Gender, Veiling, and Class: Symbolic Boundaries and Veiling in Bengali Muslim Families.
In Bangladesh, due to economic growth and greater access to education, more girls and women are veiling, even as they are also more likely to be in school or employed. Some scholars identify this trend of women appearing both "more modern" and "more religious" as paradoxical. On the basis of 114 in-...
| Published in: | Gender & Society Vol. 36; no. 3; pp. 397 - 422 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Sage Publications Inc.
Jun2022
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=156443294&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 156443294 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 08912432 GES jtl: Gender & Society issn: 08912432 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jun2022 vid: 36 iid: 3 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 156443294 10.1177/08912432221089631 ppf: 397 ppct: 25 formats: tig: atl: Gender, Veiling, and Class: Symbolic Boundaries and Veiling in Bengali Muslim Families. aug: au: Sabur, MD Abdus affil: University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA North South University, Bangladesh su: Bangladesh Muslim women Femininity Middle class families Conspicuous consumption Consumption (Economics) Rural families Gender sug: subj: Muslim women Femininity Middle class families Conspicuous consumption Consumption (Economics) Rural families Gender Bangladesh keyword: Bengali Muslim families doing difference doing gender middle-class symbolic boundary veiling Bengali Muslim families doing difference doing gender middle-class symbolic boundary veiling ab: In Bangladesh, due to economic growth and greater access to education, more girls and women are veiling, even as they are also more likely to be in school or employed. Some scholars identify this trend of women appearing both "more modern" and "more religious" as paradoxical. On the basis of 114 in-depth interviews with Bangladeshi migrant workers (n = 57) in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore, and South Korea and their wives (n = 57) in rural Bangladesh, I claim that Muslim women in middle-class Bengali families who veil are cultivating symbolic boundaries guided by an accountability structure of middle-class religiosity and gender conservatism. The increasing tendency of middle-class Muslim women to appear both "more modern" and "more religious" can be explained by examining the role that veiling plays in signaling class status through conspicuous consumption, moral superiority, and respectable femininity, differentiating them from lower class women. I conclude that "doing gender" through veiling must be understood as also "doing middle-class difference" in Bengali Muslim families in rural Bangladesh. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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