I wish I had the confidence of today’s young Muslim women when I was a teenager. I battled a fraught and hyphenated identity, unsure of how to balance my British and Asian cultures, and integrate my Islamic values. A teenager troubled by how to define myself, I decided to adopt modest dress and cover my hair with a headscarf well before the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
At that time, it was private faith and a personal choice that prompted me to do so. It was not anyone’s business but mine, and the only people who took an interest were my immediate friends, and later my colleagues. It was an internal barometer that reminded me of my choices, and an external sign of who I was trying to be within. Today’s Muslim women grew up in a different world, one in which their Muslim identity and their womanhood are constantly under intense scrutiny. But despite this, or perhaps because of it, I see in them pride, joy and determination. They are not the oppressed, submissive and straitjacketed people that Muslim women are supposed to be. Instead, observe their body language, it is relaxed, poised and confident. I would even use the words “fun” and “enjoyment” to describe their approach to life.
These pictures of self-possessed, young British Muslim women stand on the solid foundations of increasing educational achievement, progress into the workplace, economic activity and community engagement. Their ambitions and achievements are in stark contrast to the fact that it must have been hard to have grown up when newspapers carry headlines of violence and terrorism connected to Muslims and highlighted with pictures of veiled women. Today’s Muslim women face a triple whammy of discrimination – racism, religious hatred and misogyny. Many have immigrant backgrounds and their skin colour attracts hatred. And for the increasing number of women converting to Islam, a bizarre reverse racism occurs – they face westerners’ hatred for seemingly “selling out”. The visual presence of these hip, young, veiled Muslim women, does not only challenge our notions of the stereotype of Muslim women, it holds up a critical mirror to the 21st-century caricature of womanhood. Curvy hyper-femininity, flawless make-up and dieting to reach the fixed dimensions of womanhood are draconian standards. Our visual age – despite the deepening ideas of women’s independence and self-determination – still restricts the primary success or failure of a woman to how she looks. These young, veiled women shake the pillars of our image-conscious society. I can be a woman on my own terms, they say.
A study published this week in the British Journal of Psychology found a link between wearing the hijab and a less negative body image. Prescriptive body ideals were less internalised by hijab-wearing women. These images jump off the page because they are of Muslim women as actors in their own lives. Not passive, not victims, not voiceless. It is a new, unapologetic and confident generation, one that is busy getting on with embracing life.
* Photos by Olivia Harris / Reuters
* Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www.spirit21.co.uk
