Heartwarming and hair-raising: What it's like to wear a hijab

The University of New Mexico's Daily Lobo ^ | February 3, 2017 | Celia Raney

[2ndDivisionVet]

One Daily Lobo reporter's experience on World Hijab Day

I have walked home from campus 92 times since enrolling at UNM. Only once was I so hyper-aware of my appearance that I held tight to the pepper spray on my keychain.

Oh, I forgot to mention: It was also the first time I tried on a hijab.

In honor of World Hijab Day, a group of Muslim women gathered outside the UNM Bookstore late Wednesday afternoon. The event was organized by Power Through Peace and the UNM Muslim Student Association, with help from local activist Shakir Farid Abdullah.

Abdullah also assisted in the organization of the march against President Donald Trump’s so called “Muslim Ban” at the Albuquerque International Sunport last Sunday.

Started in 2013 by Nazma Khan — a Muslim woman living New York — World Hijab day seeks to eliminate the judgement and discrimination associated with wearing a hijab.

“We just came out today to show people the differences in hijabs, answer questions and kind of do away with the stereotypes of how Muslim women are oppressed,” said MSA President Serene Akkad.

Hoping that Wednesday’s event would be educational, Akkad also stated that Muslim women are not forced to wear a hijab, and her personal goal for the event was to allow people to see that.

The groups wanted to sponsor a gathering where anyone could “come and talk to us and not be so afraid,” added UNM Valencia freshman Autumn Valdez.

In light of recent political events, the most common concern was whether or not Muslim women felt safe wearing their hijabs in public.

“I do feel less safe — my mother has told me to take off my scarf many times,” Valdez said.

There were even a few men who participated in the event, none too shy to share their unease.

“As a man, it’s definitely really interesting, because you see so much of the struggle from other people.” UNM alumnus Dayton Schoen said.

When I first donned a hijab at Wednesday’s event, I felt entirely safe. Surrounded by other men, women and children all wearing the same thing, it was hard not to.

Patrons “oohed” and “ahhed” over the multitude of hijabs out on display, and once they had been skilfully wrapped atop your head, you couldn’t help but stand in awe.

While wearing the hijab, I didn’t feel as though I was sporting a garment, but rather gaining a unique insight into an equally unique culture.

I stood around and confabulated for over an hour with the nearly 100 event attendees, and felt nothing but honor and intrigue.

After the crowd began to thin and the temperature started to drop, I decided that 1) I was sure I had enough information to write this piece, and 2) my toes were going to fall off if I didn’t get inside and warm up.

Before leaving, I was told to keep the hijab as a way to remember the experience and understand the value in the decision Muslim women make every day.

Still wearing my gift, I started to make my way home. As I left the comforting swarm of hijab-adorned heads, I became all too aware of the sideways glances I was receiving.

Walking alone with the sun quickly setting, I frantically dug my keys out of my backpack and jammed them into my jacket pocket.

Hurrying across campus, I gratefully felt the familiar curve of the grip on my pepper spray.

I’ve never before felt the need to carry any sort of self defense item around, and while I wasn’t clutching the spray or jumping at the rustling of leaves, having it in my pocket was a significant comfort.

Once safely inside my apartment, I took a minute to digest everything I had just experienced.

I went from feeling welcomed and honored to learn about a culture that faces so many difficulties, to feeling threatened for the same reason.

Earlier that same evening, UNM student Michelle Van Wart confessed she was interested in Islam, but had not converted yet because, “It’s really hard.”

“You know, because of the dangers.”

Though many of the women I talked to at Wednesday’s event said they generally felt safer and more respected when wearing a hijab, I can now understand why some Muslim women are afraid to express their religion in America today.

Knowing this, I anticipate I will pay more attention to the Muslim women around me, and if I happen to see someone being discriminated against, to do something.

“One of the easiest ways to diffuse a situation is just to sit down next to the person,” said Havah Shah, a Muslim woman and one of the event's organizers.

Shah encouraged anyone looking for ways to help and get involved to just sit or stand beside anyone you see experiencing discrimination and to take the conversation away from the instigator.

If you are looking to make a difference, she encourages you to simply ask, “How are you doing? How’s the weather today? Are you going to class?”

