Professors Morgenstein Fuerst and Goodwin are aaaallwaaaays getting questions about hijab; is it oppressive? Is it empowering? Why do people where hijab? how strict is it? Here is our answer: IT ALL DEPENDS! A person’s choice to cover and the way that it relates to their religiosity is complex and deeply personal. Unfortunately, we are STILL reminding everyone that nation-states continue to regulate the ways that Muslims practice, and hijab is part of this. So, that is why this all matters.

What is “hijab”? What is “pious fashion” or “modest dress? And why are most people INCORRECT?

Our Profs rely on the term “pious fashion” which was coined by Dr. Elizabeth Bucar in order to discuss clothing that particularly Muslim women wear in order to both express themselves through clothing while also maintaining their closeness to god and their own religiosity. Here is what is covered in today’s episode and why you should care….

1. Hijab is low-hanging fruit for conversations about agency in the body, coercion, and women’s religiosity…..

   By this we mean that hijab is often used in white, non-Muslim spaces as a catch-all understanding of submission to a certain religious expression, and it is largely tied into global discourses surrounding Muslim women as “oppressed, pious, conservative”

2. Pious fashion is wrongly reduced to discussion that are exclusively about Muslim women.

   Ideals of modesty exist everywhere, and practices of modesty exist amongst men too! But when we add “piety” to “modesty” it is always interpreted a little bit differently….

So, then how should we think about modesty or “pious fashion”?

For starters, care less about what others are wearing unless you wanna throw some badass a compliment 

Second, stop thinking that a person in modest clothing is brainwashed

Third, stop thinking that a person in modest clothing stops at their modesty or piety

Politicizing this garment = bad news. But you’re incorrect to think that Muslim women and femmes are just, like, sheep being herded. There are protests and demonstrations, there are movements of solidarity, there are conversations about how and when and why one might cover. Reducing Muslim women to a hijab and then calling that hijab oppressive or backward is some racist bullshit. It is: INCORRECT

But we promise, there are stakes here…

The killjoys would like to remind you that 16 nation-states currently banned burqas (so let’s say that again: 16 nation-states have said that Muslims cannot choose their own clothing) and 2 nation-states mandate covering (Iran, Afghanistan, which proves the same thing–citizens cannot choose their own clothes). And that are even more examples of bans and laws in the homework….