People hold up signs as they march during a demonstration in Montreal, April 7, 2019, in opposition to the Quebec government’s newly tabled Bill 21.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
The proposed secular law (Bill 21) in the province of Québec appears to be directed primarily against Montreal and Québec City, and reflects a fear of strangers in Québec’s more homogeneous regions.
The freedom to choose one’s clothes is key to sartorial experimentation. In the late 1920s, the Catholic Register wrote that these swimsuits were indecent.
State Library of Queensland
Powerful forces in Québec have long kept tabs on women’s dress codes, and therefore women’s bodies.
Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault on the campaign trail last September before the election that saw his party form a majority government.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
The Québec government’s push to ban the hijab is ‘sexularism’ and also basic nationalism – one that pits an ‘us’ against ‘them,’ where the ‘them’ represent multiple threats to the nation.