ELDAR MAMEDOV
As Turkey is struggling to lift the headscarf ban on university campuses, Islamic conservatives and some of their liberal allies are already calling for the end of all restrictions on the use of the garb in the public sphere, especially in the workplace.
It sounds like an impeccably liberal demand: after all, if adult women are to be allowed to wear headscarves at universities, on what basis should they be denied the same right when they pursue their careers after graduation? And yet, there are concerns that setting the headscarf totally free would lead not to the liberalization of Turkish society but to its further Islamization, an outcome that would be greatly detrimental to a core liberal principle of gender equality.
One of the reasons for such concerns has to do with the political context in Turkey, in which the headscarf debate is raging on. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, the secularist Republican People’s Party, or CHP, in a major departure from the line of his predecessor Deniz Baykal, declared that the CHP was ready to solve the headscarf problem. To demonstrate the seriousness of his intentions, he entrusted respected liberal-minded academic Sencer Ayata with the task of coming out with concrete proposals to that end. However, instead of seizing on the opportunity to solve this highly divisive issue, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has chosen to keep using and abusing the headscarf in his tug of war with the secularists. Erdoğan lashed out at women who do not cover themselves for supposedly failing to empathize with those who do, willfully ignoring those uncovered women who were very vocal in defending the rights of pious women. The ruling Islam-rooted Justice and Development Party, or AKP’s, single-minded focus on headscarf freedom stands in sharp contrast to its neglect of other aspects of democratization, such as the rights of Kurds and Alevis. There is a growing realization that the AKP understands freedom as being chiefly about religious freedom. If so, the promotion of the headscarf should be seen not as a liberalizing move, but as part of ongoing efforts to nudge Turkish society in a more conservative, religiously observant direction.
In this context, the potential effects of the spread of the headscarf in the workplace should not be underestimated. Currently their use is banned for public servants, but it is possible that in the future some restrictions will be relaxed. On the one hand, this will make public institutions more representative. On the other, in the context of the religious revivalism in Turkey it risks introducing conservative religious values and norms in the workplace at the expense of the principles of merit and competence. This would have especially pernicious effects on the situation of women. As American-Algerian sociologist Marnia Lazreg observes in her book “Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women” (it should be urgently translated into Turkish!), the spread of the headscarf in the workplace in countries like Algeria and Egypt has gradually led to sexually segregated delivery of services. She followed the trajectories of some professional women who took up the headscarf, succumbing to the wave of the newly assertive religiosity in these countries. She noticed that from that point on they ceased to be perceived by their male colleagues as competent workers and competitors for promotion. They have been relegated to the role of invisible helpers at best.
It is, of course, possible that Turkey will prove to be different. Unlike in Algeria and Egypt, Turkey´s conservative Muslims have largely internalized the benefits of democracy and global markets. However, the softening of their hard-edged cultural and social conservatism is proceeding at a much slower pace. Therefore, one of the arguments advanced by those who favor the total and immediate liberalization of the headscarf is that, in the words of The Economist magazine, the headscarf provides a stamp of virtue that could convince conservative men to allow women to work outside home. But it is somewhat perverse to argue for female advancement while at the same time uncritically accepting the intrusive regulation of women’s bodies. Besides, as any Muslim woman would know, the headscarf is not only about the outer appearance, it also subjects a woman to a very rigid code of conduct. Would a headscarf-wearing woman be allowed to successfully compete in the workplace if that involves mixing with men, working long hours, traveling, attending receptions and other standard requirements of modern professional life? The empirical evidence suggests the answer is no. There are many success stories of professional women in the secular milieu, even though discrimination persists also there, but no corresponding stories in the Islamist camp. For example, the headscarf was never banned in conservative businesses. But women, with headscarf or without, are almost totally invisible there. Therefore, a strong case exists to limit the influence of religious values and interests in the workplace, be it in public institutions or private companies. Strict equality should prevail in all cases. But the headscarf, as Lazreg notes, symbolically diminishes the formal equality enjoyed by both genders in the workplace. It perpetuates the culture of gender inequality.
Questioning the headscarf is not the same as advocating bans, or barring headscarf-wearing women from work. Bans are undemocratic and usually counterproductive. It is about coaxing women out of this highly questionable and harmful practice that hampers their social advancement and prevents them from enjoying their humanity fully, of which their bodies are an inextricable part. Eschewing the headscarf is not a strike against Islam or Turkish culture. It is about a woman’s desire for progress, freedom and achievement.
*Eldar Mamedov is an international-relations analyst based in Brussels.
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