A feminist says: I'm okay with the veil
The hijab: Symbol of male oppression, or the exercise of freedoms of religion and self-expression?
It’s an exhausting debate, often held not by those who actually wear the Muslim veil, but by those who think of themselves as warriors against injustice and cruelty.
I am not Muslim. I don’t know how it feels to wear a veil. I don’t feel what some people see when they see the hijab.
But I am a woman. I do know what it is like to be aware of my clothing. I’m familiar with the fact that a single chromosome in my DNA affects how I am treated, judged and perceived from the moment someone sees me.
I am a woman. And thus, I have experienced, in my own ways, the undeniable and inescapable power of patriarchy. I have mastered how to live in a world that was built by and for men.
But that is not to say that I have accepted it, nor have the hundreds of thousands of others who continue to fight for gender equality. So I know that those that are oppressed do not remain silent for very long.
The hijab has been in existence for hundreds of years, during which time it has not restricted women from being active participants in their societies. As so clearly stated by Sadiya Patel in an Aug. 8 article in The New York Times, “My veil has never stopped me from doing anything.”
It is not my right to tell people what they should fight against. You see, I come from the Western world — a world whose ways of life have been etched into my brain as the only system worth living in. When it comes to politics, the economy and culture, I haven’t been taught any values that are different than those of the society to which I belong.
Too often, the West has taken it upon itself to enlighten those who don’t share Western freedoms. But often we’re ignorant of cultures whose values are deeply held but just different than our own. When the Spanish, Portuguese, and British thought they were bringing order in North America to tribes such as the Pueblo, they were actually wiping out complex communities that did not believe in notions of private property or individualism. When the British thought they were bringing an age of peace to those of Jewish faith by giving them Palestinian land in 1947, instead they sparked an era of unrest and violence.
It is time we learn that we can’t pronounce when people are and are not plagued by oppression.
Above all, I believe in the power of standing for others. As a social and political activist, I have seen the importance in fighting against injustice. And as a woman, I have felt the aches of muscles as I have reached, reached, and reached to hold the hands of the women on my side. For I know that to tear down the patriarchy, we must sail through the storm in unity.
And that is why I’m a feminist, but I’m okay with the veil.
I stand with the Muslim women whose hands I hold. I listen to the words they speak and I know that they ring of truth. I stand with them. I will stand right beside them whether it be to fight against male supremacy, or to protect the tightly woven hijab that means so much more than just a single idea.
We hold hands and we stand. Together.
