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Muslim Organizations in Canada: Gender
Ideology and Women's Veiling
Yildiz Atasoy
a
a
Simon Fraser University, USA
Published online: 19 Nov 2012.
To cite this article: Yildiz Atasoy (2003) Muslim Organizations in Canada: Gender Ideology and
Women's Veiling, Sociological Focus, 36:2, 143-158, DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2003.10570721
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2003.10570721
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MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN
CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY
AND WOMEN'S VEILING*
YILDIZ ATASOY SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
Simon Frser University Vol. 36 No. 2:143-158
May 2003
This article examines the Muslim shaping of gender ideology around the veiling practices of
immigrant Muslim women in Canada. Women's veiling is often attributed to the mobilization of
traditional values against the universalizing influences of Western culture. This is also a common
theme in mainstream sociological studies that conceptualize cultural politics as being split between
the global and authentically local. However, the veiling practice can also be understood as part of the
transnational dynamics of Muslim claims for cultural authenticity, rather than a locally rooted
rejection of Western culture. Archival data and interviews are used to examine the interplay between
the global configuring of gender ideology and the local cultural practices of Muslim immigrants.
Analyzed in this way, veiling is seen as posing a paradigmatic challenge to the dichotomy of global
versus local in sociological theory.
This paper examines how Muslim immigrant organizations define a gender ideology
for immigrant women. To illustrate this, I focus on the objectives, activities, and
strategies of two Muslim immigrant organizations: the Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA) and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW). ISNA is a
male-dominated organization while CCMW is an organization directed by women.
Specifically, I address the issue of why Muslim women's veiling practices have become
an important issue for these organizations. I then discuss a more general question:
What are the implications of immigrant women's veiling for a sociological under-
standing of the cultural dynamics of gender practices?
In general terms, "the veil" refers to various forms of Islamic dress for women. It
may consist of a headscarf to cover the hair, or it may involve a type of dress that com-
pletely covers the body (the burka). In the view of those Muslim immigrant organi-
zations examined in this paper, the veil refers more specifically to a headscarf.
Although these organizations hold similar views about the veil, they attribute dif-
ferent meanings to it. According to the ISNA, women must wear the veil because it is
seen as essential for the morality of the Muslim community. In the view of the CCMW,
on the other hand, veiling appears to be a matter of personal choice and individual
sense of religiosity.
Direct correspondence to Yildiz Atasoy, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Frser University,
8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6 Canada. El-mail: yata8oyefu.ca. A version of this
paper was presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. I would like to
thank Leo Driedger and Ken Jalowica for their valuable insights and advice. I also thank the anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
143
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144 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
The sociological significance of this controversy relates to the statue of women in
society. Some sociologists conceptualize veiling as women's subordination to an
oppressive tradition (Afshar 1998; Moghadam 1991) while others examine it as a
symbol of an authentic local culture that empowers women (Ahmed 1992; Hoodfar
1997; Macleod 1991; Mernissi 1991).
Although the idea of the veil as a cultural symbol of either women's sub-
ordination or empowerment is pivotal to these explanations, sociological research in
general regards the veil as an element of "traditionalism" within Muslim cultures in
opposition to "modern" values. Classical sociological theory has predicted a decline in
the importance of "tradition" resulting from the spread of industrial capitalism across
the globe. Current sociological theory also predicts that "traditional" values will
eventually disappear (Barber 1995) as new cultural meanings emerge around globally
produced and consumed commodities (Ritzer 2000). Contrary to these expectations,
however, women's veiling practices have gained a great deal of visibility throughout
the world, including such non-Muslim Western societies as Canada. An increasing
number of the women choosing to wear the veil are also young and highly educated.
Because the veiling practices of Muslim women in Canada remain largely
unexamined, several important research questions arise: How can we explain Muslim
women's veiling in Canada? How do Muslim immigrant organizations define a gender
ideology for immigrant women? Can the classic dichotomy model in sociology between
modern and traditional adequately explain women's veiling practices? Are these
women in fact more traditional and religious than those who choose not to wear the
veil?
The immigrant Muslim women who wear the veil are neither traditional nor
exclusively religious. In fact, young and highly educated professional women are more
inclined to adopt the use of the veil. This is also made evident by an increase in the
number of university students wearing the veil in recent years. It seems more
reasonable, then, to assume that the meaning of the veiling practice is far more
complicated than its conceptualization as a symbol of tradition would have us believe.
This veiling practice also runs counter to the expectation of most sociological
researchers in Canada that immigrant cultural attachments would decline with accul-
turation. The majority of immigrants to Canada prior to the 1970s were European in
origin. The research goal at that point was to identify the factors that were expected to
promote the integration of such immigrants into a common Euro-Canadian culture
(Hoerder 1994). Since the 1970s, however, there has been a steady increase in the
number and proportion of culturally different, non-European immigrants, including
Muslim women who wore the veil. Responding to this shift in immigration patterns,
sociological research began to focus on the factors that have contributed to the
persistence of traditional cultures in immigrant Canada (Breton et al. 1990). Many
scholars assumed that immigrant cultural attachments were intimately tied to the
lack of possibilities open to immigrants in the host country. Therefore, various
structures and processes of inequality received much attention in research (Brym and
Fox 1989; Ng 1988; Satzewich 1998). Scholars predicted that immigrants would react
with cultural symbols to their experiences of inequality and that such cultural reac-
tions would also push women into the oppressive settings of their traditional cultures.
