By Rebecca Theodore
A hijab is a veil worn by most Muslim women in the presence of any male outside of their immediate family. A hijab is also worn by Muslim women that conforms to Islamic standards of modesty. Sadly enough, this liberating imagery is also secluding Islamic women in the public sphere, and instead of conjuring images of freedom, the hijab now resurrects ideologies of ‘otherness’ in light of western thinking and constructs.
According to the Encyclopedia of Islam and Muslim World, modesty in the Quran concerns both men’s and women’s “gaze, gait, garments, and genitalia.” History further documents that the practice of veiling was borrowed from the elites of the Byzantine and Persian empires, where it was a symbol of respectability and high social status, during the Arab conquests of those empires. However, because Islam identified with the monotheistic religions of the conquered empires, the practice was adopted as an appropriate expression of Qur’anic ideals regarding modesty and piety.
Although the Qur’an instructs Muslim women to dress modestly, the way in which the media is defining the hijab worn by Islamic women is creating a fixed meaning of hopelessness and fear and bitterly obstructs reality in our post-modern environs. The politics of the Hijab is now becoming a silent persecutor within the realm of meaning as it encourages prejudice and the loss of individuality among Islamic women.
And it is here that the gaze of the veil is now coming up against bitter social forces, especially in light of the fact, where rules were changed to allow Ilhan Omar, a Muslim sworn in on the Qur’an, to wear a religious head covering on the floor of the House, thus eradicating a 181-year ban on headwear of any type in the US chamber of Congress.
Of course, it’s Omar’s choice. A choice that is protected by the first amendment. But what about the choices of other Islamic women everywhere?
Mustafa Naheed, a Muslim woman writes in Human Rights and Equity in the Canadian workplace that “People see me as the poster girl for oppressed women everywhere.”
As a result, it is clear, that while the US Constitution guarantees human rights through the avenue of the Bill of Rights, there remains a struggle to understand the meaning of the things that guarantee individuals their rights. For this reason, it becomes important to reinterpret the meaning of multicultural heritage, because people are labeling the Hijab with a negative meaning of oppression and depravity, thus evoking issues with gender relations, and working to silence and suppress Islamic women both substantially and figuratively.
Certainly, the meaning that people make of things is how it is represented, because without language, meaning cannot be understood. Islamic women wearing the hijab do not bomb federal buildings, yet women wearing the hijab have been the subject of verbal and physical attacks in western countries, particularly following terrorist attacks. Companies are wilfully refusing to hire Islamic women because they fear that the hijab will upset the other workers. Islamic women form a tiny fraction of the labor force and they are seldom mentioned in official employment statistics. Islamic women are trapped in the lowest bracket of the job market, with low pay, long hours of work, and are never given any chances for promotion because the power of language is fixed, and its negative usage is what interpret reality.
Freedom is one of the most important principles in society. Until now, Islamic women have a narrow range to manifest that freedom and are carrying a host of burdens behind the Hijab that marks their sacredness and liberation. Consequently, if Islamic women are determined by the manner in which their head dressing and relations to the world are modified through the actions of others, then how can Islamic women who wear a hijab struggle for transcendency in the look of the other, if this gaze is now the product of denial and erasure in our present day American society?
It is therefore clear that if consciousness guarantees freedom in the liberatory process, then the dehumanization of the other by the dominant society vividly shows that racism and exclusion also share a parallel surface in the lives of Islamic women wearing a hijab. It is also within this sphere that choice and social branding result in a state of powerlessness and disconnection and the notion of freedom is not readily understood.
Despite the fact that critics condemn the wearing of the hijab by Islamic women as being oppressive and detrimental to women’s equality, many Muslim women view the way of dress to be encouraging and empowering. Many Islamic women confess that the hijab is a way to avoid harassment and unwanted sexual advances in public and that the hijab also works to desexualize women in the public sphere in order to allow them to enjoy equal rights of complete legal, economic, and political status.
Even though western discourse consistently argues that the hijab is not a symbol of freedom, but one of oppression, the hijab also expresses a translational form of Islamic feminism that has been marked by the entry of women into all public spheres of Islamic life including formal religious learning.
It is therefore evident that the Hijab favors Islamic women as a preservation of culture and religious identity. Compounded with the secularism of France and the Islamophobia of 911, the hijab has now become the most potent symbol of Muslim women’s denial of western perceptions of feminism and communicates a new response to modernity, as racism and sexism separates them from the flow of mainstream society with wide gazes and open disgust.
Critics argue that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s current policy of forced veiling for women, the political stance of pan Islamism and France’s new doctrine of secularism still continue to generate negative debates on the wearing of the hijab. Nevertheless, it must also be seen that the way in which the media classifies Islamic women into an inferior social class simply because they wear a hijab, fashions images of helpless victims with moral shortcomings. It is essential to note that if the media’s promotional messages continue to misinform the public on the meaning of the hijab in the lives of Islamic women, then classification will constantly remain the way in which we give meaning to things. Polices and legal documents are not helping the jewels in the hijab to shine. Instead, stereotyping fixes meaning that gives a false shape character and form to Islamic women wearing the hijab.
Meaning is interpretation. For Islamic women who choose to wear the hijab, it allows them to retain their modesty, morals, and freedom of choice. The hijab is a protection and a symbol of faith. The hijab is a veil of strength and freedom. The hijab does not define Islamic women.
About Author
Rebecca Theodore is an author, commentary writer, and award-winning journalist.