Muslim women in the U.S
The American society is an amalgamation of hundreds of nationalities living together and thriving in a world equally. America is known all around the globe as a symbol of freedom and independence. It is a country where people can be what they want to be without the fear of being judged or condemned. This thought gives the presumption that people of all faiths, ethnicities and creeds can coexist peacefully without having to face criticism and hatred. However, this is different in the case where one group and religious minority in the country targeted and ostracized for their views. The reason for the dislike rests in their appearance and clothing. This is mainly against the Muslim women in the United States of America who are disliked in the society because of their hijab and head-cover.
Ever since September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre, the entire Muslim community has been under scrutiny and speculation of the American society. This is because the radical Muslims have been held responsible for the attacks (Cagle et al., 2011). The negative framing of Muslims in the media has aided in spreading the hatred against them. Particularly, all Muslims have been marked as backward, dangerous and fundamentalist oppressors who like to spread their insidious agenda by extremism. In light of these misconceptions, Muslim women who cover their heads and wear a hijab are subject to discrimination. Resultantly, they have to suffer negatively from prejudice at work and in public (Afshar, 2008). The society views these Muslim women as oppressed and subjugated individuals, who depict Muslims and Islam as a religion that likes to suppress women and prohibit them from becoming independent.
I have been studying in the United States since 2009. An observation I have made about the Muslims in the society is that the Muslim women wearing a hijab in the society are taken as
the chief representatives of Islam. This is opposed to the concept of Muslim men or the Muslim women who do not wear a hijab. Women who wear the hijab become an obvious symbol as Muslims and Islamic ‘fanatics’ and they are differentiated easily from the non-Muslims in the society (Ebaugh, 2005). As compared to the hijab-adorned Muslim women, others who do not cover their heads will never be judged on their appearance, occupation, faith, and religion. The explanation stands that they cannot be marked specifically as Muslims.
The reasons why Muslim women in America face a hard time is because American think that Muslim women are violent and support terrorism, so they should be feared (Muslims in the media, 2011, p 3). When Americans view such women living among them, they feel threatened and challenged by their existence. The hijab is considered a symbol of oppression and narrow-mindedness. This is feared by Western liberal societies, who see women in veils and fear them (Vivian, 1999). This is out of personal experience where I have seen people trying to avoid sitting next to me on the bus or not letting their children get close to me. This is especially noticeable at a bus station or when using public transport. Furthermore, Muslim women also face problems when they have to stop through security checks. Women are interrogated and specifically searched when they are wearing a hijab, or their bodies are covered (AB, 2015).
The obvious message conveyed by this act is that Muslims pose a threat to national security. For this, they need to be monitored and there needs to be surveillance in particular for them (Selod, 2014). Being an international student in the country, I am allowed to visit my hometown and fly back to the States during my vacations. However, every time I come back, the immigration officer takes me to the secondary office. There he wants me to show some of my
hair in public. The importance of this action might be the resolve of the officer to show his power over the Islamic citizens in their country. It might also be done to show that Muslims need to be kept in their place.
This act of discriminating and fearing the Muslim women in the country is simply wrong, unjust and hurtful. People fail to see that it is not only Islam where women are told to cover their heads, rather it is a practice in many other religions as well. Feder has pointed out the unfair treatment of the Muslims and non-Muslims in society. She argues that covering the head is only pointed out for the women belonging to the Muslim faith, but the world conveniently disregards and ignored the Jewish and Christian women covering their heads out of religious obligations. There stands no reason in the world to discriminate one set of women following their religious guidelines while disregarding another, who follow a similar obligation.
An American society considers the hijab as a symbol of oppression, whereas Muslim women see it as their empowerment. Some Muslim women were questioned about how the hijab reflected their body image and why they started wearing it. They said it had nothing to do with how bad the felt about their bodies neither had they developed any negative feelings for themselves (Nasr, 2013). The hijab gave them the confidence they needed, and they are now practicing their religion as they desire by causing no harm to others. Women also reported that they never imposed their views on wearing a head covering upon others, so it shouldn’t be a problem to the society. They have faith that women can be just as successful if they cover themselves.
Sadly, the discrimination never stops. Muslim women face discrimination at their workplace and many times they have been forbidden from wearing the hijab. This has been done in different situations. Commonly, they face discrimination in the job place, where they are
harassed for wearing a hijab, or they are fired from their jobs. They are denied access to public places because their heads are covered, as they possibly might scare away any person since a woman in a hijab is a stigma in the society (ACLU, 2016). People even avoid coming to stores with Muslim women as employees. Once I went to a salon owned by an Indian lady. She asked me if I could tell whether she was Muslim. I said I could not. She said she was a Muslim, who practiced all worship but did not cover her head because she needed the money and Americans avoided coming to her salon if she wore the hijab.
These ideologies about the hijab not only affect the American side of the story, but it also affects the Muslim perception of how they are accepted in the United States (Muslims in the media, 2011, p 3). The hatred against the hijab triggers a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment. People feel it when the women are badgered and told how they are representing a religion which oppresses them. This hurts their sentiments because women cover their heads out of religious respect and not because the men make them do so (Research Gate, 2010). They feel unwanted in a country that is reckoned as the land of the free, and they felt insecure and scared all the time. This leads to further social unrest because the world should be giving enough to let another person practice their beliefs without hatred and discrimination.
References
AB, Al Wazni. (2015). Muslim women in America and hijab: A study of empowerment,feminist
identity and body image. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26489353
American Civil Liberties Union.(2016). DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MUSLIM WOMEN –
FACT SHEET. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/discrimination-against-muslim women-fact-sheet
Afshar, H. (2008). Can I see your hair? Choice, agency and attitudes: the dilemma of faith and
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Cagle, A., Cox, L., Luoma, K., & Zaphiris, A. (2011). Content analysis of the portrayal of
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Feder, S. (2013). (Re)Envisioning the veil. Implicit Religion, 16(4), 443-459.
doi:10.1558/imre.v16i4.443
Muslims in the media: The impact of varying media portrayals on intergroup relations and
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Nasr, Reem. (2013). What it means to be a Muslim woman in today’s America. Arts. Mic.
Retrieved from http://mic.com/articles/39703/what-it-means-to-be-a-muslim-woman-in-today-s-america#.MxYgY4fVf
Research Gate. (2010). Images of Muslim women in post 9/11 America. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291171850_Images_of_Muslim_women_in_Post-_911_America
Selod, S. (2014). Targeting Muslim Americans in the name of national security. Retrieved from
http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/targeting-muslim-americans-name-national-security#sthash.eCkSasyq.dpuf
Vivian, B. (1999). The veil and the visible. Western Journal of Communication, 63(2), 115.
