Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - To veil or not to veil?
T2 - Islamic dress and control over women’s public appearance
AU - Pirmasari, D.A.
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Gender Studies on 31/03/2021, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/09589236.2020.1863199
PY - 2021/3/31
Y1 - 2021/3/31
N2 - Women’s public appearance is subject to ongoing debates. In many parts of the world, women have been forced to cover their body, or to uncover it, due to incompatibility with local, cultural or religious values. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between August 2016 and February 2017 in Aceh, Indonesia; the only province with a special autonomous right to implement Islamic law. This paper aims to look at how Aceh’s shari’a regulates people’s public appearance. The research found that Aceh’s shari’a regulates women more than men and that the law has homogenized the interpretation of religious texts, which is monopolized by the government. The law endorses a unitary standard of women, into one standard model of femininity; particularly regarding their dress. Through the law, the government controls women’s bodies in public and imposes cultural uniformity onto them. This paper argues that the practice of Islamic law in Aceh disseminates a narrative of western hegemony through colonial legacies and stereotypes, in an Islamic culture that is male-dominated and in which women are subjugated. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
AB - Women’s public appearance is subject to ongoing debates. In many parts of the world, women have been forced to cover their body, or to uncover it, due to incompatibility with local, cultural or religious values. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between August 2016 and February 2017 in Aceh, Indonesia; the only province with a special autonomous right to implement Islamic law. This paper aims to look at how Aceh’s shari’a regulates people’s public appearance. The research found that Aceh’s shari’a regulates women more than men and that the law has homogenized the interpretation of religious texts, which is monopolized by the government. The law endorses a unitary standard of women, into one standard model of femininity; particularly regarding their dress. Through the law, the government controls women’s bodies in public and imposes cultural uniformity onto them. This paper argues that the practice of Islamic law in Aceh disseminates a narrative of western hegemony through colonial legacies and stereotypes, in an Islamic culture that is male-dominated and in which women are subjugated. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
KW - control
KW - femininity
KW - public appearance
KW - Shari’a
KW - western hegemony
KW - women’s bodies
KW - Aceh
KW - adult
KW - article
KW - controlled study
KW - female
KW - field work
KW - government
KW - human
KW - male
KW - narrative
KW - stereotypy
U2 - 10.1080/09589236.2020.1863199
DO - 10.1080/09589236.2020.1863199
M3 - Journal article
VL - 30
JO - Journal of Gender Studies
JF - Journal of Gender Studies
SN - 0958-9236
IS - 2
ER -