Originally published by Tasbeeh Herwees.
A
few years ago, I was walking down a city street when I heard a (white) someone
yell something out of the window of his car. I immediately assumed that
something was Islamophobic. It nearly always is. When people yell at me from
passing cars, it’s usually to tell me to “go back to your country.” So, it took
a moment to register what this guy actually said: “You’re beautiful!”
It
reminded me of another incident I experienced in college, while I was covering
the Occupy encampment at Los Angeles City Hall: a woman came up to me, clutched
my hand, and told me, “You’re so beautiful, and we’re so lucky to have you
here.” She was not talking about my role as a disengaged journalist. She was
reacting, very explicitly, to my visibility as a Muslim, and the ways in which
it contributed to the tableau of diversity at the encampment.
People
react to my visible Muslimness in such confronting and entitled ways.
Only
a few weeks ago, a Bernie supporter stopped me at a restaurant and asked me to
teach him how to put on a headscarf. He was working on an anti-Trump ad, and
the Muslim woman who was going to appear in it didn’t know how to wear a headscarf.
He pulled out an American flag print scarf from his bag. I was in the middle of
dinner, so I told him there were tutorials online for that sort of thing.
On
their own, each of these incidents seems inconsequential. But it’s the
accumulation of these experiences — the constant barrage of commentary and
inquiry into my personhood I am forced to receive from every co-worker and
coffee shop patron — that makes them painful. This is why I have tried, in the
past few years, to stop writing about being a Muslim person who wears hijab:
because it’s an incredibly exhausting subject, and one that bears little fruit.
So when I was asked to put this roundtable together, I wanted to talk less
about the cloth itself, and talk more about the realities, individual and
systemic, faced by those who navigate the world as visible Muslims (whether
they wear the headscarf or not). In this conversation, we have Kaw Thar,
a writer and “person off colour”; Shireen Ahmed, a sports writer and reporter; and Mahdia
Lynn, a writer and coordinator for the Transgender Muslim Support Network.
TASBEEH HERWEES
I’ve become really tired of discussions that seek to
justify or explain the hijab. I’m far more interested in how images of the
hijab, or hijab-wearing women, are instrumentalized to serve political or
social purposes, both within the global “Muslim community” and outside of it.
For example, in the run up to the Iraq War, images of Muslim women who were “oppressed” were circulated widely to justify American military
exploits in the Middle East; often the only thing that communicated
“oppression” in these photos were their hijab.Malala Yousafzai is an example. Although she has spoken passionately
against the use of drone strikes in her home of Pakistan, the only thing people
want to talk about is her work on girls’ education — only one of these causes,
the latter, is useful to the narrative that these places require violent
interventions.
Western feminist discourses tend to flatten the Muslim
woman into a caricature, reducing her to a symbol for a specific type of
oppression that occurs exclusively within the “Muslim world”, and never outside
of it. We can see how this plays out in the way the Western media has embraced
people like anti-Muslim activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali but will not
acknowledge writer Hebah Ahmed.
Kaw Thar, so much of your writing challenges those
paradigms — what do you think is missing from these conversations?
KAWTHAR
Perhaps the fact that wearing the hijab doesn’t always
have a special significance; it’s often just a mundane part of daily life.
Others tend to understand veiling in terms of binaries: veiled or unveiled,
choice or forced, religious or political. But these binaries don’t capture the
nuances or realities of Muslim women’s lived experiences. I personally find
headscarves useful on bad hair days and the looser clothing a lifeline on days
when I’m struggling with my body image.
For me at least, veiling takes on a larger significance
when it interacts with something like race. I’ve noticed, as a black woman,
that if I do not wear a headscarf, I’m not acknowledged as Muslim.
SHIREEN AHMED
Truly, not every (un)veiled woman has the same story.
For me, and here in Toronto, violence against Muslim
women and Muslim-passing women (Black or Brown) increased after the Paris
attacks in late 2015. One Muslim woman was attacked by two men while she was
picking up her kids from school; another woman, who was just wearing a scarf to
stay warm, was assaulted by a man who mistook her scarf for a hijab. And even
more women received hateful threats on Facebook and other social platforms. The
Islamophobic candidates in the federal election only exacerbated this already
awful climate of tension around Muslim women and their clothing
choices — mainly niqab. I knew many women who decided to de-jab during this
time. It was painful to see but I supported the decisions. Headcover-clad women
became easy targets for racists. Visibility of hijab was triggering physical
danger.
