The Veil Beyond Choice: Power, History, and Why Nonconformity Matters

How 1,300 years of veiling--from Iran to a Western diaspora--reflect identity, resistance, and public power.

In much of the Western imagination, the veil has become more than fabric. It’s a buzzword, a symbol onto which societies project shorthand anxieties about otherness, gender, power, modernity, and freedom.

For decades public debates have unfolded through a singular worldview: a secular, liberal lens that augments the veil’s complex meanings into a deceptively simple question: Is it a symbol of oppression or one of empowered choice?

This binary, however, is not only reductive. It reveals a deeper discomfort with nonconformity itself.

When a woman veils, or refuses to, she can challenge the norms of whatever social order she inhabits. In Muslim-majority societies like Iran, unveiling can mark dissent against religious mandates. In the secular West, veiling can signal noncompliance with liberal, individualist ideals. Either way, the real “threat” often lies not in the cloth itself, but as a perceived refusal to assimilate.

A 1,300-Year History of Meaning-Making

Veiling in Iran long predates Islam. As anthropologist Homa Hoodfar and historians like Afsaneh Najmabadi have shown, elite women in ancient Mesopotamia and Persia wore veils and similar coverings as symbols of class, modesty, and respectability.

When Islam spread into the region in the 7th century (after 651 CE), it absorbed and re-interpreted these pre-existing customs. Veiling became associated not only with modesty, but also with urban identity, moral character, and social belonging. Yet, it remained flexible. Styles varied across dynasties, regions, and social classes. Many rural and working-class women didn’t veil regularly because daily labor made rigid dress codes impractical.

Women, as they had for centuries, exercised flexibility and agency in how--and whether--they veiled. It was never a simple matter of obedience or defiance.

Class, Education, and Geography: The Social Fabric of Veiling

One of the most overlooked realities about veiling practices, especially in Iran, is how class, education, and urban-rural divides shape not just whether women veil, but how.

In the early 2000s, a friend visiting Iran observed a striking contrast: in affluent north Tehran neighborhoods, women wore light, flimsy headscarves sometimes consisting of sheer or thin strips of fabric barely covering the hair. These styles often signaled higher education, cosmopolitan identity, and subtle— but visual—resistance to state mandates. Fashion-conscious veiling became both a compromise and a quiet protest.

In rural provinces, by contrast, women tended to adopt more robust, modest hijabs or the full-length black chador, rooted in traditional norms and tighter community expectations. Rural areas with lower access to higher education or more conservative religious cultures often maintained stricter standards around modesty.

This rural-urban distinction is nothing new. Hoodfar and other scholars note that working-class women and those in smaller towns often veil differently from their wealthier, more educated urban counterparts. The hijab becomes not just a religious or political statement, but also a reflection of social capital, geographic belonging, and personal strategy.

Getting on the Same Page: Veiling Terms

Hijab Literally means "cover" or "barrier." In common use, this refers to modest dress and most often to a scarf covering the hair and neck, leaving the face visible.

Chador A full-body cloak worn mostly in Iran. It drapes over the head and body, often black or darkly colored, and typically leaves the face exposed.

Niqab Covers the face, leaving only the eyes visible, worn in some Arab countries and by more conservative religious groups.

Burqa Covers the entire body and face, often with a mesh screen over the eyes. Mostly associated with Afghanistan.

Dupatta A long scarf worn across the shoulders or head, common in South Asia. Sometimes used in place of or in addition to a hijab.

Note: While the chador is mostly unique to Iran, other regions have their own coverings. The abaya (a loose, open cloak) is common in the Gulf States like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In North Africa, garments such as the haik (Algeria) and the melhfa (Mauritania) serve similar modesty functions but differ in style and cultural meaning.

Visibility and Selective Obsession: Why Some Coverings Get Scrutinized and Others Don’t

It’s telling that garments like the chador, niqab, and burqa receive intense political and media focus in Western discourse, while other cultural dress, religious symbols, or bodily expressions attract far less scrutiny. Western societies often fixate on visible nonconforming practices, especially those associated with Islam or perceived as "foreign." This selective obsession speaks to broader anxieties about cultural change, immigration, and the boundaries of national identity.

By contrast, modest or religious dress in other traditions (such as Catholic head coverings, Jewish tichel scarves, or even corporate dress codes) rarely becomes a public battleground. Why? Because they either align with dominant cultural norms or have been gradually assimilated into the social fabric. For example, the Catholic nun’s habit, once a subject of suspicion, is now widely accepted as a respected religious uniform rather than a symbol of nonconformity. Their wearers are typically seen as conforming insiders rather than cultural “others.”

Muslim veiling, particularly in its more visible or unfamiliar forms, becomes a contemporary and symbolic proxy for larger Western-centered debates about integration, modernity, and social control. This disproportionate focus reveals not just biases about gender and religion, but deeper discomfort with nonconformity itself.

In short, the scrutiny isn't really about fabric. It’s about who is acknowledged and whose expressions are deemed acceptable in the public eye.

