Hijab and American Muslim Women: Creating the Space for Autonomous Selves
by Rhys H. Williams, University of Cincinnati
& Gira Vashi, University of Illinois at Chicago
April, 2001
Presented to the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society, St. Louis, April, 2001
Part II
Second Generation Muslims as Americans
We recognize fully that segregation is a constituent part of Islamic gender relations, including as they are practiced in the United States. But a whole host of observations document that this segregation does not seem to produce passivity among the young American Muslim women we have been studying. In a variety of settings, including school settings that include both males and females, young women seem more assertive and outspoken than the young men in the same settings. For example, at a series of events sponsored by the Muslim Student Association at UIC during Islamic Awareness Week, women were consistently asking more questions of the featured speakers than were the men (we should note here that segregation often means sitting in same sex groupings in the same room; further, we were told once that segregation is only truly necessary in worship, while in teaching situations mixed sex groupings are hallal).
Similarly, in the classrooms at the Islamic Foundation School girls tend to ask more questions and are more verbal with their opinions about the class assignments. They frequently challenge assignments thought of as too hard, as well as ask teachers why the assignment is important. The boys in the room are often silent with no opinions, or at least keeping them to themselves. Young girls seem to be succeeding academically as well. At lower grade levels at the Islamic Foundation School, there is a student who is designated to run errands for the teacher (go to the office to get things stamped or drop papers off); from our observations four out of five of these children were girls. Also, there are bulletin boards that show academic progress of the top students at different levels (for example, the gold star board, the silver star board) and approximately 75 percent of the student names are female.
At the university level, the activism and energy of young Muslim women in the MSA is notable. Significant to our argument is that many of the programs run by the MSA are by and for young women. For example, there is now a self-defense class. While in part this may be an indictment of American society, it is also recognition that Muslim women will be out of the house, in the society, often unaccompanied by men. Another example, the MSA runs an occasional workshop on the process and tricks to applying for medical school. The announcements for these workshops specifically note that “sisters are encouraged to attend.” Clearly these young women view themselves as having careers and autonomous lives beyond marriage and family.
Let us turn now specifically to hijab. For many of the women we have talked to, the decision to wear hijab came when the women began college. We note that many of these women we have encountered are Indo-Pak ethnically, and come from middle-class, often professional homes. They have career ambitions. The decision to wear hijab was one of identity, of reminding themselves of their religious and community connections. Several mentioned the benefit of gaining more “respect” from men after having started to cover. This could sound like a too familiar version of the idea that women need to be modest in order not to arouse the putatively uncontrollable urges of men. And yet, these young women seem very comfortable around me – an unrelated, nonMuslim, male – in some cases willing to sit in my office unescorted (with the door open), look me directly in the eye when speaking to me, and in one case riding an elevator to an MSA meeting with just the two of us in the elevator car (perhaps my status as “uncle” rather than “brother” is a mitigating circumstance).
A couple of the women we spoke to gave us directly an account of hijab that emphasized the way in which it provides some insulation from the restrictions that might otherwise accompany their status as unmarried women. One young woman, who did not cover, told Vashi, “if I wore the hijab I would be able to do so much more”; she went on to say that other girls often wore hijab just to be able to “date” without repercussions. We note that many students at UIC still live at home. Thus, wearing hijab, and being involved in Islamically-oriented organizations, are a way to escape parental authority and supervision, at least temporarily. These are very “public women,” driving around the city to various events, organizing meetings of MSA and other religiously-related groups, talking on cell phones and using palm pilots. They easily maintain a distinctly Muslim identity, however, visibly proclaimed with hijab.
Some other women who began wearing hijab in college came from opposite circumstances. Many grew up in situations in which they and their families were reasonably well-integrated into nonMuslim communities. Often the women in their family of origin did not cover, except when in the mosque. In these cases, their arrival at college was their first experience with all-Muslim circles of friends. They began to wear hijab as an expression of a Muslim identity-in-formation, as well as trying to fit in with a new crowd of friends. One woman told Vashi, “if I don’t wear the hijab the Muslim girls [at the MSA] will not acknowledge me.” Another said, “I don’t like UIC MSA because all the girls want you to wear the hijab or else they are rude to you.” So clearly peer pressure plays some role. I do note that when I have attended MSA functions (not prayer services) I have notice a significant minority of uncovered young women, seven or eight among the 30 women there. Asking an informant about this, I was told they were definitely Indo-Pak, “no Arab girl would be uncovered” (my informant herself was Arab). One young woman related that she began to wear hijab in college, (her friendship circles were all Muslim) even over her parents’ objections. Her parents felt it to be unnecessary (both are physicians, and she grew up in a mid-sized community in Indiana where there is not a significant Muslim community). So often the “autonomous selves” these women are creating are identities that are autonomous from their more Americanized families.
An Autonomous Dynamic
Finally, we want to note that wearing hijab has an “autonomous dynamic” that cannot be fully accounted for by religious motivations or the social, ethnic, or class backgrounds of the young women we have encountered. Lieberson (2000) charts what he calls the independent cycle of fashion as a social phenomenon in its own right. We call upon that now because, in our view it is also indisputable that along with its religious and social meanings, hijab is also a fashion statement. Girls and young women talk about it with each other as if they were talking about their shopping from the mall. Further, the ways in which they wear hijab, for example, the different ways in which it is wrapped about the head and draped down over the shoulders, is subject to fashion, innovation, and trend.
Further, as more and more young women wear hijab, others are now starting to wear the jilabab, the full-length robe. We have observed more recently some women taking it a step further and wearing the ‘nikab’ that covers their face. Part of this seems to be a dynamic where demonstrating one’s piety – and distinguishing oneself from others – requires ever-increasing steps. Thus, while this increasing covering is on one level about religion – it is also the case that religion is just the substantive content with which statements of personal identity and social distinction are being made. We have not pursued these last observations systematically, but they do make sense of some of the internal personal and social dynamics we have observed within Islamic schools and student organizations.
Summary
The scholar of Islam, May Seikaly notes that “while the veil carries a religious significance, it is a social symbol as well; women have come to use it to fulfill other needs . . . “ (Seikaly 1998: 182). Her empirical example is the Gulf state of Bahrain, but the point is no less true in the U.S. American society puts great emphasis on equality, independence, and the establishment of autonomous personal identity. We argue that the decision to wear hijab works in this way for many second generation American Muslim women. They are creating cultural space for the development of autonomous selves through the use of this potent religious symbol. It emphasizes their Muslim identity and gives them some measure of autonomy from – depending upon their personal circumstances – dominant American nonMuslim culture, their Westernized, assimilating parents, or their non-assimilating parents who hold expectations for them rooted in Arabic or Indo-Pakistani culture. Wearing hijab is, for them, less about abstract principles of equality and oppression than it is a practical and useful response to living as young women in a nexus between two cultures and as members of a minority faith.
In whatever situation these young women find themselves, they rely on the legitimacy of religion, and the Teflon construction of Islam as opposed to the polluting effects of “culture,” to provide them with opportunities to become public women, young Americans, and good Muslims simultaneously.
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Go back: Part I
Islam is to Catholicism as Teflon is to Velcro: Theorizing Ambivalence About Religion and Ethnic Culture Among Second Generation Muslim Women and Latina College Students
’Hijab and American Muslim Women: Creating the Space for Autonomous Selves
Creating Urban Evangelicalism: Youth Ministry, Moral Boundaries, and Social Diversity
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