Unveiled Algerian women unsettled European women by excelling at Western femininity

Evidence

Ignorant or feigning to be ignorant of these new forms of conduct, French colonialism, on the occasion of May 13th, reenacted its old campaign of Westernizing the Algerian woman. Servants under the threat of being fired, poor women dragged from their homes, prostitutes, were brought to the public square and symbolically unveiled to the cries of “Vive l’Algérie française!” Before this new offensive old reactions reappeared. Spontaneously and without being told, the Algerian women who had long since dropped the veil once again donned the haïk, thus affirming that it was not true that woman liberated herself at the invitation of France and of General de Gaulle. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 212 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

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)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European doctors in Algeria saw unveiled women as disappointingly ordinary — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 155; European women felt economically and socially threatened by assimilated Algerian women — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 246; The European’s impulse to unveil Algerian women is an act of possession — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 152 (+4 more)

Related

• The European’s impulse to unveil Algerian women is an act of possession (similarity 0.91)
• French unveiling campaigns aimed to demoralize Algerian men, not liberate women (similarity 0.90)
• Forced public unveiling drove Algerian women back to the veil in solidarity (similarity 0.90)
• European women felt economically and socially threatened by assimilated Algerian women (similarity 0.90)
• European observers read the veil as concealing beauty that should be forcibly exhibited (similarity 0.88)
• Algerian women’s veiling practices changed without being part of the revolution’s program (similarity 0.88)
• Algerian women who had abandoned the veil re-donned it in response to forced unveiling (similarity 0.86)
• European doctors in Algeria saw unveiled women as disappointingly ordinary (similarity 0.85)
• Colonial confinement degraded Algerian women’s bodily mobility and assurance (similarity 0.85)
• In European dreams rape of an Algerian woman is preceded by tearing the veil. (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial conquest history planted rape fantasies in European dreams about Algerian women (similarity 0.83)
• Forced unveiling in colonial Algeria backfired by politicizing the veil (similarity 0.83)
• Algerian women’s seclusion made them core vehicles of anti-colonial resistance (similarity 0.83)
• French unveiling campaigns functioned as gendered warfare to demoralize Algerian men. (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial unveiling campaigns functioned as psychological warfare against colonized men (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Forced public unveiling drove Algerian women back to the veil in solidarity #contradicts (0.80) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 212
• The European’s impulse to unveil Algerian women is an act of possession #corroborates (0.70) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 152
• Colonial prejudices sexualized and dehumanized the Algerian Muslim #corroborates (0.65)
• Orientalist paintings of Muslim women reveal European male fantasy more than real conditions. #corroborates (0.50) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 199