monologicalandprescriptivesymbolic
order,which requirestheirerasureor self-effacing complicity to reproduceitself.
The Korandelineatesthe perspectiveand formulatesthe law and rulesof God, thus
providingno access to women's views (or men's, for thatmatter).It is thereforenot clear
to whatextentandhow women's perspectiveon theroles theyaremadeto playwouldalter
the picture, but it is worth examining. Let me then touch briefly on a number of
commentariesrecentlymadeby women fromthe Muslim worldon the issue of the hijab.
It is worthnotingthatmost studieson thetopicof the Islamicveil havebeenproduced
if one excepts the numerous commentariesand exegeses produced by
women,'"
by
Islamictheologians.Whetherthey arecurrentor formercitizens of the countriesthey talk
aboutin theircase studiesorcome fromtheWesternworld,andwhethertheyarelicensed
scholars in the fields of social science or not, most of them focus on women's own
perspectiveon the hijab,whetherthe latteradvocateits use or not. At stakein the studies
I have reador seen (a numberof themarefilmed documentaries)is not so muchwomen's
"experience,"as is sometimes said in celebratoryways, but indeed a set of discourses,
promptedand framed more or less subtly and loosely by their interviewersand then
reported,directlyor indirectly,andtranslated.One shouldthuskeepin mindthenecessary
discrepancies between practices, experiences, and the discourses that elaborate and
representthem. This is of course the common predicamentof any inquiryinto social
phenomena,and my own limited observationson the topic do not escape that fate.
I can only dwell on a few examples within the frameworkof this paper.As I said in
I have also chosen to concentrateon situationswherethe wearingof the
introduction,
my
"Islamicveil" is not yet a law of the State,as it is in Iranor in Yemen, thusleaving room
for the question of women's agency. Finally, I am more interested in examining
discourses endorsing the hijab, however ambiguously, than in exploring what Homa
Hoodfar has called women's "personalstrategies."In her study "Returnto the Veil:
PersonalStrategyandPublicParticipationin Egypt,"she attemptsto describethe attitude
of middle-class Egyptian women in the seventies who decided to comply with their
husband'sdemandthatthey veil themselvesand/orstay home in timesof high unemployment, in orderto buy domestic peace and some degree of autonomyin exchange. The
"veil"in this case becomes the price women have to pay to maintainthemselves on the
market.These "personalstrategies"arerelativelyeasy to decipher,andthey areprecisely
"strategies"or ruses ratherthan the expression of a political stance;what makes these
strategies"personal"is indeedthe failure(or practicalimpossibility)of these women to
articulatea political project as a solidary group. Many women do of course resort to
similar "strategies"today in the hope of escaping harassmentand of secretly pursuing
15. Thereare many more than I can quote. Among others, one thinksof course of Fatima
Mernissifrom Morocco. The issue of the "traditional"veil, as opposed to the more recent hidjab
(I will commentlateron thatdistinction)had alreadyattractedwomen'sattentionandscholarship:
the seminal worksofGermaine Tillionor ofJuliette Mincesin France come to mind.Thesestudies
by Frenchethnologistswereproducedby non-nativesat a time,if not in theframework,of colonial
and neocolonial relations between France and the Maghreb. The scholarship of non-Western
women in this particular area has obviously induced a shift of perspective, whose effects and
meaning it is beyond the scope and goal of my essay to assess.
105
theirgoals by maintainingsome access to the public space.
Since I have a moreinformedandmoredirectgraspof the situationin Algeria,let me
startthere.
In the section of her film Femmesen Islam devoted to Algeria,YaminaBenguigui,
a filmmakerof Algeriandescent,andthe two authorsof the bookAlgeriennesentreislam
et islamisme, Dejdigua Imache and Ines Nour, chose to interviewstudentsaroundthe
same time (the beginning of the nineties). Although they do not comment on their
selectionof thisgroup,it matcheswhatpoliticalanalysts,historians,andsociologists alike
have noted regardingthe sociology of Islamism.As in Egypt, and it seems in Indonesia,
it startedto spread in Algeria in universities, thus developing first as a middle-class
ideology, typicalmoreoverof the young.'6Both the film andthe book featurewearersand
nonwearersof the hijab. But whetherwomen wear it or not, the hijab has introduceda
difference to which the clothing (and behavior) of every woman must refer. As the
AlgeriansociolinguistDjamilaSaadiwrites,in a shortpiece entitled"Desfemmes, i mots
voilds,"the introductionof the hijab has affected common discoursein such a way that
des corps s'y mettenten scene "nus" ou "voils, "dialectiquementarticules les
uns aux autres, obligeant chacune a'se mesurerail'aune du hijab,le vetement
islamiste s'instituantcommecritbrede ressemblanceou de diffirence. [Penser
l'Alg"rie 169]
[Bodies are talked about as either "naked"[without the hijab] or "veiled,"
dialectically connected with one another,forcing each woman to measure
herself by the hijab, the Islamist garment being institutedas the criterion of
resemblanceand difference.I
As one high school studentwho does not (yet) wear the hijab says (in French)in the
film: "towearit, you mustbe anexceptionalwoman."I don't wantto soundlike thedoctor
in Molibre'sMaladeimaginaire,who, whateverthesymptomdescribedby his patientand
its location, identified le poumon (the lung) as the ultimatecause of the complaint;yet
what the sentencesjust quoted suggest seems to fit perfectly the function assigned by
Lacan to the "phallus"as primarysignifier, operatorof discourse, and cause of desire,
allowing for the articulationof differences and resemblances,and for the establishment
of a system of values of which it is the ultimateif implicit referent.
