This week’s issue of SSRN’s LSN Law & Religion eJournal includes:
“Veiled Muslim Women: Challenging Patriarchy in the Legal System” by Zainab Ramahi
This essay is an attempt to abandon the white male gaze of the Canadian legal system and investigate what legal projections of veiled Muslim women might reveal about the operation of patriarchy in the western legal system. Specifically, the author focuses on the case of Zunera Ishaq as she fought for the right to wear her niqāb at her Oath of Citizenship ceremony and that of N.S. as she fought for the right to wear her niqāb while testifying against two family members accused of having sexually assaulted her as a child. The author provides legal analysis of the cases, discusses the social and political context within which the cases took place, and examines the consequences that derive from the legal system’s failure to accommodate Muslim women.