Yet none of these studies have offered an adequate account of the shaping of a culture
by the immigrant group itself. Such a limitation is an important element in this study,
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MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEILING 14
exploring how immigrant organizations shape gender ideology for Muslim women in
Canada.
I show that women's veiling should be understood not as a local manifestation of
a culture that, by tradition, subordinates women but as a global phenomenon situated
at the intersection between local and global linkages of various Muslim organizations.
It is important to note that the present study does not focus on the question of why
women wear the veil or to what extent the veil empowers or subordinates them.
Nevertheless, an exploration of the meaning of the veil helps us to achieve a better
understanding of the cultural dynamics of Islamic gender practices. In this paper I use
the terms "Islamic" and "Muslim" interchangeably.
THE VEIL: WOMEN'S SUBORDINATION TO
TRADITION OR SYMBOL OF EMPOWERMENT?
A sizable body of literature has been devoted to studying women's veiling in
Muslim countries (Abu-Lughod 1986; Afshar 1998; Ahmed 1992; El Guindi 1999; Gole
1996; Hoodfar 1997; Kandiyoti 1991; Macleod 1991; Moghadam 1991; Memissi 1991;
Narayan 1997). There are two fundamentally different perspectives, although a range
of positions has emerged from each of these. The first perspective views the veil as a
symbol of women's subordination to men and portrays veiled women as socially
marginal individuals living their lives in the private sphere of home and family. The
second perspective sees the veil as a strategic tool of female empowerment, wherein
the veil becomes intertwined with issues of access to economic resources, position, and
status.
WOMEN AS SUBORDINATES
The first perspective views the veil as an expression of a backward Muslim
tradition that legitimizes women's exclusion from public life (Afshar 1998; Moghadam
1991). Not wearing a veil is believed to pose a danger to men's morality, as it is seen to
underline female sexuality. Women are therefore required to be fully clothed in order
to protect men from the moral and spiritual contamination that resides in the sex-
uality of the female body. Muslim women are expected either to stay within the
private domain of the family or to "veil" their bodies in their limited daily social
interactions with unrelated men in public places. Public space is viewed as a sphere
for male activity; women are expected to limit their exposure to public life and to wear
the veil while in public.
This strand of research draws from modernization theory, which views culture
as the locally bounded manifestation of traditional values in resistance to modernity
(Shanin 1997). The argument here is that the world is becoming more homogeneous
due to the global spread of Western lifestyles, consumption patterns, and political and
social values. As a result, the veil is seen as symbolic of spiritual backlash and central
to a traditional culture's struggle against cultural homogenization.
The first perspective has been subject to considerable criticism because Muslim
culture is far from homogeneous, and the lived experience of women varies greatly
within, different Muslim societies. Kandiyoti (1991) has argued that such a perspective
views women as passive victims of traditional cultures. Similarly, Memissi (1991) has
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146 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
written that Islam is portrayed as an oppressive tradition that restricts women's
pursuit of human rights and their full participation in the public realm of the
economy, politics, and education.
TOOL OF EMPOWERMENT
Scholars who hold the second perspective point out that young and highly
educated women in particular are actively adopting the veil as a matter of individual
choice (El Guindi 1999; Mernissi 1991; Narayan 1997). These scholars have stressed
the importance of recognizing the present actualities of women's lives. In addition to
religious considerations and expressions of personal taste, Hoodfar (1997) and
Macleod (1991), for example, suggested that the veil is a strategic means associated
with women's increased participation in public space and greater independence from
men. It thus provides an acceptable cultural screen that women can use as they
become more public members of society. For Macleod, the veil is also a symbol of
honor, one that signals to men that women who wear it should not be subject to sexual
harassment. Narayan further pointed out that Muslim women actively defend their
use of the veil, claiming that it symbolically marks their membership in a distinct
culture. As Ahmed (1992) has noted, the veil signifies women's determination to move
forward on a Muslim road to modernity.
Instead of presenting a strictly dichotomous model, this second perspective
assumes a more subtle relationship between the traditional and the modern (Abu-
Lughod 1998). It often involves a detailed study of the local circumstances that affect
women's choices. The second perspective implicates the veil in a reworking of the
"cultural," rather than grounding research in the idea of culture in a locally bounded
entity that subordinates women.