As for the group of hijab wearersfeaturedin the film, they distinguishthemselves
primarily,in this instance,not from the nonveiled women, but fromthose who continue
to wearthe haik,the traditionalAlgerianwhite veil made famousby FrantzFanon'sessay
"L'Alg6rie se d6voile." In this essay, Fanon describes the haik, before its complex
mobilizationin the contextof the independencestruggle,as a kindof immemorialfeature
not only of Algerian women but of Algeria herself. Its strategic redeploymentin the
liberationwar both enacts and figures the awakening of Algeria to herself, under the
violatinggaze of theFrench.Forthe newly veiled woman(moutahajibate),however,"the
haik is Turkish," as one of them says disparagingly. The haik is thus pictured as
exogenous, situatingit in a colonial pastpredatingFrenchcolonization,namelytheperiod
when the Ottomanempireruledover Algeria.It is notclearwhetherthehaikis considered
"Turkish"as opposed to "Algerian"or as opposed to a supranationalidentity,although
this groupof studentsadds that,by contrast,the hijab is "Muslim,"lendingcredenceto
inEgyptin the
16.HomaHoodfarhadalreadynotedthatthewomenwhoreveiledthemselves
seventiesdistinguished
notonlyfromtherulingclassorfromanoccidentalized
themselves
cultural
"elite"(a statuswhichhaslittletodointheircase withthepossessionofwealth),butalsofromthe
massofwomenfromtheurbanandruralunderclass.
Oneshouldthenaskwhatkindofpoliticsand
intereststheywereor are upholding.
106
the second reading.
WhatI wantto stresshere is thatwearingthehijabdoes entailtherejectionof former
veils, hence a consciousness of the hijab's specificity and modernity.Djamila Saadi
quotes a numberof argumentsvoiced by women againstthe haik:it is impractical(since
one has to use the handsor even mouth to keep it in place), and it is dimodd [170]: this
latterqualification,if it is reliable, implies that the haik is both out of date and out of
fashion. By contrast,once again, the hijab would be modern(this is literallywhat being
ci la mode means) and possibly even fashionable.Any invocationof fashion suggests a
desire for display,which may be at odds with the theological understandingof the hijab.
Let us take a closer look at these women's ambiguousperspectiveon the hijab.
The authorsof Algeriennesentre islam et islamismeinterviewed100 moutahajibate
and 100 nonveiled women, with extreme care and sensitivity to the methodological
problemsinherentin any sociological inquiry;theircommentsdo not seem to be guided
by a precise theoreticalagenda. The interviews were done in Algerian Arabic, interspersedwith some French,and then translatedinto Frenchfor publication.
Whenaskedto explainwhatthe purposeof the hijabis, why they wantto wearit, and
how they feel whenthey wear it, adeptsof the hijabgive two typesof answers,one which
can be said to reflect the self-proclaimedreligious doxa, and anotherwhich opens up a
more complex perspective.
On theone hand,womenexplainthatthehijabmusthidetheaouratof woman,a word
the commentatorstranslatevariously as "stain"("souillure"),or "defect,"and which
refersby metonymyto female "sexualparts"(their"pudenda").The sexual partsarenot
necessarily confined to the genitals since a woman's hands or even voice can be
consideredaourat.They also note thatin dialectalArabic,aoura means"blindness"[59].
One recognizes here the endorsementby women themselves of the castrationfantasy.It
is as if, by coveringup women's "blindness,"a blindnesswhich in turnrisks blindingthe
onlooker,thehijabmadethema proper(andclean) sightandenabledothersto see (them).
Thehijabdoes notendowthemwith sight;rather,theybecomea mirrorforthose who look
at them. Here the veil is explicitly construed as what isolates men from women's
blind(ing)gaze ratherthanwhatshelterswomen frommen's piercinggaze. Interestingly,
the moutahajibatecall the nonveiled women moutabarijate,an expression which in
popularlanguage designates a "civilized" (that is, Westernized)woman. Literally, it
means "fragmentedwoman"(barj meaning "fragment"in Arabic),"as if only the veil
could give unity to an otherwise fragmentedfemale body. But the sociologists translate
moutabarijateas "made-up"or adornedwoman,thusprivilegingone of theconnotations
attachedto the image of the "civilized"woman.The oppositeof the veiled woman would
thenbe not so much the nakedwoman as the adornedwoman;which means thatit is the
veil which, in a reversalof the traditionallogic of the supplement,lays the woman bare,
by renderingthe adornmentinvisible. The denuded woman, the one whom God sees
throughand who allows men to see God, is the veiled woman. Paradoxesof revelation.
Onecouldalso say, conversely,thatif a nonveiledwomanshows heradornments,it makes
(her) nudityinto an ornament,inasmuchas it is displayed.The Korandoes indeed refer
to female body partsas ornaments,makingthem indistinguishablefromartifactualones.
The hijab,then,veils the excess of visibility (impliedby the "adornment")
as muchas the
lackof visibility(the blind"eye"),in a single fold which shows thereciprocalimplication
of the logic of lack andthatof excess. This is corroboratedby whatthe same women say
regardingthenecessityto veil the women who areeither(too) beautifulor (too) ugly [61].
Anotherpurposeof the hijab invoked by these women, which determinesits cut and
appearance,is indeed to enforce and signify at the same time a set of differences; the
17.1 thankHafidGafaitifor helpingme withtheArabic.
107
associationof thesedifferencesis itself interesting:the hijab,they say, mustnot resemble
masculineattire,northedressof theungodly,northatof the "peopleof theBook"(mainly,
in this instance, the Jews).1"What shows them to be Muslim is what shows them to be
female and conversely so. Is it really a paradoxthat, as their interviewersremarkat this
point, in orderto secure their difference from men, or, more exactly, to ensurethatthis
differencebelongsto theorderof the visible, theyhaveto become undifferentiatedamong
themselves thanksto the hijab?Isn't thatprecisely the double bind of "genderization"?