The violence has not stopped, unfortunately. Just a few
weeks ago, a woman was grocery shopping with her four-month old baby when
another woman came up to her, punched her, spat on her and tried to pull off
her hijab. This was horrifying to me. I wanted to be able to defend myself if I
ever was in such a precarious position — I wanted to be prepared to fight
back — so my daughter and I attended a self-defense workshop. It provided us with basic tools
and concepts to protect our bodies if we are ever physically attacked.
My daughter, Jihad, decided to start wearing hijab a few
months ago. It makes me feel slightly reassured that she can get herself out
danger and perhaps protect herself against violent Islamophobes.
TASBEEH
De-jabbing is an interesting term, particularly within
popular Muslim-American discourse. It shows how the conversation on hijab has
stalled, even among Muslims, because the de-jabbing is often seen as an
abandonment of “Islam” rather than a reconceptualization of it. The term itself
seems to reinforce these binaries Kawthar talks about. Many of my friends have
a very fluid relationship with hijab. It is a force of habit for most. Like
putting on socks or shoes in the morning.
But certainly, when I am wearing it, I suddenly become
hyper-aware of how my body takes up space and the ways in which I am being
perceived. Especially in my capacity as a journalist, when I am forced to
interact with people who don’t know me, I become sensitive to my visibility as
a Muslim. I feel fatigued by this — by being, as feminist scholar Miriam Cooke
says, aMuslimwoman wherever I go — trapped by
whatever expectations or assumptions the beholder might have. Our survival often
depends on how we negotiate or navigate within those spaces, whether we’ve
performed the “right” kind of Muslimness for our audience.
KAWTHAR
Until recently, beards were also a marker of Muslimness
for Muslim men. But given the rise of the hipsters with their bushy beards and
cropped pants, the line between devout Muslim and urban youth has become quite
blurry!
I’m being facetious of course, because while scarves can
be removed and beards can be shaved, our ethnic and racial backgrounds, names,
countries of citizenship continue to mark us out as Muslims. Which is why I
find “wear hijab for a day” campaigns ridiculous; a
headscarf does not capture the totality of Muslim women’s experience.
TASBEEH
Yeah, exactly! As the most visible “symbol” of Islam,
popular discourse has rendered the hijab a locus for racial, religious, social
and political identity. In 2008, Cooke wrote that the veil, or hijab, had
become a “marker for essential difference” for Muslim women. The Muslimwoman
becomes a canvas for whatever images/identities may be projected onto her,
whether those come from Muslims or non-Muslims; everything else becomes
subsumed under this Muslimwoman identification. What becomes invisible when the
Muslimwoman is visible?
MAHDIA LYNN
Right on, Tasbeeh. I think that what we as Muslim women
lose most when we become “Muslimwoman” is our agency. We are pigeonholed into a
singular narrative of the woman as an object that is subject to the whims of
men.
I felt this particularly as a revert who discovered
Islam later in life and came from a very woman-centered and progressive place.
I took on hijab at 25 and my decision was largely based on the assertion that my body does not
exist for others to consume. As a woman (and
particularly as a woman of trans experience), my body has been politicized and
turned into a vessel for society to pour its insecurities, prejudices, and
desires. Taking on hijab was a way for me to reclaim my body as my own — as a
facet of my personal relationship with the divine, as a rejection of the female
body as public property.
The great irony is that while taking on hijab was, for
me, a fiercely independent assertion of ownership over my body, the
western/liberal feminist cultural narrative was the exact opposite. When I took
on hijab the story immediately became: 1) I was coerced into an oppressive
religion, 2) by a man, 3) who was doubtlessly abusive towards me. My
intentions, my politics, my claim to ownership over myself, meant nothing. The
veiled woman in the public eye can only ever be a sympathetic victim in need of
rescue.
KAWTHAR
Absolutely. The creation of the Muslimwoman is closely
linked to the foundational myths of nation states in the early 19th century. It
was deployed by colonialists seeking to whitewash their exploitation and cast
themselves as the guardians of civilization. And it was later deployed by the
political elite of newly independent countries attempting to define national
identity. And post 9–11, it was used to paint Muslim-majority countries as a
unified bloc, rife with violence and backwardness.
So, whether it’s a term used by Muslims or non-Muslims,
imperialists or anti-imperialists, so-called Islamists or secularists, the
Muslimwoman is an amalgamation of patriarchal fantasies of Muslim womanhood:
heterosexual, docile, silent, etc. Which leads me to the question I’m really
interested in, “Who defines the category Muslimwoman?”
