“Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is baring her secret, breaking her resistance, making her available for adventure. Hiding the face is also disguising a secret; it is also creating a world of mystery, of the hidden. In a confused way, the European experiences his relation with the Algerian woman at a highly complex level. There is in it the will to bring this woman within his reach, to make her a possible object of possession. This woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer. There is no reciprocity. She does not yield herself, does not give herself, does not offer herself.”
(From Frantz Fanon’s ‘A Dying Colonialism’)
A recent social media post by South African author and publisher, Rose Francis, in which she quoted this reflection on colonial obsession with the veil, presented an interesting synchronicity. I had been thinking about France’s continued onslaught on black women’s attire, particularly the hijab, and how outrageously hypocritical it seems in a country where around around 50% of the population is Catholic, nuns’ similar habits would be acceptable.
In the name of a rigid and expanding interpretation of laïcité (secularity), France has in recent years intensified its campaign of prohibitions against Muslim women and girls, creating what human rights organisations decry as systemic discrimination. Between 2023 and 2025, the French state moved beyond schools to target the very presence of religious attire in broader public life. The 2024 Paris Olympics saw French athletes barred from wearing the hijab, a prelude to a 2025 Senate-backed bill to ban “conspicuous” religious symbols across all professional and amateur sports. This followed the 2023 ban of the abaya in state schools and the sweeping 2021 “separatism law,” which extended prohibitions to private contractors in public services. With debates simmering over a potential under-18 hijab ban in all public spaces, the effect is a profound narrowing of access to education, sport, and professional opportunity for visibly Muslim women. The human cost is stark: 70% of Islamophobic violence targets women, often those wearing the hijab, who are framed not as individuals making a choice, but as symbols of a perceived threat. For Black Muslim women, this discrimination is compounded by racial marginalisation, creating intersecting layers of exclusion. Critics argue that beneath the rhetoric of secular unity, these policies institutionalise “othering,” forcing a painful choice between faith and full participation in French society.
Frantz Fanon’s piercing analysis in A Dying Colonialism (1959) exposes colonialism’s obsession with the veiled Algerian woman: “Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is baring her secret, breaking her resistance, making her available for adventure. Hiding the face is also disguising a secret… This woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer. There is no reciprocity. She does not yield herself, does not give herself, does not offer herself.” Fanon reveals how the veil – far from mere cloth – embodies sovereignty, denying the coloniser’s gaze and possession. This dynamic endures today, as Western powers police Black women’s bodies through dress, recasting indigenous attire as threat, deviance, or exoticism to enforce compliance.
Colonial origins of dress policing
Fanon rooted his critique in Algeria’s war of independence, where French forces orchestrated mass unveilings to shatter cultural resistance. Colonial rhetoric framed the veil as oppression, yet aimed to “conquer the women” behind it, per French doctrine. Unveiling ceremonies, staged by officers’ wives, symbolised allegiance to Europe, stripping Algerian women of agency. This tactic sought reciprocity—the colonised gaze meeting the coloniser’s on his terms. Indigenous dress, whether veil, headwrap, or beaded regalia, frustrates by asserting an autonomous world: mysterious, unpossessable, rooted in communal memory.
This pattern globalises to Black women. During apartheid South Africa, authorities banned African print headscarves in urban townships, deeming them “subversive.” Pass laws policed attire to mark Black women as rural intruders in “civilised” spaces. Similarly, in the US, 19th-century slave codes prohibited headwraps (tignons), forcing enslaved Black women into bareheaded visibility—available for white scrutiny and violation. These were not fashion edicts but weapons to unveil secrets, break resistance, mirroring Fanon’s unveiled Algerian.
Modern Western policing tactics
Today, Western surveillance adapts colonial tools. France’s 2004 and 2010 bans on “conspicuous” religious symbols and face coverings disproportionately target Black Muslim women’s hijabs and niqabs, echoing Fanon’s frustrated coloniser. Courts uphold these as secularism, yet data shows Muslim women face 70% more street harassment post-ban, per Amnesty International reports. In the Netherlands and Denmark, burqa bans extend to African wax-print abayas, conflating indigenous styles with “foreign threat.”
Social media amplifies this. Algorithms flag Black women’s cornrows, Bantu knots, or gele headties as “unprofessional,” while white influencers profit from “boxer braids.” UK schools sent Black girls home for braids deemed “gang-related,” per 2023 Guardian exposés. In corporate spaces, US HR policies scrutinise Afrofuturist attire—dashikis, kente—as distracting, enforcing Eurocentric minimalism. These micro-policings deny reciprocity: Black women’s bodies remain objects for white comfort, not self-expression.