On the otherhand,the two sociologists may be right to underlineanotherparadox,
namely thatthe same women who hide theirlack or excess behindthe hijab feel not less
visible to the worldbut more visible, an enhancedvisibility which translates,according
to the authors,into aggressive behaviors,leading to claims of autonomyand efforts to
achieve it at odds with theirallegedly prescribedrole withinIslam.They note that,when
it comes to issues of personalchoice in marriage,of the rightto an education,and even
more of participationin the work force, in shorton questionsof social equality,thereis
not much difference between the discourses of the veiled women and those of the
nonveiledones. The stanceof the moutahajibatemight then be at odds not only with the
traditionalculturalorderbutalso with the official ideology of at least partof the Islamist
leadership.Moreover,whereasthe nonveiledwomen more often cite financialnecessity
or service to the community,be it familial or national,as reasons for them to work, the
moutahajibateinvokemorefrequentlythe needfor personalbalance,self-promotion,and
othermotivationsof the same kind, which the sociologists sum up as self-assertiongoals
[81]. There is not much ground to account for this discrepancy in terms of class
differences,since thewomeninterviewedall belongto the samemilieu.Not knowinghow
to qualify this phenomenon, the sociologists call it, awkwardly but eloquently,
which they
[17]), a "surrepresentativity"
("sur-representativite"
"surrepresentativity"
traceback to the paradoxicalemphasisput on women in Islamistpolitics. One might be
temptedto dismiss these remarksas incidentalor to explain them in the context of the
particularhistoryof Algeria.Yet othercase studieson the topic, for instancein Egyptand
Indonesia,conductedin the same time periodexhibit strikinglysimilarfeatures.Let me
evoke them brieflyin the hope thatit mighthelp us wrestlewith the following questions:
of the newly veiled women?And
what might be the source of this "surrepresentativity"
and to whom?
what exactly is thus "overrepresented,"
Yolande Gedeah, Egyptian-bornand now living in Quebec, makes a numberof
scatteredyet converging remarksconcerningthe hijab wearersthroughouther recent
book Femmes voildes, integrismesddmasques,which is basically a monographon the
history,progress,and contemporaryformsof Islamismin Egypt. She notes for instance
that the teenagersfeel "valorized"by the hijab and derive from it not only a sense of
autonomy,particularlyin relationto theirparents,but also of authority,a qualifieralso
used by theauthorsofAlgiriennes entreIslamet islamisme.Some young womendescribe
themselves as more self-assuredand empowered,whereasthey used to be shy and selfeffacing before they took up the hijab [207].
Suzanne Brennersignificantly entitled her recent ethnographicstudy of Javanese
women who wearthe "veil""ReconstructingSelf andSociety:JavaneseMuslimWomen
and 'theVeil.'" InIndonesian,the Islamicveil is calledjilbab,recallingtheArabicjalabib
(jelbab in Algerian Arabic), which actually designates the long shapeless dress which
goes with the hijab, althoughnot systematically,and which is obviously confused with
the latterin this instance.Heraccountshows little concernfor the theologicalor political
perspectiveof Islamistmovementsat large;it may be becausethe womenshe studiedcast
18. In the Koran, the phrase "people of the Book" refers as one might expect to the three
monotheistreligions. But in Islamistparlance, the "peopleof the Book" are the religious enemy.
On the issue of theproblematicstatus of the Koranas "book," see Gafaiti 73-74.
108
thejilbab in a less religiouslight, or showed less interestin or knowledgeof the historical
conditions of its redeployment.This in turnmay suggest somethingabout the peculiar
place of Islam in Indonesia.One could also see it as the resultof a principledreserveon
Brenner's part;as an ethnographer,she understandablyrefuses to assume a priorithe
existence of transculturalpatternsor transnationalhistoricalphenomena.Her findings
nonetheless bear striking similarities to the ones I have already sketched. And these
similaritiesgo beyond the adoptionof a common set of assumptionsone might expect
from practicingMuslims. Brenner'srepeateduse of the word"self,"in expressionssuch
as "self-consciousness,""self-regulation,"and "self-mastery"[13-14] to designatethe
benefitsof thehijabin theeyes of theirwearers,most of themyoungmiddle-classwomen,
point to the reflexive quality, indeed power, of the hijab; it is as if the hijab was indeed
a mirroringtool, instrumentalin the buildingand strengtheningof the self, a self whose
imaginarynatureand imaging force a certainpsychoanalysisindebtedto Hegel's notion
of reflexivity has taughtus to recognize. Brenneralso points out the double edge of the
veil, which, while it allows its wearerto "standout,"quite unlikeJavanesepeople "who
don't like to standout,"accordingto one veiled woman[Brenner'stranslation11], places
her "underthe constantscrutinyof others,"a scrutinyshe both seeks and fears [16]. The
enhanced visibility of the veiled woman in Javanese society, where women do not
traditionallyveil themselves,allows herto standagainstthecommunityas she standsout;
but the status of her new visibility is complicated by the fact that the hijab also acts,
accordingto Brenner,who does not really follow throughon her own suggestion, as a
panopticalinstrument,which makesthe womanfeel surveilled,overseen,as it were [16].
The hijab,then,is itself picturedas a prostheticeye whose gaze cannotbe escaped,while
it sends back to women an image of theirselves, which they strive to appropriate.