Ahmed (1992), for example, offered a historical understanding of local culture as
shaped within a colonial encounter between the West and Muslim societies. She
argued that the veil gained strength as a symbol of cultural resistance to Western
domination during the Muslims' anti-colonial struggles for independence, with the
Algerian war of independence being one notable example. However, according to
Ahmed, these anti-colonial movements resulted in the founding of national states that
instituted Western patterns of social change in Muslim societies as a driving force for
their modernization. The modernization procees also introduced the Western ideal of
female domesticity to Muslim countries (Abu-Lughod 1998). It has been widely docu-
mented in feminist literature that Victorian gender ideology assigned women to the
private domain of the home, which was defined as the natural sphere for women.
Ahmed contended that it is this form of modernization that institutionalized Western
gender ideology in Muslim societies and helped to attribute the symbolism of female
domesticity and subordination to the veil.
Ahmed believes that the veil is actually a marker of a Muslim modernity and
that Muslim women should not be compelled to make a choice between their religious
beliefs and personal autonomy and empowerment. Although it is not clear what form
of modernity is underscored in Islam (Majid 2000), Mernissi (1991) also suggested that
a uniquely Muslim way must be instituted for women's emancipation. This task
requires the removal of male power over the interpretation of sacred texts and the
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argument
MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEIUNG 147
restoration of freedoms and powers enjoyed by women during the early stages of
Islam.
Both Ahmed (1992) and Mernissi (1991) have asserted that the veiling of a
younger, more highly educated generation of women symbolizes their desire to forge
an image of themselves as assertive, liberated women situated within an authentically
Muslim culture. This image is clearly removed from the passivity implied by Muslim
traditions for older and poorly educated women (Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987).
My research relies on the belief that the assertiveness attributed to younger
women's veiling practices may have more complex origins than is realized by scholars
of the second perspective. While the decision to adopt the veil may be indicative of
women's own personal choice, I hypothesize that the veiling of women also feeds into
Muslim men's reworking of culture. I demonstrate that it is within the transnational
Islamic linkages established by men that a distinctive form of culture is forged, within
which women's veiling finds a meaning. To describe how Muslim men use the veil to
constitute a particular gender ideology for women, I examine the opposing cultural
agendas promoted by two Muslim immigrant organizations, ISNA, a male dominated
organization, and the CCMW, a women's organization.
To demonstrate the global working of an immigrant gender ideology, I benefit
from the concept of "glocalization" formulated by Robertson (1995). Instead of setting
up the local" and the "global" as cultural opposites, Robertson insisted that the local
and the global exist as mutually constitutive elements. This paper also emphasizes
that transnational Muslim organizations draw the moral-cultural boundaries for
women's conduct around the veil: Women's veiling enters the globality of a Muslim
remaking of local immigrant culture.
METHODS
I use two sets of data to assess the study hypothesis: published and unpublished
materials and interviews. The first set of data comes from the annual activity reports,
monthly magazines, newsletters, position papers, and other related documents pub-
lished and distributed by various Muslim immigrant organizations in Canada. All
these materials are limited to the public statements and cultural claims made in these
papers and publications on gender ideology. The second set of data contains interviews
that I conducted with individuals who have positions of leadership in these
organizations.
A textual analysis of written materials has provided me with information on
global trends and themes in relation to Islamic cultural values. Interviews have
allowed me to incorporate the interpretation of Islamic gender practices as seen
through the eyes of these individuals. These interviews were also helpful in obtaining
information about respondents' views on the global connections of Muslim immigrant
organizations in terms of the flow of ideas, money, and people across national
boundaries. Because my goal was to uncover the divergent approaches through which
these organizations formulate a gender ideology for Muslim women, I have relied on
their own documents and interviews to gather my data.
The Islamic Society of North America and Muslim Student Association gave me
their pamphlets and monthly magazines. The magazines covered a period from 1994
to 2000. These magazines are also readily available in any Muslim community center
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148 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
or Muslim bookstore. The Canadian Council of Muslim Women provided me with its
annual activity reports, monthly magazines, newsletters, and position papers. These
covered a period from 1982 to 1998. I was also allowed to take these documents
outside their organizations' offices. All the documents I examined were written in
English.
I interviewed six individuals. The interviews, each lasting approximately four
hours, were held in 2000. They covered topics ranging from Muslim immigration to
Canada and Canadian Muslim organizations to issues related to ethnic identity and
the perception of women's veiling practices. I received approval for the interview
process from the Research Ethics Review Committee of the University of Manitoba
and obtained my respondents' verbal consent to be interviewed. In order to keep the
interviewees' identities anonymous, I refrain from naming them, their posts, respon-
sibilities and institutional affiliations. In the paper, I refer to the interviewees as
"respondents."
The primary objective of my research is to advance understanding of the global
Islamic shaping of a gender ideology for Muslim women in Canada. The task here is
not an easy one, given that there are many Muslim organizations that represent more
than one million culturally and linguistically diverse Muslims in Canada. More than
50 percent of them were born in Canada; the others are landed immigrants.
