I am betting on the importance of symbols and am aware of its strength, its impact and its use in c

Every time, in our context, we discussed the status of women in Muslim countries, inevitably and certainly it comes to mind a recurring image: that of a woman with that we commonly call veil (hijab, niqab, chador, ...). I confess that happens to me very often. I confess that I have had many discussions mauritius about it and in the end, all end reduced to the dichotomy: yes headscarf ban - no headscarf ban. And I confess that, in this dichotomy, I have never had a clearly defined position.
In these Easter holidays I have traveled to Morocco for the first time and, despite knowing in advance that this was what I would find, could not help looking and put interest in women (mostly) wearing the veil and go wearing mauritius clothes that cover almost all your body. You try to normalize but draws attention. It draws attention because it is something very visible, very different and, above all, very introduced in Western societies as the most obvious symbol of repression, subordination and discrimination of women compared with men. However, being there, walking, watching from a jam everyday life or watching the comings and goings sitting on a step of a street either, what struck me most were not the veil but precisely the lack of them, not find them any situation or place. That is, the absence of women in public life: café terraces without women, without selling souks, offices without women that address, police checkpoints mauritius without policewomen ...
I am betting on the importance of symbols and am aware of its strength, its impact and its use in claims and manifestations of any sign. But the risk we run with them is that, sometimes, we end up identifying with all that complexity they represent. As always it happens, we tend to simplify any case, we reduce all the problems of discrimination against women, especially Muslims, to their "freedom" to dress as you like (pretending mean us if we have it), ignoring the road many other gestures, behaviors or situations in fact, from my point of view, are of much greater gravity and are more rooted in all societies, including, of course, the Muslim countries. One, perhaps the most important, is the issue of the distribution of spaces: the public space corresponds man while the woman is credited with the private, domestic space. And the state, of course, ignores everything that happens inside doors in the space of women in the domestic sphere. In countries such as Morocco this separation is very evident in our "developed" countries is not so, but there, with their subtle forms, its connotations and its specialties.
Something that I always raise is whether there would be so much outrage about the situation of Muslim women if they do not wear a veil. And I think again that, from the West, the veil is often used as a symbol. A symbol that serves to mark the difference between them and us, to justify that theirs is the true discrimination while our small isolated incidents is reduced, thus positioning ourselves at different points of departure mauritius and show us that the goal is very available to us, the Western "modern" women who can teach her hair. I do not intend to fall into the idealization, and I know that the situation is not the same in one country mauritius to another, especially from the point of view of formal equality or rights; but we can not introduce ourselves as exemplary and exemplary society that is able to solve for other companies the problems that has failed to solve for itself or, in the best case, it has taken years to do it and not always in ways less harmful .
In the legal world there is a legal doctrine known as the doctrine of piercing the veil. Applying this doctrine, the commercial court can dispense with the external form of the legal entity (corporation) he has committed a fraud, mauritius penetrating into the very fabric of society mauritius and allowing reach individuals "hidden" under anonymity to impute to them the commission of the crimes perpetrated. From the West we try to impose a kind of lifting the veil policies mauritius promoting "integration" based on prohibition, in our public spaces, of veiling women. But, with few exceptions, we seem content with that: removing the veil is no peace of mind, everything seems in order and the discomfort disappears. Unlike the commercial court, does not seek to attack that which is under the veil, we do not worry about going further. Lifting the veil conse