While Brennermentions the strongpeer pressurethat leads a woman to adopt the
hijab, she stresses its apparentlyparadoxicalcast not only as a chosen mode of clothing
but even as a tool enablingits wearersto make choices in severalareasof theirlife. This
insistence on individual agency again recalls what Gedeah reports with puzzlement
concerningtheEgyptianteenagerswho notonly wearthe hijabbutwantto wearthe nikab
(the veil covering the entireface except for the small apertureleft for the eyes) at school,
againstgovernmentregulations;thenikab,theysay, shouldn'tbotherorthreatenanybody
else since it is my nikab:that is, my own business [FV 117]; the nikabthus becomes a
means to express or assert a sense of self, as if the more invisible the teenagersmade
themselves, the greaterthe self-reflectingpower of theirinvisibility:the more identical,
the morepersonal-a foundingparadoxof identitypolitics?Thecomparisonbetweenthe
rhetoricof self linked to the hijab and the well-known rhetoricof choice and privacyat
the core of Westernsocial politics is of coursetempting.AlthoughBrennerwarnsagainst
the confusion of the "individualist"claims of the hijab wearers with the "bourgeois
'individualism'of Westernmodernity"[12], she does on the whole readthe gap between
the individualandthe familial,as well as the disturbancesof the traditionalculturalorder
created by the introductionof the hijab, as an allegory of Indonesia's coming into
modernity.
A numberof Muslims are startingto worryaboutthe paradoxicaluses andjustifications of the hijabby women, arguingthat,in the presentcontext,the wearingof the hijab
has often become a gestureof challenge and display, ratherthana sign of modesty and
dutifulretreat,thussubvertingwhatthey readas the originalintentionof its prescription.
They opposethehijabin the nameof thehijab,as it were,whereas,on theotherhand,some
well-meaning Western feminists, echoing the "Islamic feminists,"celebrate the hijab
against its grain as a culturally specific and thus appropriatetool in the conquest and
assertionof autonomy.Both "camps"seem to agree, however, thatsuch a readingand
wearingof the hijabis indeedat odds with the correctone, thusdistortingit unexpectedly
and threateningthe orderit is supposedto protect.In a certainsense, this might be true,
109
and one might be startingto witness the effects of this distortionin Islamic countries.
I would nonetheless like to explore the possibility that the paradoxes I have
underlined,following my sources,mightnot so much signal a tearingapartof the logical
fabricof the hijab, thus allowing women to simply do and be whatthey want with "their
veil," as expose its constitutiveentanglement.
One could account for the transformationof "insecure"women into assertive
individualsreportedby Imache,Nour,andGedeahin termsof the symbolic legitimation
bestoweduponthemby the hijabin the eyes of bothGod andMuslimmen. Not only does
the hijab makethemseem visible to God as it were, but,unlikeotherveils, it makesthem
figurativelyinto vicariouswives of the Prophet(remembersura33), hence, as the Koran
says, into the "mothers"of all believers."9Interestingly,though,the young women seem
to associate their newly found power not with their position as symbolic mothersbut,
perhapsmore accuratelyas far as their hooded motherhoodgoes, with the power of the
the Algerian interviewees describe the hijab as satra, a word
father/husband/brother:
which qualifies the protectingpower of the hijab and which is also used to designatethe
protectiverole of fathers,husbands,or possibly brothers;it is as if the hijab-wearersbore
the power of the father/husbandon their shoulders. Now, the relationshipbetween a
certaincover and a certainpower has long been established.In fact, the theoreticianof
women's veiling withinChristianity,SaintPaul,made it quiteclearin his famousEpistle
to the Corinthians[1.11.3-10].
Paul clearly connects the prescriptionof the veil for praying women to their
inferiority with regard to God, contraryto the Koran. A woman who prays without
covering herhead usurpsman's closer place to God, for, says Paul,she acts as if she was
shaved(like a churchman).Therefore,she must be veiled, in accordancewith hergender
position in the hierarchy.Many translationssimply interpretthe last line qualifyingthe
veil they mustwearin termssimilarto thoseused by one of the FrenchtranslationsI have
been looking at. The French "ecumenical"translationgoes as follows: "Mandoes not
have to veil his head;for he is the imageandglory of God;butwomanis the gloryof man.
... This is why the woman must wear on her head the sign of her dependency[le signe
de sa dependance],becauseof angels"[my translation].But the originalGreektext does
not characterizethe veil as a "signof dependency,"even thoughthe veil does functionas
a gendermark,confirmingwoman'sinferiorstatusin relationto manandGod.The Greek
says thatwomanmustwearon herheadan exousia (exousianekhein),whichtheold Latin
translationcorrectlyrenderedby the wordpotestas, "power."(Accordingto the GreekEnglish dictionaryexousia means "power, authorityto do something, freedom to do
something, license, abundanceof means.")20The exousia, or exaucia, as it is spelled in
French,is the authorizingsign of God (God's power of attorney);it makes the veil into
a powerful supplementaimed at covering up woman's deficiency or possibly excesssince it masksherhair,a naturalandunrulyadornmentor endowment,while grantingher
a legitimacy she would otherwise lack (since by herself she is not "authorized");by
"authorizing"herpresencebeforeGod, the veil elevates her to the rankof man,closer to
God. (TheFrenchexhausser,whichmeans"toraise,to elevate,"is derivedfromexaucia.)
It may not be a coincidence that, at the moment when a numberof Muslim women
(re)discover the hijab, Christianfeminists are returningto Paul to uncover the "true
meaning"of his wordsandshow how Godmay actuallygrantwomenpowerandfreedom
19. Irigaraymighttry to show the linkbetweentheirsymbolicfunction as enablingenclosure
of the Muslimcommunityand theircelebratedposition as "mothers,"thatis, mothersofmen: "La
femme est une productriced'hommes,elle ne produit pas des biens materiels,mais cette chose
essentielle qui est le musulman[Womanis a producerofmen; she does notproducematerialgoods;
she produces this essential thing,the Muslim(man)],"says Ali Benhadj,one of the FIS leaders, in
an interviewquotedby Imacheand Nour [431.
20. 1 thankPietro Puccifor his help with the Greek original.
110
in the same thrustwith which he commandstheir subjection.
To go backto the hijab,thequestionmightbe:whatallows womento appropriatethis
power (andpossibly turnit againstits source)ratherthansimply submitto it?Couldit be
their newly found ability to exhibit it (to show it off), an exhibitionwhich would then
triggerthe dynamics of recognition,with its well-known narcissisticbenefits?