Technically the term "immigrant" refers to a person who moves to another country in
order to settle. In this research I also consider immigrants to be Canadian-born child-
ren of immigrants and later generations who identify themselves as ethnically
Muslim. Three of my respondents moved to Canada as landed immigrants while the
others were born in Canada; they all self-identified themselves as immigrants.
Because my research interest rests on the cultural dynamics of the veiling
movement shaped by the immigrant organizations, I have grouped these organizations
into two categories. One category represents transnationally connected associations
organized under the umbrella of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The
other consists of nationally bounded Muslim organizations that operate within the
Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW). An analysis of the contentious rela-
tions between these two groups provides the empirical basis for the claim that the
women's veiling movement has become central to the global reworking of a Muslim
culture.
In the following pages I examine the global configuration of Muslim culture
within which an ideological reference point for women's veiling is conceived. I first
investigate the ISNA's formulation of a claim to a distinct Muslim culture in the
context of its global connections with other Middle East-based Muslim organizations.
The ideological challenges to the centrality of the veil posed by the Canadian Council
of Muslim Women constitute the last section of the paper.
ISNA AND THE GLOBAL CONFIGURATION OF A MUSLIM CULTURE
ISNA was formed in 1983 as an umbrella for all Muslim organizations in
Canada and the United States. It has more than 1,000 member organizations repre-
senting an estimated 10 million Muslims in North America. The Muslim Students
Association (MSA), established in 1963 for college and university students, is the
founding member of ISNA. MSA disseminates Islamic ideas among university stu-
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MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEILING 149
dents in North America. The MSA consists of more than 300 student chapters
throughout the United States and Canada. There are 60 local chapters on Canadian
university and college campuses. The largest Canadian MSA is located at the
University of Toronto and has a membership of more than 3,000 students. The ISNA
headquarters is in Indiana and MSA's is located in Washington, D.C.
LEADERSHIP
The ISNA and its affiliates were all established and are run by men. ISNA is
staffed by a combination of paid employees and unpaid volunteers. There are no
women in the higher administrative levels. By excluding women from the decision-
making process, men create an organizational infrastructure based on gendered power
relations. The separation of men's and women's spheres of activity is a common cul-
tural practice in these organizations. According to the respondent from ISNA, women
are regarded as auxiliary partners in ISNA. This is a widely shared view: Another
respondent from an MSA publishing organization argued that women's responsibility
is limited to reinforcing ISNA's claim for Muslims' cultural difference through the
practice of veiling. Men who hold positions of power in these organizations draw the
moral boundaries for women's conduct.
INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS
According to another respondent from the MSA, Muslim organizations in North
America are part of an integrated global Islamic activity. The respondent from ISNA-
Canada suggested that ISNA plays a key role in facilitating cooperation between
North American and the other Muslim organizations in the world. Informal exchanges
of preachers and students, educational sessions, and funding also connect the Islamic
activity of ISNA and MSA with that of the Middle East. For example, according to
information provided to me, in 1998 and 1999, 10 students from the University of
Toronto attended educational sessions in England, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt
organized by prominent Muslim scholars. These were summer-abroad programs
supported by MSA. In addition, lectures delivered by travelling preachers at ISNA
conferences are intended to popularize Islam among students (Islamic Horizons 1994-
2000). There are no hard data to establish the actual organizational network and show
precisely how informal ties are working to set up an Islamic agenda in North America.
But, according to respondents from both the ISNA and MSA, the movement of
preachers and students travelling back and forth forms the most basic relations
within the network.
FINANCIAL TIES
The relations between ISNA and Muslim groups in the Middle East also grew
out of financial contacts and fund-raising activities by ISNA. Some funds are raised
through various community-based activities in North America, but several respond-
ents stated that ISNA raises funds primarily from Saudi-based transnational finance
institutions, such as the Rabitat al-Alam al-Ielami (also known as the Muslim World
League) and the Organization of Islamic Conference through the ISNA Development
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160 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
Foundation. Through these Saudi-based financial institutions, ISNA covers the cost
for places of worship, pays the salaries of imams, prayer leaders in public worship;
builds Islamic centers; offers training courses; and organizes conferences throughout
North America.
ISNA's goals are outlined in Canada ISNA Mission Statement, a booklet that
declares that ISNA is a citizen of a greater Muslim worldwide community, independ-
ent of Canadian society or any other. The organization's goal is to strengthen the
presence of Islam in North America. The constitution of the ISNA-affiliated Windsor
Islamic Association, for example, states that the association unequivocally affirms the
Koran and Prophet Mohammed's tradition as the ultimate source of law for Muslims
in Canada. The MSA also states that its long-term goal is the promotion of Islam as
an alternative to Euro-Canadian ways. This is also a recurrent theme in the
University of Toronto MSA monthly newsletter, Muslim Voice.
My interviews with a respondent from the MSA illustrate ISNA's ideological
connections with other Middle-East-based Islamic organizations. According to this
respondent, ISNA forges ideological links, especially with the Muslim Brotherhood, in
its attempt to connect North American Muslims to the Islamic network of the Middle
East. A number of books written by the ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood (and
translated into English) circulate widely within the MSA membership in North
America.
RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION FOR VEILING
According to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was originally established in Egypt
in 1928, the moral order of a good society must be grounded in the Koran (Esposito
1987). For the Brotherhood, Islam should not be spoken of only in the mosques. It
should also play a central role in governing personal life and connecting Muslims in
the world through the belief that ultimate sovereignty belongs to God alone. This
emphasis on the divine source of sovereignty produces a context for the activities of
the ISNA. ISNA thus takes the Koran and the Prophet's tradition as the foundational
basis for its conceptualization of a gender ideology for women. In this context and
based on Islamic religion, which is seen as having relevance everywhere, veiling for
women is required as a symbol of obedience to God's sovereignty.
ISNA thus translates its references to the universality of Islamic texts and
religious rules into a cultural practice within the context of Canadian multicultural
policy. According to the respondents from ISNA and MSA, ISNA's course of action is
geared toward building a Muslim community in Canada with a claim to a cultural
difference from the majority population. Canada's multiculturalism policy recognizes
the cultural rights of immigrant communities in Canada (Bourque and Duchastel
1999). Although it sometimes represents a very complicated plurality of cultural
communities (Satzewich 1998), the notion of "hybridity" comes close to framing
Canadian multicultural policy. Here I refer to the term "hybridity," as used by Bhabha
(1994), to denote a rough mixing of various cultures in which there are no sharp
boundaries between cultural communities. I t is within this context that the
respondent from ISNA argues that Islam is a constituting part of a Canadian hybrid
culture and that women's veiling must be seen as part of this cultural hybridity. It
must be noted, however, that ISNA does not employ the idea of hybridity in a way
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MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEILING 151
that would challenge the notion of a dichotomy between Islam and the West. Rather,
ISNA promotes the idea of cultural difference, giving a superior position to that which
is Islamic. Islamic veiling is thus viewed as a sign of women's moral virtue.
The moral superiority attributed to Islamic veiling finds its ideological origins in
the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Muslim Brotherhood, there are only two
choices open to humanity for constituting a society. The choices are ignorance and
Islam, and Islam is the one and only good choice. For Sayyid Qutb, the major
theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muslims can either claim that they have an
authentic civilization of their own, or they can copy ready-made models indiscrimi-
nately (Haddad 1983). The condition in which society has turned away from general
Islamic principles is described as a state of ignorance. Qutb promotes adherence to
Islamic texts as the means to constitute an Islamic road to a good society against the
expansion of Western ways. Muslims must be deliberate in their actions to separate
themselves from the cultural arrangements of Western society, thereby creating a
milieu where Islam is sovereign. ISNA bases its definition of a good society on Qutb's
ideas and attributes a central role to the veil in its shaping.
According to my respondents from the ISNA, the veil is the most visible element
in the moral separation of Muslim women from the lifestyle and sexual practices of
Western consumer culture that continually lure humans to sexual arousal. In the
following section of the paper, I analyze the ideological content of Islamic culture with
specific reference to women's gender ideology and veiling.
GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEILING
Veiling and the family define the moral parameters of acceptable behavior for
women. The dominant theme disseminated in the ISNA bimonthly publication,
Islamic Horizons, is that a good woman must wear the veil and take the family as her
primary responsibility. This theme is evident in all issues of Islamic Horizons
published between 1994 and 2000. Men's sphere of activity is to be in the public realm
of paid work, providing for the family. Women's primary sphere of activity is the home
and family. The educational system is to be directed toward preparing women for their
roles as mothers and wives. While women may follow careers in male-dominated fields
such as engineering, law, and medicine, special care must be given to a woman's
dignity, modesty and morality, and a woman's career should not hinder the realization
of her role as mother and wife. In conjunction with this differentiation between men's
and women's spheres of activity, ISNA views men as possessing superior mental
ability and emotional stability. The veil, therefore, becomes a symbol of women's
acceptance of men's superiority in society and in personal relationships.
Although both ISNA and CCMW refer to Islam as a religion that creates a
unique cultural milieu for Muslims in Canada, their different perspectives on Islamic
culture and the status of Muslim women clearly separate them. I will outline their
differences in order to provide a context for understanding an Islamic culture that
shapes distinct outlooks of Muslim women in Canada.
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152 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
I8NA AND WOMEN'S SUBORDINATION
Women, who are charged with bringing up new generations of Muslims, also
have the responsibility of learning and implementing Islamic cultural practices. For
example, the Second General Assembly of the World Islamic People's Leadership,
which convened in Cyprus in 1995, assigned a central role to women in constituting a
righteous community, with education as the key. Provided they are veiled, women are
encouraged to work as community activists outside their homes, to participate in local
chapters of the MSA and ISNA, and to take part in educational workshops or other
local projects.
