Presentation

This book explores the experiences of a group of women in Canada who are small in numbers yet have garnered much legal, political, and social attention in recent years. Muslim women who cover their faces with a veil arouse visceral reactions in people who, despite exposure to diverse ways of living through multicultural urban environments, seem to have fixed notions of how women ought to live the good life. Politicians have denounced the niqab for a variety of reasons, calling on Muslim women to simply take it off. Where such persuasion has failed, legislative attempts have been made, some successfully, to prohibit women from covering their faces in certain contexts, including courtrooms, citizenship ceremonies, public spaces, and while working in the public service. This book analyzes niqab bans in Canada while also drawing on interviews with niqab-wearing women to reveal their complex identities and multiple motivations for dressing in this way.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Meet Your Neighbours

Chapter One: Listening to the Voices of Niqab‑Wearing Women

Chapter Two: Veiled Objections: Facing Public Opposition to the Niqab

Chapter Three: What’s in a Face? Demeanour Evidence and Niqab-Wearing Women in Courtrooms

Chapter Four: Piercing the Veil of Ignorance: Niqab-Wearing Women and the Adjudication of Sexual Assault

Chapter Five: In Your Face: Legislative Prohibitions of the Niqab

Chapter Six: Niqab-Wearing Women’s Resistance in the Face of Oppressive Governmental Tactics and Popular Beliefs

Conclusion: Towards a New Future

Notes

Index

About the Author