CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Alouazen, Sanae |
|---|---|
| Title | Sexual Politics, Race And The North African Other In France: The Beurette And The Veiled Woman (1980-2004) |
| Summary | In this thesis, I survey the history and evolution of dominant representations of French-Maghrebi women primarily in printed media, selected cases of public political debates and hegemonic feminist discourses from the 1980’s until 2004. I observe two dominant trends in the construction of the image of French-Maghrebi women: the beurette and the Muslim woman who wears the Hijab. First, I follow the emergence of the beurette, which was commonly used to refer to the second-generation French woman of North African descent in the 1980’s. I argue that a contradictory stance was assigned to this figure. She was construed as a victim of North African-Muslim patriarchy, a retrograde gender system and an oppressive domestic life. At the same time, she was depicted as a heroine who can benefit from assimilating into French society and who could effectively lead to the elevation of her community into the modern, secular and gender progressive French society. Second, I follow the evolution of this representational figure in feminist discourses during the early 2000’s by using the self-defined secular Maghrebi feminist collective “Ni Putes Ni Soumises” as a case-study. I demonstrate that the circulation of the highly mediatized and celebrated figures of the collective were mobilized for racist ends by hegemonic feminism and the state apparatus alike. Thirdly, I trace the representation of French-Muslim women who wear the Hijab in the public media. Through the three controversial headscarf affairs in 1989, 1994 and 2003 which sought to discuss the right of young Muslim girls to wear the Hijab in public schools, I argue that the veiled woman was portrayed as a threatening figure that transgresses and offends the foundations of the French republic. I demonstrate that the two ambivalent figures of French-Maghrebi women loomed large in French public and political lives and were mobilized against each other. I assert that the production, circulation and reception of these representational figures constitute a pivotal site in understanding the French construction of a Muslim difference with reference to gendered and sexualized repertoires. I also demonstrate the hyper-visibility of this gendered-racialized other can be a pivotal site to unravel the history of French republicanism as a process operating on dynamics of exclusion and othering of a post-colonial immigrant community. |
| Supervisor | Nadia Jones-Gailani |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/alouazen_sanae.pdf |
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