You are known by your face

Recently in the province of Quebec  a law has been passed banning face coverings in certain situations. This has raised quite a flurry of commentaries. Here below is my contribution, plus some comments on my comments.

 YOU ARE KNOWN BY YOUR FACE

From the time of your birth until your death you are known to the world by your face. To know the state of a baby we first look at her face. Throughout life much of our communication is known by expressions on our face. Social media knows this and so people communicate via Facebook. When parents and friends want to know how you are doing they look at your face. When teachers want to know what you are saying they, rightly so, want to see your face. Therefore, seats in school face forward so that the teacher can see your face, and so that you can see the teacher’s face as she talks to you.

As you enter adulthood, your face is your identity. Your passport needs a picture of your face. Your drivers licence requires a face. Your health card needs a picture of your face. Most employee cards include a picture of one’s face. In other words, you are known to the world by your face. Having an open face to the world is the way we are identified. 

Covering one’s face does not have a good reputation. In the past, people who have covered their faces have not had good intentions in mind. Bank robbers regularly do it. The KKK did it. People who want to commit illegal acts do it.

The most difficult aspect of the conflict in Quebec over face covering is that it is presented as a religious act. If this were presented as an issue of human rights the whole scenario would change. You have a right to be known to the world by your face and the world has a right to know you by your face. There may be some strange and rare exceptions to this, but religion should not be one of them.

If the right to be known by your face is a human right, then one might ask why only women are being exempted from this right? If a man, posing as a woman in a burka or niqab were to commit a violent act, the whole issue could be changed immediately. All of our surveillance cameras would be less effective, for their usefulness is based to a large degree on facial recognition.

You are known to the world by your face. This is how we know you and how you know us.

Here are additional comments by two women friends:

1) I'm afraid I actually agree with the author. I have been thinking about this issue of face-covering and had come to the personal conclusion that the naked face was necessary for certain aspects of living in Canada, such as on one's driving license, passport photo, etc. I think if a woman wants to cover her face in general, fine -- but there are moments where, if she wants to live here, she needs to bare her face.  

I am not quite sure how I feel about this conclusion. Does this make me anti-human rights, as certain people would claim? 

At this point, the state is the guarantor of human rights and the specific items I mentioned above do have to do with the state and its licensing authority. On the other hand, these days the State in general and Canada in specific is not so benevolent that I trust it completely. Does the state have a right to require access to people's faces?

This is where I am at with this issue. I haven't come to any conclusion, but I tend towards insisting on a bare face for official purposes.

Then there is my whole critique of the burka in general: it developed in a society where women were and are considered a commodity. The veil is supposed to limit face access to those men who have the right to gaze upon her and maybe that's good in this context; I wouldn't know. But it's accompanied by a whole slew of social, political, and economic constrictions that, to me, in no way balance textile limitations upon access to her face.

2) I have stepped forward more than once, providing my name and witness to local police, to tell them what I saw that was wrong. 

There was that one time, however, when I could not have identified either of the two bank robbers. I could only describe their weight and height to the Ottawa police.

The two outlaws had been masked. 

To be part of any society is to take part in a social contract. 

The state is not something separated from society. Members of society keep a lookout for one another. Laws are there to protect us all, even outlaws. Those who wish to withdraw  from society may join hermitages.  

In Canada, as in many countries, the separation of religion from the state is an ongoing process. May it continue.  Quebec's Bill 62 is a gentle step in the right direction. 

Next?  

Respectfully,

Maureen Korp, PhD