The French state is committing legalised sexual assault in public, in broad daylight, and calling it freedom.
What’s happening in France now is so disgusting I’m almost lost for words. But for anyone who is shocked at this behaviour, who wonders how the French state can do this and still call itself liberal, indeed commit these acts of assault in the name of liberalism, I would respond that the French authorities are being truer than ever to the European liberal legacy, which was always racist, always tied up with the colonial project, always demeaning, dehumanising, sexist, classist. But even so - call me naive, but I did not expect to see in the 21st century French policemen forcing women to strip in public, under the threat of legal punishment simply for wearing clothes that cover the whole body.
This afternoon I went and sat on the beach for an hour (in the south of England). Wearing an ankle-length dress (underneath which one could potentially hide several firearms or explosive devices), a long-sleeved cardigan, and a (tacky) sunhat (with a kangaroo on it). It was around 30 degrees and sunny. When it’s sunny and hot, I prefer to cover up, as I don’t want to get burnt. But also, I’m not comfortable showing a lot of bare skin in public anymore. Maybe it’s part of getting older, I don’t know. I just prefer my arms and legs to be covered. That’s a personal, private choice. As it should be. I don’t give a fuck about the arms and legs of other people. I couldn’t care less if everyone else on that beach was completely naked. As I sat there, I thought about what the French authorities are doing to women. Well, not all women. Women who do not fit the Western norm, that is the always sexualised woman who dresses to please the male gaze. So liberal. So empowered. Anyway, it was difficult not to think about this, when sitting there, fully clothed, surrounded by people with very varying degrees of clothing: some with more clothes than me, some with only a few sewn-together triangles of fabric. I tried to imagine male officers patrolling the beach, stopping to tell some women to take their clothes off. Telling me to take my clothes off. There is a strong and immediate association here with prisons and labour camps and concentration camps, with total power over the bodies of others. I shuddered and felt cold, despite the sweltering heat.
And yet, had I been sitting on a beach in the south of France, in an ankle-length skirt, long-sleeved cardigan, and an old sunhat from the Grampians national park in Australia, I would, presumably, not have been forced to strip. Even if I’d been wearing a hooded wetsuit I probably wouldn’t have been forced to strip, unless the wetsuit was mistaken for a burkini. Which of course would never happen since there is no similarity between the two whatsoever.
Q: What’s the difference between a wetsuit and a burkini? A: European racism.
As others have pointed out, this is about both race and class, as well as gender. All are significant factors here, which need to be identified, critiqued, called out. But it’s important to remember how central sex is to all three, in many ways it’s what ties them together. The European neocolonial project is a project of modernity, with biologised sex and sexualisation of bodies at its core. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the biggest threat to modern patriarchy is not the overly sexual woman (the wild exotic other, or the promiscuous madwoman, or the whore) but the woman who does not fit the stereotype for what is “female” and sexual in a Western heteronormative context. It follows from this that the exotic other is not so exotic if the white European male cannot see her body at all. The female body completely covered is not sexualised enough, but conversely neither is the female body completely naked - or rather, the latter is the wrong kind of sexual: ungroomed, offensive, unapologetic, much like female body hair is offensive and unapologetic. That is a huge factor in the policing of women’s clothing, whether to cover them up or undress them - the aim is for the female body to always suggest the promise of sex to the heterosexual male.
Earlier today, before sitting on the beach fully dressed, I was walking down the street fully dressed (minus tacky sunhat), and passed two men walking in the opposite direction, both of whom were shirtless. And I thought (as I always do when I see men with bare upper bodies in public), if I took off my top and bra and walked down the street, best case scenario people would stare and laugh and men would shout things after me, worst case scenario I’d get sectioned or arrested.
This is not the most coherent or eloquent post, just the thoughts that emerged today. Seeing the images of male French police officers standing over a woman, forcing her to undress or face legal ramifications, it’s hard to express, to put words to, all the things I’m feeling and thinking. This is an overt and extreme manifestation of the violence and oppression always present in the white, European, male, Christian colonial project. Calling it hypocritical is not just the understatement of the century, it’s also untrue. It’s not hypocritical, it’s consistent with the ideology it represents. And it is disgusting, horrific, offensive.
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