Having a gender ideology strongly linked to female domesticity may produce an
image of veiled women as being subordinate to men. While this image has been
contested by scholars writing from the second perspective on veiling, discussed earlier,
ISNA does expect women to embrace their domesticity and accept men's superior
social position. These expectations may produce moral dilemmas for women, as their
personal choices are judged by others as to whether they are behaving within the
acceptable parameters of righteous behaviour. My research does not focus on how
women personally experience such dilemmas. However, women's own responses to an
organizationally sanctioned gender division of moral order should be examined in
future research.
The Muslim construction of a gender ideology for women around the veiling
practice is far from a homogeneous process. There are competing ideologies with
significant differences concerning Islamic cultural practices and women's position in
society. As argued by Kandiyoti (1988), women do not simply accept men's arbitrary
control, nor do they automatically struggle against it. Instead, they are more actively
engaged in either reaffirming their own domesticity or utilizing it in ways that cannot
be captured by an image of the veil as a symbol of women's subordination to men. My
concern in the following pages is with the ways in which women are actively involved
in constructing a gender ideology for themselves. To do so, I consider the example of
the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW).
THE EMERGENCE OF AN IMMIGRANT
MUSLIM WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION
The CCMW emerged in 1982. I t was established immediately after the Council
of Muslim Communities in Canada (CMCC) ceased to exist. I t is important to discuss
first the CMCC's interpretation of Muslim morality in order to see how one Islamic
position was pitted against another in relation to the veil. This will be followed by a
review of the power struggles between ISNA and the CMCC.
The CMCC was founded in 1972 as a Canada-wide organization designed to
represent the Canadian Muslim community before the Canadian state. I n this regard,
the CMCC was not unlike other immigrant organizations making claims for cultural
distinctivenees. Similar to ISNA, the CMCC also had organizational and finnnwl ties
with global Muslim organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Conference and
the Muslim World League.
There were important differences between the CMCC and ISNA. Unlike ISNA's
ideological opposition to Western ways, the CMCC sought to create an ideological
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MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEILING 163
connection between Islamic and Western cultures (CMCC 1980). The CMCC wanted to
be connected to non-Muslim communities within and outside Canada through a policy
of interfaith dialogue. The president of the CMCC was among the founders of an
interfaith organization called Islam and the West International, established in 1977 in
Venice, Italy. The goal of this organization is to mobilize the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to change anti-Western attitudes in
Muslim societies and create an ideological environment of mutual tolerance between
Western and Islamic cultures (National Commission Report 1980).
The CMCC's efforts to establish a link between Islamic and Western cultures
constituted one of the most contentious issues between the CMCC and ISNA. An ISNA
respondent clearly expressed ISNA's continuing disapproval of the CMCC during our
interview. This respondent pointed to the CMCC's "liberal" attitudes toward Western
values as a sign of its insincere commitment to Muslim values. Those attitudes
included the CMCC's position that the veil is a matter of personal choice and that the
sex-segregation of women is the cause of Muslim women's marginalization in society.
For the ISNA, as we have seen, the veil is a vital feature of Muslim morality. It serves
to protect women's modesty and men's honor. According to my respondent from ISNA,
the CMCC was not following Koranic principles because the wives and daughters of
CMCC members did not wear the veil and did not conform to the Islamic principle of
gender segregation. During our interview, I was told by the ISNA respondent of the
role that person played in bringing the CMCC to an end, by uniting its member
organizations around the issue of veiling against the CMCC administration.
During its approximately 10 years of existence, the CMCC lost a sizable number
of its affiliates to ISNA because of the general perception that it was too liberal. In
fact, by 1980, the largest Muslim community organizations, representing 90 per cent
of Muslims in Toronto, were no longer CMCC members (National Commission Report
1980). As its affiliates left, the CMCC lost funding support from its members and
became more financially dependent on global Muslim financial organizations such as
the Organization of Islamic Conference and the Muslim World League. In 1978,69 per
cent of its funding came from Saudi-based financial organizations (CMCC 1980).
ISNA, however, gained its support from members of the largest Muslim organizations
in Canada, thereby becoming much stronger financially from membership fees. This
strength translated to an increased capacity to bargain with global Muslim organiza-
tions for even greater financial support.
At its founding, the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) adopted the
now defunct CMCC's 1982 stand on women's choice about veiling. The CCMW aimed
to establish a different version of Muslim morality based on upholding the individual
human rights of women. After discussing the CCMWs perspective on women's human
rights, I will conclude my discussion of the Islamic configuration of a gender ideology
through veiling.
THE CCMW AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
The CCMW is a small umbrella organization connecting and coordinating the
activities of Muslim women across Canada. It has chapters across Canada, with offices
in various cities.
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154 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
Leadership
The CCMW is a women's organization founded by women. There are no men
involved in this organization. The work of the CCMW is done entirely by volunteers.
The executive branch consists of five elected women who hold regular meetings and
teleconferences. They produce a newsletter twice a year, organize annual conferences,
and publish position papers. The annual conferences are held in various Canadian
cities, with local Muslim women involved in the work of planning and hosting the
meetings (McDonough and Alvi 2002).