TASBEEH
I think the category is defined by the economy of images
circulated within global mass media. It’s significant that in 2015, images of
Muslim woman began appearing more frequently and more prominently in the
mainstream (or more specifically, commercial) cultural milieu while incidents
of Islamophobia began to rise. A few of these events include: the hijab-wearing
model in H&M’s “Close the Loop” campaign and the Dolce & Gabbana abayaline; the creation
of Raina Amin, the hijab-wearing character on ABC’s Quantico, a
character who in one scandalizing scene removes her hijab to kiss her love
interest; and three, the brutal assaults of two hijab-wearing girls in London: Tasneem Kabir and Meanha Begum. How do we understand
these moments of heightened cultural visibility within the context of an
increasingly violent surveillance state?
MAHDIA
I don’t consider the fashion world’s recognition that
women in hijab exist a win. A company realizing they can make money off of us
(and get a lot of free publicity for it to boot) doesn’t seem like a radical
act of inclusion — it seems a bit more like a capitalist industry seeking
profits in a “diversifying market.”
TASBEEH
Shireen, I’m interested in your thoughts on
this, particularly as it pertains to the sporting world.
SHIREEN
As far as the sports world goes, it is not as black and
white as some would think. Hijab-wearing athletes are fairly new on the
international competition scene, mostly due to uniform restrictions, lack of
resources or cultural and societal challenges. But non-hijab-wearing Muslim
sportswomen have been competing for decades and decades. The media has erased
the history of the women who do not wear hijab.
The sports-writing world is mostly white, cisgendered
and male. To them, hijab-wearing athletes are a far more interesting story.
These women are “smashing assumptions” and “breaking the chains of patriarchy”
as they strive for excellence in whichever sport. It’s an easy human story that
can be molded into something pseudo-compelling. Hijab-wearing women are very
obvious visual ambassadors of female empowerment. The juxtaposition of their
scarves (often believed to be forced and oppressive) with their physical
activity is fascinating and often fetishized by the white gaze.
That being said, sport is definitely an area where hijab
has become a reason for women to organize and mobilize. Several Muslim women
have designed sport hijabs (ResportOn, Capsters, Friggini) that would meet
criteria set out by federations such as FIFA (soccer) and FIVB (volleyball) in
order to overturn hijab-bans. As a soccer player, I was denied the opportunity
to play because my hijab automatically “othered” me. To allow women to choose
to cover and compete is important. It acknowledges her body autonomy in the way
she might move and the way she dresses.
TASBEEH
When we talk about “badass Muslim women” we are usually
just talking about depictions of Muslim women performing mundane or everyday
acts, in other words, just athletes who wear headscarves. What elevates these
women to “badassery” is the identification of their Muslimness or the fact that
they wear hijab. And that’s why Muslim, hijab-wearing athletes are so often
subjected to commentary that over-praises.
These representations tend to “speak back” to
representations we see elsewhere: Muslim women living under oppressive regimes,
disprivileged Muslim women. I think this is why the H&M model and the Quanticocharacter stand out to me so starkly. But what about the
Muslim women being targeted by surveillance? Who are the Muslim women who are
frisked and interrogated by agents of the state? Who are the Muslim women being
attacked on the street? Who are the Muslim women who don’t have Twitter
accounts or Tumblr pages to broadcast those experiences?
KAWTHAR
This makes me think of what we were talking about
earlier: the mundane. Many do not speak out because we have come to view the
surveillance (through webcams, cameras on the street, being monitored on the
internet) and harassment as part of the everyday reality of being Muslim. We
have grown to accept that to be Muslim is to be seen as dangerous.
SHIREEN
I have seen many Muslim women use “badass Muslimah” as a
form of recognition. What troubles me is the “breaking barrier” labels given by
non-Muslim observers who correlate any such accomplishments of Muslim women in
hijab to breaking the mold or achieving something great in spite of her hijab.
This is reductive. There is a very long history of (un)veiled Muslim women who
have resisted, accomplished, and their hijab is not the center of their story.
MAHDIA
It’s important to recognize the accomplishments of
women, but when it’s framed as a “breaking barriers” story it reinforces the
idea that Islam is inherently oppressive towards women. Like Shireen said, it’s
like we can only achieve greatness in spite of our religion.
When every popular activist in hijab is an
“unprecedented game-changer”, what does that say about the rest of us? Why are
all of these “game changers” light skinned, conventionally attractive young
women? Why are Muslim women only considered worthy of praise when we fulfill
certain ideals of femininity?
TASBEEH
When people talk about “barriers”, they’re often talking
about representation. Certainly, in our visual culture, covered Muslim women are missing from the landscape. But this
focus on representation — on images, rather than power — makes us feel better
about our progress as a society.
If we see hijabi’d people on big network TV shows, but
Muslim women — hijabi’d or not — are still being surveilled, harassed, or
otherwise antagonized as subjects of the state, what kind of progress are we
making?
This Article is an extract of conversation published by journalist Tasbeeh Herwees
