By A recent Buzzfeed video captured four brave and unstoppable non-Muslim women who went out in the world to do the unthinkable. Their task: to change the world’s perception of Muslim women by loosely wrapping a scarf around their heads and necks.
Because rather than asking actual headscarf-wearing Muslim women about their experiences, we need non-Muslim women to speak for us and legitimize our own adversity.
As portrayed in the video, the idea of a Muslim woman instructing and encouraging unveiled women to experiment with a headscarf is not a new concept. Muslim Student Associations are notorious for holding these types of events and naming them something banal like “Hijab-a-thon,” “World Hijab Day,” or “Hijabapalooza.” These events focus all their attention on a piece of cloth — the headscarf — rather than the spiritual connection and personal commitment to modesty that hijab is meant to symbolize. They strip away other aspects of Muslim women’s lives — including ones who choose not to wear a headscarf — and reduce them solely to an outer garment.
With no acknowledgement of how Muslim women have been affected by patriarchy and Islamophobia solely for their choice in dress — or the histories of social, cultural, and political forces behind their lived experiences — the video defines hijab as something worn to be “humble,” “intellectual,” and “equal.” The oversimplification of the hijab not only denies the violence created out of Islamophobia and patriarchy, but also glosses over preconceived notions of the hijab — like the ones in the video — that are embedded in racist stereotypes of it being something obligatory, oppressive, and patriarchal. The statements include:
“I feel like it’s an American thing if you see a woman with hijab, it’s a symbol of oppression.”
“I feel like it takes away from just you as a female, being able to express.”
Those statements sound like they can be just as applicable to words like “fashion” and “makeup.”
However, the phenomenon of women wearing hijab might as well be called “Hijaboween” for how, in these settings, non-Muslim women don’t seem interested in wearing it with any intention of longevity or for any deep purpose other than bonuses like special attention, praise, and credibility.
In addition to reducing Muslim women’s multidimensional lives to a headscarf and ignoring how our own self-defined meanings of hijab are continuously evolving, the video does not acknowledge the increasing amounts of violence against Muslim women as a result of wearing the scarf, especially in the post-9/11 era. The video includes focuses on the women’s reflections of feeling uncomfortable from unwanted stares. One woman was patted down extra cautiously while preparing to fly to New York.
Throughout the day, within both mainstream society and inner Muslim circles, these women are celebrated and glorified for wearing hijab — something many Muslim women do every day without the option or desire to take it off the next day. This creates a narrative that homogenizes the individual choice, and sometimes lack of choice, that each Muslim woman has in what she wears. At the end of the project, the women are given platforms to speak on their experiences, share self-reflections, and discuss their journeys toward becoming more “understanding.” In this way, hijab experiments end up maintaining the very hierarchies and privilege that they intend to dismantle.
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By Neda Kit
Aside from the femenist spit that is used hold the article together, a very well written and open article
I feel like the purpose of the video was to, in a way, normalize the hijab into American culture. While it may not have been executed in the best way possible, shining a positive light on hijab in general is never a bad thing. Yes I agree it did focus mainly on the hijab being a piece of fabric rather that what it truly is, but allowing people to see a non muslim American having a positive experience wearing the hijab may cause them to look further into its meaning. It may also normalize hijab in the eyes of someone who may hardly ever be exposed to it.
I see nothing wrong with this video. It’s a great learning experience for people that have not really considered what it feels like to wear a hijab. Hijabis equally have a platform to voice how they feel.
No one said it was to normalize into American culture, but if it did it would be AWESOME and less stressful for hijabis like myself. After all, we all do have the right to wear or to follow what we chose to wear regardless of Western negative stereotypes of Muslims. Honestly, a piece of fabric that symbolic represents someone spiritually should truly not offended offended anyone because it is not being forced upon them unlike in Saudi Arabia, or Iran.
I really wish ALL westerns will STOP thinking Muslim females are slaves to make authority. Which bullcrap and uncalled for. Ever Muslim women hijabi have their own identity which usually does not fit into Western’s perspective. Some are more likely to be, tomboys,feminist, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, feminist, average, athletic, bbw etc.
Honestly, I do not see how a hijab “scarf” can be oppression and yet a mini-skirt or bikini is not seen as oppression, but a norm 0.o or did I read and heard that WRONG 0.o
As a Muslim hijabi I am sick and completely drained 247 of Western stereotypes of me. Expecting me to be this person that they claim that all hijabies to be oppression or slaves to males. Likewise, If I was with a male he would be my male slave “lol”
However, it was a very open minded experience of watching them wear a hijab. Which I enjoyed watching and learning from their perspectives of what it is like from a non-Muslim Western female perspective.