According to one respondent, the main responsibility of the CCMW is to create a
Canadian Muslim identity while helping Muslim women integrate into Canadian
society. The CCMW articulates women's Muslim identity not by reference to the
Islamic veiling practice and sex-segregation but by reference to the principles of
equality, individual rights, and freedoms. These principles are promoted through
newsletters, annual conferences, published books, and position papers, which examine
subjects as varied as sexuality, violence against women, gender equality, women and
politics, and the veil (CCMW 1998). The CCMW promotes a liberal vision of Islamic
culture for achieving Muslim identity in Canada.
National Contact
In contrast to ISNA's anti-Western attitude and defense of the divinely sanc-
tioned, eternal moral standards of Islam, the CCMW locates the veil within the
context of human rights and social justice. Veiling is viewed as a women's personal
and cultural choice, based on their pursuit of individual human rights.
In mobilizing Muslim women's rights as human rights, the CCMW established
ties with various feminist organizations and government agencies in Canada (CCMW
Annual Reports 1996-1999). In 1996, the CCMW became a member of the National
Organization for Immigrant and Visible Minority Women (NOIVM) and the National
Council of Women of Canada. It collaborates with the Department of Canadian
Heritage, the Status of Women Canada, Human Resources Development Canada, and
the Canadian Labour Force Development Board. It has developed close relationships
with the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, the Ontario Anti-Racism Secretariat, and
the Ontario Ministry of Education: Anti-Racism. The CCMW has sponsored an anti-
racism campaign initiated by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the
"Racism: Stop It" campaign of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The CCMW works with federal and provincial government agencies concerned
with improving the status of immigrant women in Canada. According to a respondent,
the CCMW dissociates veiling firom the Islamic normative gender order advocated by
ISNA, according to which women's domesticity, dependence, and submissiveness form
the main pillars of women's moral character. For the CCMW, the veil only adds a
Muslim flavor to Canadian hybrid culture. Instead of a primary focus on veiling, the
CCMW advocates women's increased autonomy, public participation, and equal rights.
My interviews and examination of CCMW publications and other written
materials do not suggest that the CCMW is interested in a total re-evaluation of
gender roles in the Muslim community. Rather, the CCMW's concern is with
countering ISNA's rigid position on women's veiling and segregation from the rest of
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MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEILING 156
society. The CCMW maintains that more pressing issues face Muslim women than
veiling; among these is the use of or threat of violence against women. There are no
hard data on violence against women among Muslims in Canada, but a CCMW
respondent noted that women's compliance to male authority and segregation into
domesticity often occurs in the context of threatened force. In an attempt to create a
greater awareness of violence against women, the CCMW has sponsored the publica-
tion of two handbooks: Claiming Our Rights: Islam, Muslim Women and Human
Rights (Qureshi 2000) and Reading Rights: A Woman's Guide to the Law in Canada
(Kurd 1999). These are in addition to internally circulated reference materials on
Canadian laws, "The Bill of Rights for Assaulted Women" and "An Assaulted Women's
Guide to the Law," and a list of shelters for assaulted women in Ontario (CCMW
Annual Reports 1996-1999). At its 1998 annual national conference, the CCMW also
organized a workshop on "Women's Issues in the Justice System" in Canada (CCMW
Annual Report 1998). For the CCMW the focus is on improving the social conditione of
Muslim women in Canada within the context of the Canadian social justice system.
For that purpose, it has contracted with several universities to conduct research on
the social status of Muslim women.
Financial Ti e
The CCMW receives grants from the Multicultural Directorate of the federal
government of Canada, which provides funding to ethnic associations and umbrella
organizations for projects that promote cultural identity, civic participation, and social
justice (Isajiw 1999). The CCMW is almost exclusively dependent on grants from the
federal government. Aside from a small amount of revenue generated from local fund-
raising activities, the CCMW requires government support for its existence. It has no
membership fees to finance its projects, nor does it receive any funding from trans-
national Muslim organizations. It consistently supports multiculturalism policies and
encourages greater awareness of citizenship rights for Muslim women in Canada.
International Contact
Although its main focus is the social status of women in Canada, the CCMWs
emphasis on Muslim women's human rights still depends on a political context
created by the transnational practices of Islamic feminist networks. The CCMW has
been involved with a variety of international women's organizations, including the
Sisterhood Is Global Institute, Friends Against Violence Against Women, Sisters in
Islam, the International Organization for Muslim Women, and the Muslim Women's
League (CCMW Annual Reports 1996-1999). Although some differences exist in the
aims and strategies of these organizations, their fundamental, shared concern is the
improved status of Muslim women throughout the world. Here, the issue is whether
the CCMWs focus on Muslim woman's human rights is addressed and shaped by
transnational organizations outside the territorial scope of the Canadian state.
