Islamists exploited a transport problem to coerce women into wearing the veil

Evidence

For instance, students had to deal on a daily basis with an inefficient and overcrowded transportation system. For women, this was particularly difficult, as they were often harassed on crowded buses. The “Islamic” solution was to transport women in minibuses brought explicitly for this purpose. Once this alternative mode of transport became popular, however, the Islamists restricted this service to only those women who wore the veil. The privatization of transport was thus a way of responding “Islamically” to a social problem, and of placing women students in a situation where they had few choices but to adopt the veil. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 332

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The veil’s meaning reversed from resistance symbol to revolutionary instrument; Algerian women who had abandoned the veil re-donned it in response to forced unveiling; Moroccan women adopted black veils as a combat symbol of mourning, not tradition — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 241 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Veiled Saudi women could only lift their veils behind car curtains #exemplifies (0.45) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 76