Let me returnbriefly to Fanon's analysis of the dynamic of the veil during the
Algerian revolution, in an attempt to historicize both this question and whatever
provisionalanswers I might reach.Fanon's piece is writtenfrom the point of view of a
sympathetic"observer"of the "veiled Algeria," an observerwho, althoughdecidedly
siding with her struggle, is structurallyin the position of a viewer or voyeur, not unlike
the Europeanshe depicts.Fromthis perspective,he is ableto understandthe views of both
the Europeansand the Algerianmen on the traditionallyveiled women. As for women's
positionsas eithersubjectto or of the gaze, they remainforthemost partoutsidehis focus,
as recent commentatorshave noticed; so do the many Algerian women who were not
traditionallyveiled, and whom he mentionsin a footnote,such as the Kabyliansfromthe
mountainsor the Touaregfrom the desert,located farfromthe urbanand powercenters.
Although Fanondescribes the ways in which the Algerianwomen were drawninto the
revolutionarystruggle as active players, his mythologizing treatmentof Algeria as a
woman and, conversely, of the Algerian women in the process of being "unveiled"as
allegories of the nationin the makingturnsthem into statuesanimatedby a Pygmalionlike revolutionarymastermind.21WhatI am concernedwith at this point, however, is his
narrativeof thecoming intoview andplay of the hithertounnoticedduplicity(ortriplicity)
of the veil. Describingthe generalrelationof the Algerianman to the Algerianwoman,
i
he categoricallystates:"L'Algeriena, l'agard
de la femme algerienne,une attitudedans
l'ensemble claire.Il ne la voit pas [Inregardto theAlgerianwoman,the Algerianmanhas
what is on the whole a clear attitude:he doesn't see her]"[26].
The veil she wearsoutside the home, then, may simply be the materializationof her
essentiallyveiled condition,of hernonexistenceon thesocial scene.Whatwill complicate
the scene decisively, though, is the European perspective on the veiled women.
Unsurprisingly,Fanon notes the sexual obsession of Europeanmen with the veiled
Algerians;the veil is picturedby themas the wrappingof merchandise,which bothhides
and enhances its value [27]; as such, it is seen as a mode of display, which makes the
women not less butmorevisible-as whatthey are not.We arealreadyfamiliarwith this
discourse. Fanon describes the erotic dreams these men have; characteristically,they
dreamof havingviolent intercourse,not with one of thesewomen,butwithmanyof them.
The veil meansthatwomen can substitutefor one anotherad infinitum;it thus opens the
way to all.
As the veil becomes an issue, Algerianmen begin to see the veil (hence the women
who wear it) the way the Europeanssee it. In other words, they startseeing themselves
(or ratherAlgeria)in the eyes of the Europeans,andthe veil turnsout to be the instrument
of that reflection.This is when they startusing it as a powerfultool in theirstrugglefor
liberation.In a paradoxicalandhighly effective move, they unveilthe women in orderto
cover uptheirrevolutionaryoperations.This strategicalunveilingis of coursetheultimate
veil; it borrowsits code from the colonial society, it veils the real veil of Algeria,and, as
such, it makes "nudity"appearas just anotherform of veiling, a culturalencoding or, in
this instance, a secret code. Meanwhile, Fanon describes the devastatingeffect of the
droppingof the veil on the newly fighting women. Interestingly,it is the only moment
when Fanonstages women's discourse,albeit indirectly.Accordingto Fanon, what the
women who unveiled themselves at the request of the revolutionarystrategistsfirst
experiencedwas a violentfragmentationof theirbody;theyfeltcut intopieces andterribly
21. On this topic, see Woodhulland the work of Frangoise Verges.
111
"incomplete"[42]. It is as if the veil-which indeeddid not seem to bringthemintoview,
be it the view of God or the view of men, thus failing to triggerfor them the dialecticof
alienationandappropriation-was a partof theirbody, if not the whole part,anenvelope,
neitherexternalnor internal,as is the body itself.
One shouldnot concludetoo quicklyfromthis sensationof physicalincompleteness
that this shatteringof the body is akin to a scene of castration,since castration,in its
Freudian sense, involves specularity.The scene of their exposure is not a scene of
revelation;theydon't see themselves(seen), any morethanthey apparentlydid withtheir
veil on. It is perhapsas if a kind of mirrorstage had failed to takeplace, leaving the body
ununifiedand unrecognizable.Whetherit means thatthe haik preventedsuch a process
from taking place or that, on the contrary,it acted as a prereflexiveconnective fabric
whose benefit is lost when it is droppedis open to speculation.Whatensues is the story
of the successful appropriationof their new image by these women, hence of their
integrationof the Europeangaze. From being withdrawn,they become incrediblyselfassured.This ensures in turn the full success of the revolutionarytactic. When some
women reveil themselves, in the wake of Algeria's victory, the veil will never be the
same.22
One can only begin to see oneself if one is seen by another.The women who wear
the hijab today know they are seen by Westernersor their so-called "Westernized"
representativesin theircountries.At the beginningthe protectiveenvelope andconnective tissue of Islam, the hijab has become a kind of mirrorin which these women see
themselvesreflectedas Muslims.It is perhapsthe gaze of this thirdparty,thanksto which
and against which they define themselves, which allows them to appropriatetheir
reflection.The "selves"they bringinto view, however, seem detachedfromtheirbodies,
if one trusts the experiences recounted by a numberof Algerian moutahajibate,and
reportedby DjamilaSaadi:one of themtells the storyof how she enteredthe university's
cafeteria,which had a huge mirror,and simply failed to see herself in the mirror[FMV
179]. The achievementof self-consciousness and self-control, then, does not preclude
experiences of radical alienation. It shows either that this achievement can never be
consolidated,or thatalienationis indeed implicatedin the process of appropriation.
