DALIA MOGAHED: On The Tiresome And Never Ending "Hijab Is Oppression" ...

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

On the tiresome and never ending "hijab is oppression" so-called debate. 

I unapologetically wear hijab as a spiritual act, sometimes risking ridicule, and even assault. Roughly half of my Muslim girl friends don't wear it. My best friend's views on Islam and reform would make irreverent rebels sound like conservatives. My friend and I are like sisters. I trust her with my car and my home. We spend Eid together. We don't demonize or shame each other for our choices. It's called intellectual maturity.

What I find so strange about this whole discussion is how utterly unnecessary and irrelevant it is. For the rest of the American Muslim community, it's simply a non-issue. Some wear it. Some don't. It's not debated because debating it is not a priority.

That, until these fake debates are forced down our throats by a narrative that demeans and politicizes a personal spiritual decision at a time of unparalleled anti-Muslim hysteria. We must then "respond" to these arguments, which pander to populous prejudice, as a matter of survival. To be clear, all of us have responded--those who wear and don't wear hijab alike, because this isn't about hijab at all. It is about being a community, not a cult.

A cult demands conformity, or members risk ridicule, shaming and worse. A community makes it safe to disagree. I'm proud of how far we've come as an American Muslim community. For the most part now only extremists and Islamophobes are obsessed with what a woman has or doesn't have on her head.

Are some women forced to wear the hijab? Yes. And this is not right. As an act of spiritual devotion it must be chosen or it becomes meaningless. Do some women face violence for not wearing it? Again yes, and this is outrageous.

That said, according to global surveys the majority of women who wear hijab do so willingly as an act of spiritual devotion. Does the undeniable fact that it is at times forced and sometimes politicized render it inherently oppressive, even when freely chosen?

Let's take something else often forced on women and apply the same logic: sex. Sex is forced on women far more often than is a head scarf. One in three women are sexually assaulted on campuses in the U.S. There is an international cartel of sex traffickers of millions of women and girls. Sex is not only politicized, but it is *weaponized* as a strategic tactic of war. 

So according to the same logic that says hijab is a symbol of oppression, because sex is sometimes a non-choice and is sometimes politicized (and even weaponized), it is inherently oppressive to women. Even when women freely choose it, it is degrading to them and must be denounced. Women should be shamed for choosing it, cast as brainwashed slaves to men, in need of liberation. Is this line of thinking enlightened or draconian?

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DALIA MOGAHED 

Director of Research 

Institute for Social Policy and Understanding

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

Kofi Bilal Mahmud Eid AlFitr 1443 A.H.

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