It made me think about how many Muslims go through degradation and ridicule in America? Especially post 9/11? I believe what struck me the most was my cousin. I love my cousin, he knows that but what he said first stung a little then confused me. He stated, “Go learn that lesson then take it off ASAP. And make sure they ain’t teaching you how to wrap explosives in that head wrap”.
I knew that people would look at me and think that I was liberated. I didn’t want to explain myself anymore, because that was all I ever did as a hijabi, and I wanted to escape the cycle where my body as a Muslim woman was perpetually a public affair. I was so tired of defending myself at the cost of myself, and it struck me as terribly cruel that the hijab would continue to define me by nature of its absence after I took it off.
For a while, the heroes of the decade were people whose mind and matter were not white, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Malcolm X in America, Ben Bella in Algeria, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, amongst many others. Suspend your politics of left and right or your views on violence and non-violence as a means for liberation for a second and consider that for a period, people tried to put the oppressed people first.
I was a different person in college. I was me. I found my voice. I found the education I needed to open my mind; the strength I needed to voice out ‘inequality’. It was some sort of training my parents didn’t anticipate. We were taught to be independent, to never depend on men, or their opinions. It’s also where I learnt that “We”, as women are so much capable, individually and collectively. Thanks to this education, I gathered the courage to be financially independent. I called off a wedding, decided to stay single and adopted a kitten when my hormones started acting up.
As a Muslim, Arab-American I have encountered different types of prejudice and racism throughout the ten years that I have lived here. The scarf that I wear on my head had caused people to give me many belittling looks, sarcastic laughs, and hurtful words, and my identity, which I have always been proud of, became a barrier standing between myself and many people in this country.
In South Asian culture, people seem to expect that every of a girl’s life will eventually tie into her future marriage. (We’re good at structuring our lives around male privilege like that.) When I was in college, people would tell me that I needed to learn to cook – not because it’s a life skill and I would die if I didn’t learn it, but because “you’ll need to feed your husband someday!”
It had been my dream for years, to create a space where Muslim women could be seen and heard; where our pains could be felt and our shoes left empty enough for others to step in and see just how or how not it fits. I wanted to create a platform where Muslim women could be the diners at the table and not the menu on the plate; a space where we could be in charge of our narratives and take back our agency.
Since time immemorial, women have been shamed for absolutely everything about their bodies. If they’re not being objectified and hyper-sexualised, then they’re body-shamed and mocked, and even blamed for men’s fetishes and obsessions. From the distasteful jokes to the innuendos and the lust-driven songs sung about them, everything about women has been public domain.
Unfortunately, there’s still an uproar from many Muslims today when women choose to exercise this right from Allah and suggest conditions that are completely halal and acceptable. Men are able to divorce women on a whim, when angered, out of boredom, or because their wife is infertile, but women are dragged through hell and back just so they don’t die at the hands of their abuser. If a man can leave his wife because he so desperately wants children, why is a woman seen as heartless for the same thing?
Women have been made to feel and believe that they are not allowed to do anything with their lives apart from cooking. They have been made to believe that it is a religious obligation and by so doing, they have been condemned to the kitchen. This goes against the lifestyle of the Prophet (PBUH) himself who was fully active in doing household chores.