By now, I hope to have also cast some light on the ambiguousnatureof the hijab
wearers' "empowerment."Far from turningthe veil upside-down, it may well make
apparentthe hidden logic of its originary deployment, as if "modernity"named the
phenomenonof its ultimateunraveling.It shows the entanglementof the problematicsof
power not only with thatof specularity,but indeed with that of castration.It is as if the
women had to acknowledge their aoura in order to become "authorized."They see
themselves as seen by men; and they are authorizedby a "masculine"power. To put it
differently,it is as if they had to endorse their castrationin orderto have access to the
phallus, if this is what they want. That the hijab enforces and signifies both these
possibilitiesat the same time is no accident.This in turnmay cautionus againsttoo naive
anendorsementof thediscourseof "empowerment"so understandablytypicalof feminist
rhetoric.Itmayalertus as to thenatureandextentof the"autonomy"achievedwithinthese
parameters,especially when it is implicatedin a discourse and politics of identitarian
consolidation.
Let me end these embryonicconsiderationswith a quotation,this time from young
22. For all his sympathyfor the cause of Algerian independence,and in spite of or perhaps
because of the moral and intellectual authority lent to his observations by his position as a
Caribbeanpsychiatristhimself subjectedto French colonial rule, Fanon's assertions should be
treatedwithgreatercautionthanImyselfhaveshownhere. Otherwitnessesofthe Algeriancolonial
scene, whetherAlgeriansor Europeans,may have had differentviews or experiencesthanthe one
picturedby Fanon.His account,always indirect,is alreadyan interpretation,oftentotalizing,and
informedmoreoverby Westernmodes of knowledge(psychiatryand phenomenology).
112
Algerian women who do not wear the hijab. The two groupsof algiriennes were asked
if, as individuals,they were willing to accept thatotherwomen dress, think,and behave
differentlythanthemselves. One senses the implicitassumptionsin the question,and of
course the moutahajibateexpressed unease and reticence when faced with it. The
nonveiled women, on the otherhand,fully endorsedthe languageof individual"difference" as opposed to "authority,"they claimed thatwhat a woman wants is to be unique
("le d6sirde chaquefemme, c'est d'&treunique"),andfinally,one said, in an apodeictical
and strikingformula:"differenceis beauty,is elegance"("ladiff6rence,c'est la beaut6,
l'616gance"[AH104]").I am not surewhetherthis was saidin FrenchorArabic."Beauty"
and "elegance"in Frenchare genderedfeminine, and so is "difference."It is as if, then,
"difference"itself was picturedby these women or theirtranslatorsas a "beauty,"hence
a beautifulwoman;andthis "beauty"couldbe (thatof) theotherwoman,as well as theirs.
In otherwords, it is impossible to distinguishin this statementthe narcissisticfrom the
homoeroticposture (as opposed to the link made by Freudo-Lacaniantheory between
feminine narcissism and phallocentrism).The two sociologists' commentaryon this
sentence might almost be drawnfrom one of Irigaray'sbooks:
Le narcissisme,I 'amourde soi affleurentdans certainesde ces rdponses.... Ce
narcissismen 'estdoncpas, commeon 1'entendcouramment,impermeabilitJau
disir d'autruiet intoleranceenvers ce qui n'estpas soi, au contraire,c'est son
existence qui engendre la difference.[104]
[Narcissism,self-loveare apparentin someofthese answers.... Thisnarcissism
is not, as one pictures it commonly,an imperviousnessto the desire of the other
andan intoleranceof whatis notoneself;on thecontrary,itis its existencewhich
generates difference.]
Can one escape the powerful spell of phallocentricspecularity?Can Muslim women
escape a speculareconomy of genderrelationswhenthepoliticalandculturalrelationship
between Islam and the West is also specular?
And, finally, can anddoes Irigarayshakeoff the veils? At this point,I can only sketch
in a programmaticmannerthe directionswhich a close anddetailed readingof Irigaray
might or should take, in orderto reachan answerto this question.It seems to me thatone
should look at what I will provisionallycall her strategyof re-envelopment(1), as well
as her tentativeelaborationof an "ethicsof love" (2), bothof which areat the core of An
Ethics of Sexual Difference.
1. While Irigaray strives to retrieve "woman" from a fetishistic economy of
representation,she also seems to cling to veils, in an ambiguousattemptto retrievethem
as well, althoughwith importantalterations.
At the end of the section of "TheBlind Spot,"I was commentingearlier,she turns
the fetishisticveil againstitself by declaringthat,afterall, femalegenitalsarenothingbut
a set of veils, a complex and heterogeneouswrappingapparatus,made of two envelopes
which do not or at least should not cover each otherup in space or function,the vaginal
sheathandtheamnioticmembrane(thisis whatshe calls theuterushere,as if it was always
alreadyenvelopinga fetus) [116]. Onemightask:whathappensto the veil whenit is made
to designate the female sex it is supposed to hide from sight and when, moreover,the
wrappingsit namesareinvisible to all buta gynecologicalspeculumandthereforeneither
hide nor show anything?
To answer,one would have to look at the ways in whichthese internalbodily "veils"
operatein the text. Let me make a few remarks.First,like the "lips,"the "veils"are not
one. But the "matricialveil" (a metonymic metaphorfor the womb) is described, in
diacritics I spring 1998
113
114
keeping with the generalargumentof "TheBlind Spot," as threateningto cover up the
vaginal one, thus hiding once again the location and operationof womens' jouissance.
How can an invisible veil "mask"anything?The bodily "veils," then, are strangely
described both from the inside, as it were, and again from the outside; and outside, the
"phallus"is watching.In this perspective,the "motherwho masksthe woman"[117] is
of course the son's mother,protectinghim from the sight and site of woman's pleasure.
