Gender, Veiling, and Class: Symbolic Boundaries and Veiling in Bengali Muslim Families
基于对114名孟加拉移民工人及其妻子的访谈，研究发现中产阶级穆斯林女性戴面纱并非矛盾，而是通过炫耀性消费、道德优越感和体面女性气质来彰显阶级地位，从而与下层女性区分开来。
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.