Indigenous dress as sovereign weapon
Indigenous dress reclaims what Fanon called the “world of mystery.” Yoruba gele (Nigeria) or Zulu isicholo (South Africa) encode lineage, spirituality, resistance—unyielding to the gaze. During #FeesMustFall protests, South African students donned traditional beads and prints, transforming campuses into decolonial spaces. In Brazil’s quilombos, Candomblé women wrap turbans defying evangelical policing. Palestinian keffiyehs on Black feminists signal intersectional solidarity, frustrating imperial legibility.
Verified accounts abound. In 2022, Tanzanian MP Zitto Kabwe defended Maasai women’s shukas against tourism boards diluting them into “exotic uniforms.” US rapper Cardi B faced backlash for Fulani braids, accused of cultural appropriation – yet Black women inventing them endured bans. These acts frustrate, as Fanon noted: the dressed Black woman sees without yielding, her body a fortified secret.
Forging genuine reciprocity
Fanon warned that colonial unveiling yields no genuine change. Western policing (bans, HR codes, viral shaming) perpetuates this, demanding Black women “offer” bodies palatable to empire. Resistance lies in refusal: wearing the iro-gele to boardrooms, beaded crowns to protests, veils unapologetically. This crafts reciprocity on our terms; our gaze appraising the coloniser, our dress narrating unpossessable worlds.
Global Majority feminists must amplify these stories, boycotting brands sanitising indigenous prints (e.g., Gucci’s turban scandals). Decolonise wardrobes: source from African weavers, not fast fashion. In 2026’s fascist shadows, as US strikes Venezuela and eyes Iran, our dress unmasks empire’s enduring will to possess. Let it frustrate, resist, unveil truth.
Unveiling resistance: Fanon, Indigenous dress, and the policing of black women’s bodies
Frantz Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism (1959) dissects colonialism’s fixation on the Algerian veil: “Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is baring her secret, breaking her resistance, making her available for adventure. Hiding the face is also disguising a secret; it is also creating a world of mystery, of the hidden… This woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer. There is no reciprocity. She does not yield herself, does not give herself, does not offer herself.” Fanon unmasks the veil not as oppression, but sovereignty—denying the coloniser’s possessive gaze. This persists as Western powers police Black women’s indigenous dress, recasting it as deviance to demand availability and compliance.
Colonial war on the veil
In French Algeria from the 1930s, authorities waged a “war against the veil,” staging public unveilings by officers’ wives to symbolise cultural conquest. Fanon notes French doctrine aimed to “conquer the women” behind the haik, framing it as patriarchal while eroticising the unveilings for European audiences. Algerian women countered strategically: initially veiling to evade surveillance, then donning European dress to infiltrate checkpoints undetected—turning colonial assumptions against the occupier. The veil became a “potent symbol of resistance,” its removal never yielding genuine reciprocity but tactical subversion.
Historical policing of black women’s attire
This logic extends to Black women globally. In 1786 Louisiana, Tignon Laws mandated free women of colour cover heads with knotted tignons to diminish their beauty and visibility—making them “available” for white scrutiny without allure. Apartheid pass laws in South Africa banned African print headscarves in urban areas like Soweto, marking women as rural threats to “civilised” spaces.
France’s laws exemplify continuity: the 2004 headscarf ban in schools and 2010 face-covering prohibition target Muslim women, including Black Africans in hijabs, under “secularism.” Amnesty International reports heightened harassment post-enactment.
Verified modern instances: Tanzania and beyond
In 2022, Tanzanian MP Zitto Kabwe defended Maasai women’s shukas (red-checkered wraps) in parliament after tourism boards sought to dilute them into “exotic uniforms,” preserving cultural autonomy against commodification.
These cases frustrate, per Fanon: indigenous dress encodes communal secrets – lineage, spirituality – refusing the Western gaze’s demand for possession.
Indigenous dress as decolonial refusal
Black women’s attire asserts unpossessable worlds. During Algeria’s revolution, veiled women smuggled arms; today, it signals resistance. In 2026’s fascist resurgence – with US strikes on Venezuela – our dress unmasks empire’s enduring will to unveil, own, control.
Resistance demands refusal: wear the gele, isicholo, shuka unapologetically. Source from weavers, boycott appropriators. Forge reciprocity on our terms: our gaze appraising empire, our bodies narrating mystery.
This piece was written for the January 2026 edition of Postscripts, Shamillah Wilson’s monthly round-up of what’s been happening in feminist circles, her work, and some recommended reading suggestions.