Thus, even thoughthe femalomorphic"veil"is supposedto be internal,hence, as I said,
neither hiding nor showing anything,it still operates within the paradigmof sight. As
Irigarayherself remindsus, "contradictionis alreadyimplicit in the veil, in the duplicity
of [the] veil's function"[116]. Might it not be possible, then, to readIrigaray'senduring
fascination with veils as an allegory of her own rhetorical and perhaps conceptual
duplicity?
Now, the "veil" reappearsunder a new guise in An Ethics of Sexual Difference,
namely as an envelope. In "The Blind Spot," the words veil (voile) and envelope
(enveloppe) seem to be used indiscriminatelyfor one another.But in Ethics, where the
"envelope"becomes a majorconceptualoperator,Irigarayseems to takethe full measure
of the genderchange;for althoughthe envelope belongs lexically to the same family as
the veil (from the Latin velum), in French,it is genderedfeminine, whereasthe veil is
masculine. From veil to envelope, the genderchange signals also a numberof semantic
andphenomenologicaltransformations(anenvelope does notenclose in the same way as
a veil covers) that I don't have the space to expand upon. Roughly speaking,one could
say that Irigaray puts the "envelope" to the test of representinga nonphallocentric
feminine economy. Let me briefly recall some of the uses made of the "envelope"
throughoutAn Ethics of Sexual Difference.
From a metaphordesignatingthe series of open enclosures constitutiveof female
sexual morphology, the "envelope" becomes, by metonymic extension, a name for
woman's skin or rather site ("lieu"), as if the internal envelopes had grown out to
envelop-and sexuate-her whole body. Irigaray'smain argumentthroughoutthe book
is thatwomandoes not havethe envelope thatshe is, a formulashe repeatstime andagain
[ 11, 35]:
The maternal-feminineremains the place separatedfrom "its" own place,
deprivedof its place. She is or ceaselessly becomes the place of the other....
[T]his ethical question comes into play in matters of nudity and perversity.
Womanmustbe nudebecause she is not situated,does not situateherselfin her
place. Her clothes, make-up,and herjewels are the thingswithwhichshe tries
to create her container(s),her envelope(s).She cannotmakeuse ofthe envelope
that she is, and must create artificial ones. [10- 11]
The descriptionof womanas an envelope or site for the otherrecallsexplicitly what
Irigaray says about the maternal function in Speculum. But here, the problem is
rearticulateddifferently;it is not thatthe maternalsite hides the "feminine"(in Irigaray's
sense of the term),thuscontributingto its irrepresentability,butthat,being claimed and
occupied by men, it cannot be inhabitedby women, thus expropriatingthem from their
originarylocation and preventingthem from having the motherthat they are. Deprived
of her envelope or ratherof the use of it, woman is as if naked.This is why she actually
exhibits herself as such and why she appearsas such in the culturalimaginary.Irigaray
readswoman's perverseundressingas a symptomaticstagingof hersymbolicdestitution.
She makes an argument,then, for some kind of veil, a (self)-giving maternalenvelope
(perhapsnot unlikethe way the haikseemedto function"originally"for Algerianwomen,
accordingto Fanon)thatwouldtie togetherthe severedthreadsof femalegenealogy.And
indeed, here she pictureswoman's investmentin clothing and her use of make-upas an
115
attemptto give herself the envelope thatshe is but that othershave.
Two readingsof this argumentare possible and perhapsequally warranted.On the
one hand,Irigarayeffectively rewritesthe storyof woman'sveiling andmake-upoutside
the castrationparadigm:she dresses up and wearsjewels not to make up for her lack of
penis, not to masqueradeas a phallicobject,but,as it were,to makeup for herself,ormore
preciselyfor herown envelope, in a restorativeandautoeroticgesture.In thisperspective,
the jewels, a ratherstrangemetonymyfor the "envelope,"would not-or not only-be
what they are for Freud,that is, an instrumentof "feminization"(that is, fetishization),
even though,of course,they arewornto attractthegaze. Andwhereasdressingupliterally
turnswomaninto a transvestitewithinthe castrationparadigm,here it becomes the way
a woman engendersherself as such, as if she wore and was her own mother.Elsewhere,
in keepingwithherattemptto enlist sighton the side of touch,Irigarayinsistson thetactile
natureof the envelope, which, as a kindof double for the skin itself, sticks to herbody as
it were, renderingimperceptiblethe gap (ecart) betweenbody and cloth, throughwhich
the suspicion of castrationinsinuatesitself for the masculineonlooker.The "envelope"
in this sense allegedly neithercovers nor reveals, even when it is externalized;rather,it
sets off themechanismof autoaffection;it allows thewomanto touch-be in touchwithherself.
Yet, even if whatwoman "doesnot have"is not the penis buther"self,"she still has
to make up for it. In her attemptto give herself to herself, she may avoid the masculine
fantasyof castration,butshe does notescape the logic of supplementarity.One mightalso
wonder if Irigarayis not reinventinga feminine logic of "castration,"by making the
prosthetic envelopes into a figure for what a woman needs to feel complete, that is,
completely at home with herself. But since the missed (ratherthan missing) "object"
and not the
retrieved underthe guise of the self-addressedenvelope is the "mother""23
well
the
a
that
would
one
do
to
resist
attraction
of
comparison
simply
phallus,
might
reengage"theold dreamof symmetry"betweenthe sexes. WhetherIrigaray'sstrategyof
"re-envelopment,"wherebywoman would strive to have (back?)what she is insteadof
strivingto "be"whatshe does not have, is simply a new dressforthe morecasualstrategy
of (re)appropriationbegets discussion. One could argue that the problematicsof selfretrievalandthe problematicsof homecomingare not necessarilyone and the same. For
to be at home (chezsoi) is always to be "chezsoi chez l'autre"(atone's place atthe other's
place), as JacquesDerridaarguedin his seminaron "hospitality"(1996). In this case, the
other's place is indeedthe(m)other's place,whichthere-envelopedwomandoes anddoes
not take at the same time, since she becomes, at once but differently,the enveloping
(daughter's)motherand the enveloped daughter/woman.24
The logic and politics of self-(re)appropriation
may not be entirely avoidable,and
called
for
in
some
not
be enough to open the pathfor a
indeed
be
But
it
way.
might
may
real transformationof genderrelationsanda new understandingof sexual difference.To
try to do that,one must look in the directionof the other.