Even something as simple as, “Would you like me to walk with you?”

[jazminerose]

They actually use razor blades. Rusted or not, doesn’t matter to them.

Buy, hey. Let’s celebrate the culture.

[VietVet]

BFD.

There have been times and places in many cultures when covering one’s head was considered proper and going without a hat, cap or vail/wimple was just not done. I am old enough to recall an incident when my girlfriend and I toured the National Cathedral, and she was mortified that she had forgotten to wear a hat. At about the same time, among my older relatives in (then) rural Germany, it was unthinkable for a women of a certain age to leave the house with out covering her head, usually with a scarf. And there was a Scots folksong about a girl’s coming of age, when “it was time for ... putting up your hair,” under a shawl and bonnet.

[tet68]

Every cult manipulation technique
in the book on display in this article and the author doesn’t
See any of it. Sad and horrifying
at the same time.

[jch10]

It raises awareness, here in the US, that these people don’t want to be free. Men who require their wives and daughters to wear this garb are slave masters. Women who choose to wear it do not want to acclimate to this country.

[teeman8r]

What if my hijab has a big old cross on it?

[Sirius Lee]

It’s like being proud to wear chains and get a “property of...” tattoo on your forehead. Idiots.

[sit-rep]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippa_Bacca

[PIF]

“World Hijab day seeks to eliminate the judgment and discrimination associated with wearing a hijab and instill proper dhimmitude in non-believers whom we will continue to wage lifestyle jihad against until they convert. Or our soldiers (jihadis) will kill them all.”

[PIF]

National Sharia Law Day was a plan being worked on by the 0bama Muslim Brotherhood Administration. It will now carry forward underground, perhaps surfacing in some obscure comment by some anonymous poster on some forgotten forum somewhere, only to be picked up by some otherwise bored ‘reporter’ and published in the mainstream news as fact ...

[Wilhelm Tell]

These same leftists who love the hijab would be scornful of an Amish woman who was wearing traditional headwear. They would go on and on about how oppressive Christianity is.

[ealgeone]

Wait until she gets home and her husband gets to "discipline" her.

Or if she were to marry into islam she could be one of four wives allowed under Islamic teaching.

Imagine being the 50 yr old wife and your hubby brings in the 28 yr old. You get to do the house chores while the 28 yr old...well, you figure it out.

[Wilhelm Tell]

Imagine a Muslim woman in a hijab and a Catholic nun walking through a liberal school’s campus. You know at the very least that the nun would get a lot of hate stares.

[metesky]

Gaybos and pussies...

Interior decorators and women with "that" look.

[a fool in paradise]

>>They would go on and on about how oppressive Christianity is.

You've got it. In a New Times Media paper (Houston Press), they wrote a full page screed about movies to revisit now that Trump is president.

Among them was the Handmaid's Tale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid’s_Tale
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic military dictatorship formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America.

Beginning with a staged attack that kills the President and most of Congress, an extreme Christian movement calling itself the “Sons of Jacob” launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order.

They are quickly able to take away all of women's rights, largely attributed to financial records being stored electronically and labeled by gender. The new regime, the Republic of Gilead, moves quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsory regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. In this society, human rights are severely limited and women's rights are unrecognized as almost all women are forbidden to read.

[FlingWingFlyer]

As long as Americans continue to stand up to the Islamofascists, these drama queens will at least still have a head to wear a hijab on. LOL!

[Mr. Jeeves]

The innate female tendency to value security over liberty can be and often is taken to extremes.

[Moltke]

They should invite the muzzies to participate in the Wear A Crucifix Day. Oh, that would probably lead to riots...

[Cowgirl of Justice]

Forget the hijab.

This is just the camel’s nose in the tent.

These women who volunteer to put these on are akin to people allowing slave traders to put shackles on their ankles.

You don’t just force things on an unwilling people- you slowly acclimate them so they are in so deep they can’t remember what it was like before they were enslaved.

I wonder how many of these volunteers would allow their labias and clitorises to be cut completely off?

[kelly4c]

Weren’t they banning the kids from wearing sombreros and hosting burrito fest or some sh!t like that because it might offend the Mexican students? Man, their thought process is all over the place isn’t it.

[Buttons12]

Hijab macht frei, eh?