State Power and the Weaponization of the Veil

By the early 20th century, Iran was grappling with significant social, economic, and political decline. The Qajar dynasty had presided over years of weak governance, increasing foreign intervention by Britain and Russia, and widespread dissatisfaction among various social groups. Following the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911), attempts at political reform were undermined by instability and continued outside interference.

Amid this climate of upheaval, Reza Khan, a military officer, rose to prominence. In 1921, he led a coup that diminished the Qajar dynasty’s remaining power. By 1925, he formally established the Pahlavi dynasty, becoming Reza Shah.

Determined to modernize and centralize Iran, he pursued aggressive reforms targeting what he viewed as obstacles to national progress, including religious dress codes.

In the 20th century, Iran’s monarchy and later its revolutionary leadership used the veil as a political chess piece.

1936: Reza Shah banned the veil to enforce “modernity.” Police forcibly unveiled women in public. Many women chose to stay home rather than comply.

Reza Shah’s successor and son, Mohammad Reza Shah, became increasingly intolerant of dissent during his rule. Public criticism of his administration was met with censorship, surveillance, and forced disappearances. As political freedoms eroded, frustration mounted across Iranian society.

Many came to believe that only the Muslim religious leaders had the organizational strength and moral authority to unite the population and challenge the Pahlavi dynasty’s grip on power. This perception ultimately helped galvanize the broad-based revolutionary movement in the late 1970s.

1979: The Islamic Republic flipped the script. As an outward show of religious support (and legitimizing the new regime) leadership mandated the hijab, positioning it as a rejection of Western cultural imperialism.

In both cases, the state dictated how women should appear in public. Women were punished; first for veiling, then for unveiling. The irony practically wrote itself.

But Iranian women didn’t just accept these swings of the pendulum. They resisted creatively: pushing hijabs back, adopting bold colors, and later joining micro-resistance movements like White Wednesdays. Even compliance became a canvas for negotiation.

Nonconformity vs. Assimilation: The Real Stakes

At the heart of veiling debates—whether in Tehran, Paris, or Toronto—is not just gender. It’s the tension between deeply personal, spiritual expressions of identity and both the insider a d outsider pressures that recast these choices as state acts.

Unveiled women in Iran challenge theocratic control. Veiled women in the West defy secular assimilation. Both unsettle the dominant order. That’s why they provoke such obsessive scrutiny.

And these tensions don’t stop at Iran’s borders.

Across Europe, North America, and Australia, veiled women from a multitude of cultural backgrounds: Persians, Arabs, South Asians, North Africans, and Southeast Asians negotiate similar struggles.

In France, the laïcité (secularism) model has fueled bans on hijabs in public schools. In Canada, debates around religious dress regularly flare up in Quebec. In the U.S., where freedom of religion is constitutionally protected, veiled women still face daily micro-aggressions and assumptions about victimhood or radicalism.

For migrants and diaspora communities, the veil can become a lightning rod for assimilation anxieties. Some adopt Western dress as a survival strategy or form of social mobility. Others choose to veil more visibly—a deliberate, even defiant, assertion of identity and belonging on their own terms.

As Hoodfar and others argue, veiling and unveiling are often less about private belief than about public legibility. In cultural studies and anthropology, legibility refers to how easily a person’s identity, beliefs, or social meaning can be “read” or interpreted by others in public life. The term was popularized by political scientist James C. Scott in his work Seeing Like a State, where he explored how governments and institutions seek to make people and behaviors easily categorized and controlled.

In veiling debates, public legibility becomes a way to describe how societies expect individuals, especially women, to display identity markers that align with dominant cultural norms. Those who conform are easily “legible;” those who do not become objects of scrutiny, suspicion, or erasure. States, communities, and even families seek to read women’s bodies as compliant or rebellious, modern or traditional, liberated or oppressed.

But real life refuses such clean categories.

Agency That Doesn’t Shout: Western Assertions of Feminism

A major blind spot in Western feminism is the assumption that displays of agency must always roar loud, defiant, and individualist. But as anthropologist Saba Mahmood found, many Muslim women find agency within religious practice, not outside it. Egypt’s piety movements, for example, empowered women to cultivate moral autonomy and spiritual authority.

Compliance and empowerment were not mutually exclusive.

Agency, in short, can whisper as well as shout.

The Politics of Looking (and Misreading)

Western commentary often treats veiling as a barometer of women’s rights. Politicians and pundits turn headscarves into shorthand for either “victimhood” or “resistance.” But these projections often tell us more about the viewer’s anxieties than the wearer’s realities.

The veil is not a mirror for Western fears about patriarchy, terrorism, or immigration. It is a lived, negotiated practice shaped by history, class, belief, and—yes—defiance.

Listening Instead of Looking

So, what would it mean to abandon the old binary--choice vs. oppression?

It would mean paying attention to how women actually use veiling to navigate complex cultural terrains. It would mean seeing veiling not as a static relic of tradition but as a dynamic, evolving social practice.

Above all, it would mean respecting that nonconformity can take many forms. Sometimes it looks like removing the veil. Sometimes it looks like putting it on.

Either way, the real power lies in choosing for oneself--even when those choices resist tidy explanations.

The veil isn’t just fabric. It’s history. It’s negotiation. It’s the choice of being seen or choosing not to be.