French unveiling campaigns aimed to demoralize Algerian men, not liberate women

Evidence

But there is also in the European the crystallization of an aggressiveness, the strain of a kind of violence before the Algerian woman. Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is baring her secret, breaking her resistance, making her available for adventure. Hiding the face is also disguising a secret; it is also creating a world of mystery, of the hidden. In a confused way, the European experiences his relation with the Algerian woman at a highly complex level. There is in it the will to bring this woman within his reach, to make her a possible object of possession. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 152 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In Algeria, sociologist Marnia Lazreg points out that poor and working class Algerian Muslim women were coerced to be part of a well-choreographed event in 1958 where their veils were publicly removed by French women in a purported demonstration of their liberation. In response, many women who did not previously veil adopted the veil as a symbol of protest. From that point on, the veil was no longer an article of religious clothing but became a “strategic devise, under which and out of which women and men alike carried out paramilitary action.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 302 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: French unveiling campaigns functioned as gendered warfare to demoralize Algerian men. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 291; Anti-veil campaigns served to weaken Algerian national liberation movements; The European’s impulse to unveil Algerian women is an act of possession — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 152 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Anti-veil campaigns served to weaken Algerian national liberation movements #corroborates (0.92)
• The European’s impulse to unveil Algerian women is an act of possession #corroborates (0.85) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 152
• France’s 1958 forced unveiling drove Algerian women to adopt the veil as protest #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 302