The CCMWs position with regard to Muslim women in Canada has been shaped
by its transnational connections with the U.S.-based Muslim Women's League and
KARAMAH, Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, a U.S.-based
nongovernmental organization registered with the United Nations (UN). The
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156
SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS
influence of the Muslim Women's League is direct; its president writes the CCMWs
position papers. KARAMAH's influence is indirect through its links with the Muslim
Women's League. These organizations open a transnational context in which the
CCMW sets its own agenda for claiming the veiling practice as part of Muslim
women's human rights. The CCMW regards women as autonomous individuals. The
organization generates more gender-specific responses compared to ISNA's emphasis
on a unified community in which the veil plays a morally significant role.
The CCMWs position papers are almost exclusively concerned with legal and
political issues relating to gender relations, veiling, and the community. Thesepapers
challenge those who advocate a hierarchical structure of gender relations and a
subservient role for veiled women in Muslim societies. Another instructive example
comes from the CCMWs indirect involvement with KARAMAH. The founders, board
members, and associates of the Muslim Women's League are among the founding
members of KARAMAH. This organization regularly calls for the UN to take
significant steps to help empower Muslim women. Both the Muslim Women's League
and KARAMAH try to create a forum from which Muslim women can speak out in
their own voice against male oppression. They ask Muslim women who wear the veil
to stand up against the stereotype that depicts them as passive and oppressed. This
theme was also central to the workshop that KARAMAH organized at the Fourth UN
World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. The president of KARAMAH, in her
International Women's Day address at the United Nations in 1999, called for the UN
to take significant steps to help empower Muslim women. In this context, empower-
ment is seen to be a process, achieved through policies that insure the presence of
authenti c Muslim women's voices inspired by basic I slamic principles
(http://www.karamah.org).
CONCLUSION
In this paper I have presented "traditional" subordination and "modern"
empowerment perspectives on the Islamic veiling practices of Muslim women. My
analysis has been based on papers and publications of the Islamic Society of North
America and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and interviews with leaders of
those organizations. Further, I have suggested that these perspectives are not
necessarily mutually exclusive. My analysis of the relationship between two Muslim
immigrant organizations in Canada and their connections wi*b transnational groups
poses a paradigmatic challenge to the dichotomous model oi conducting sociological
research. I have illustrated that the differences between these organizations in then-
patterns of configuring gender ideology can be explained neither by reference to the
traditional cultural practices of Muslims, which imply the subordination of women,
nor by reference to progressive politics of human rights, which aim to empower women
as autonomous individuals. Both organizations reject passivity as a desirable trait for
Muslim women, and both advocate women's involvement in thedeployment of a given
set of moral standards. I argue that as long as we hold to rigid and reductionist
conceptual categories, which see women's relationships to structures of subordination
as either passive/traditional or active/modern, we will continue to overlook women's
own personal involvement in the mating of the normativeorder which regulates then-
behavior.
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MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA: GENDER IDEOLOGY AND WOMEN'S VEILING 157
I have shown that it is within the ideological space of global Muslim networks
that particular normative standards of Islam are created. It is also within this space
that women's relationships to the veiling practice are shaped. Through ISNA, men
mobilize older Islamic ideologies and trans-state organizations, such as the Muslim
Brotherhood and Middle East-based financial institutions, in their attempt to define
women's veiling as vital to the cultural framing of a Muslim community that is
morally superior to Western cultural arrangements. Through the CCMW, on the other
hand, women advocate a program of action Unking the veil to the universality of
human rights within the Canadian hybrid culture. This involves a complementary
engagement with Western cultural ways and is sustained by transnationally active
Muslim' women's organizations and UN-based Muslim nongovernmental organi-
zations. For both ISNA and CCMW, the diffusion of a particular gender ideology
concerning women's appropriate place in society moves from the analytically global
terrain of Muslim organizations to the local space of the immigrant community.
This interplay between the global and the local has important implications for
social theory. While the local-national political context remains relevant for the
shaping of immigrant cultures and the incorporation of immigrants as culturally
diverse groups, there are emergent patterns in cultural dynamics of gender practices.
Local cultures are increasingly affected by global processes and cannot be explained by
reference to traditional cultures. For example, the CCMWs appeal to human rights
reproduces a set of normative standards for Muslim women in Canada through which
women's veiling enters into global Muslim and feminist networks.
An adequate sociological analysis should take into account the global con-
figuration of locally experienced gender ideology by considering the linkages between
global and local dynamics. Future research should also look at women's own active
involvement in the global shaping of emergent cultural structures. In raising these
issues, I am calling attention to a study of conflicting ideological contexts that may
simultaneously constrain possibilities and create opportunities for women of diverse
backgrounds. My research suggests that such contexts can only be effectively studied
by moving a research orientation beyond the classic sociological dichotomy model of
modern versus traditional.
Yildiz Atasoy is an aaeiatant professor of sociology at Simon Frser University. Her research interests are the
global political economy, political sociology, social change and development, sociology of gender relations, and
transnational Islamist ponttes.
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