2. One of the questionsraisedby An Ethics of SexualDifferenceis whetherandhow
one might "appear"to an other with its corollary:how might an other "appear"to me,
outside the phallocentricconfines? The issue of ethics, then, is approachednot from a
concrete social or culturalperspectivebut almost from a phenomenologicalone, which
may seem suspiciously decontextualized. Irigaray might argue that a provisional
decontextualizationis necessary to achieve any kind of meaningfuldisplacement.But
above all, she probablychooses the intersubjectivescene ofethics-which she interprets,
23. Thatis, the daughter'smother,not thephallic/castratedson's mother.
24. In her discussion,Irigaraydoes not seem to consider the relationshipof clothing,jewels,
and envelopesto whatone mightcall theartistic,or at least aesthetic,impulse;neitherdoes Freud
when it comes to (women's) weaving.But this would take us in quite another, albeit worthwhile,
direction.
116
like Levinas, as a reenactmentof the not yet regulated,foundationalevent of socialityover thatof politics in orderto distanceherself from the logic of power (with its familiar
corollaries:competition,war,subjection,alienation)whichdefines politicalrelationsand
traditionallymobilizes politicalthinking.Finally, one mightsay thatfor Irigaray"ethics"
and "sexual difference" are coterminous; one begets the other insofar as ethics is
understoodto be an ethics of/for the other.In this sense, ethics is not so muchopposedto
politics or externalto it as it calls for a redefinitionof the political field.
In a chapter entitled "L'admiration"(translated as "Wonder"),Irigaray again
delineates the contoursof a "site"or locus (lieu); but this time, it is not woman who is
described as a site for the other, at her own expense, but "sexualdifference"which is
chosen as the site of/for the other. In her introductorychapter, Irigaray writes that
admirationin the face of the unknowable"oughtto be returnedto its locus: thatof sexual
difference"[13]. How are we to understandit?
"Wonder"("Admiration")is a loose commentaryon Descartes's Passions of the
Soul. Among these "passions,"Descartes admiresadmiration,which he defines as the
wonderone feels whenone is facedwithanobjectwhichsurprisesus becauseit is different
from anythingwe know. Admiration,then, stems from the encounterof difference.
As an affectionof the gaze (admirationand mirrorhave the same root), admiration
differs from whatIrigaraycalls the enveloping gaze, a gaze which "encircles"its object
as it attemptsto comprehendit;becausethefeeling of admirationcomes fromnotknowing
the other, it precludes any (mis)identificationof/with it/her/him, thus curtailing the
processof "specularity."By the same token,it neitherveils norviolates the other'sspace
or the other's face [170]. Actually, as a naive discovery of difference,it also demandsa
certain"naivete"on the partof the "object"of the gaze, hence a certainnakedness,which
does not dependon whetheror how one is dressed,unless the dress is meantexclusively
as a shield. Furthermore,writes Irigaray,as a look of recognitionwithout recognition
directedat the other,admirationentailsrelinquishingthe self as an autarchicentity [75].
"Admirationwould be the adventandevent of the other"[75, translationmodified],thus
openingup thepossibilityof love. Inthissense, andalthoughit involves a certainintensity
of the gaze, admirationwould be the opposite of "voyeurism"-an evil the hijab is
supposed to protect women from, according to an anonymous correspondentto El
Mounquid,who wrote, in a totalizingstatement:"All men are voyeurs"[Al-Ahnafet al.
Butthe unknowing
260], withoutraisingthe questionof whatit is they look at and"see."25
gaze of admirationis also fundamentallyimmanentand "human,"as opposed to the allknowing gaze of God, in whose line of sight the hijab wearers place themselves. If
anything, it places the looker symbolically below the admiredobject, not above, like
God's panopticum.
Descartes, however, does not name the objects of his admiration;they could be
things, or they could be "objects"of the same sex. Afterall, it is preciselythe possibility
of admiringanotherwoman which "difference"between women opens up accordingto
the Algerian moutabarijateI quoted earlier. Why, then, does Irigaraymake sexual
differencethe paradigmaticsite of possibilityof admiration?I would suggestthatit is not
only a matterof libidinal preference,but also a political stance.
The scene of admirationshe envisages is of course a scene of mutualadmiration,
wherebyeach partyis both admiringand admired,gazing andgazed at, at the same time
on a higherand lower plane thanthe other.Mutualadmirationallegorizes in some way
the possibility and pleasure of an equality generated rather than obstructed by the
unconsolidatedperceptionof the other's difference. But above all, such a "choice"of
partnersin thescene of admiration,whichisjust one modalityof therevolutionof thegaze
25. One knowswhat it is they don't look at: theface, which,as the location of speech, is for
Levinas, and to some extentfor Irigaray, the site of ethics.
117
she is calling for, correspondsto her claim that,even though"heterosexuality"mightbe
the compulsorylaw of culturalas well as biological reproduction,heterosociality-the
adventof a heterosexed,as opposedto monosexed,society, freedfromthe rulesof gender
separation and segregation which precisely characterizethe monosexual symbolic
order-is, for the most part,yet to happen.And it can only happen,accordingto Irigaray,
if anotherheterosexuality,as it were, comes into existence,thatis, a relationbetweenthe
sexes predicatedon the benevolentand passionatewonderat the othernessof the other.
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119

The Newly Veiled Woman: Irigaray, Specularity, and the Islamic Veil

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