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Hijab

Hijab is the most general term for Muslim women's practice of covering their hair. Most women who wear hijab cover their hair with a scarf and wear clothes that cover their hands to the wrist and their legs to the ankles. These may be Western-style clothes, garments from their cultures of origin, or clothes that are identified with Islam, including the often-depicted outer wraps called the abaya or chador. Some women also wear the niqab, a cloth that covers their face below the eyes; this is often called a burqa in the west, but that is a misnomer, since burqa refers to either the blue face-covering robe worn in Afghanistan or the metallic face-jewelry worn in the Arab Gulf. In the United States, women who wear hijab or niqab are generally called hijabis or niqabis.

Debates Over Hijab

Muslims in general disagree about what forms of body covering women should wear, in which contexts, and whether or not it is required. Some feel that wearing hijab is required for all Muslim women, and others feel it is optional. The majority think that teenage and adult women should wear loose clothing that reveals only their faces, hands, and feet in public, and that they can only be seen uncovered by closely related men, other women, and children. However, there are many Muslim women who cover and identify as hijabis, but still reveal some hair, do not cover their necks or wrists, or wear tight-fitting clothing. Muslims frequently disagree about whether or not certain garments or dressing practices are sufficiently modest, culturally appropriate, or meet the requirements of hijab.

Hijab is a frequent source of debate among Muslims and non-Muslims. For some, the practice of hijab is considered a marker of the low status of women in Islam, and is closely associated with women's exclusion from the public sphere, their limited role in public life, and male domination. For others, hijab is meant to encourage women's participation in public life by allowing them to be respected publicly. It is usually worn voluntarily and is a personal act of devotion a woman makes to God. (There are both Muslims and non-Muslims who take both positions.) The experiences of women who wear hijab are diverse. Many emphasize their own desire to cover themselves and how it makes them feel closer to God. However, many women have faced social pressure to cover themselves, or to cover themselves in a particular way, or behave a certain way when covered (particularly to not interact with unrelated men). There is a growing segment of women who identify with the concept of “dejabing,” or ceasing to wear hijab after an extended period of doing so.

Hijab as a Cultural Marker

Hijab is a potent marker of community identity for Muslims, both men and women. Many American women who cover say that part of their reason to do so is to publicly affiliate themselves with the Muslim community and be identified as Muslims by non-Muslims in daily life. However, this high level of visibility has also made hijabis and niqabis the target of discrimination by non-Muslims. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports that, of all anti-Muslim acts of discrimination reported to them in 2008, 5.61 percent had hijab as a precipitating factor, and 0.59 percent had niqab as a precipitating factor, making covering the fifth most common factor. (By contrast, fewer than 2 percent of all discrimination incidents were seen as caused by men's Islamic garb.)

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