This might seem really personal, but I want to talk about the pressure of having to wear a hijab. Recently, I’ve been feeling this pressure build up more and more in me and I think that it would be insightful to share it in case anyone else was going through the same thing.
A little background on me is that I’m South Asian and mostly all of the women in my family wear the hijab. I haven’t started wearing one yet and I’m almost an adult. Something that I’ve noticed is that as I got older and older, more and more people started expecting to see me wear a hijab. How do I know? Because of the extra long glances they’d give me every time I would go over to their house or see them at parties. I’m tall for my age so that doesn’t help either. Sometimes my Mom and aunt will tell me how important it is to wear the scarf and how important it is to cover up. Which is all fine, but when they glance at my ponytail it makes me feel like the worst person on the planet.
It’s fine to talk about the importance of the hijab and covering up. I get that. But when it comes to the point where you’re using it to shame someone for not wearing a hijab is just plain rude. There’s the argument that a Muslim who doesn’t wear a scarf can be more religious and have more good deeds than one who does. And I think that it’s very possible. Obviously, not everyone feels that way, and you’re entitled to your own opinion. However, it’s not right to force it onto someone else. If one keeps forcing something onto someone then that person will come to resent the other and in terms of the hijab, might take off the moment that person isn’t breathing down their neck anymore. And that, I feel, is even worse. The hijab is important, and I think that it’s also important to let everyone have their own journey towards wearing one. It’ll make them more likely to actually keep it on rather than taking it off because they weren’t into it in the first place.
In general, telling and educating kids about modesty is fine and necessary. But when it’s for the purpose of guilting someone into wearing the hijab, it’s only going to hurt that person and nothing else. I will wear the hijab for the reason of bringing myself closer to Allah when I’m ready for it. You have the choice to decide when or if you will wear the hijab and I hope that others will learn to respect that. It’s your own journey towards the decision of wearing a hijab, whether it takes you a month or multiple years, it’s your choice to start wearing it whenever you want. The hijab is important, but so is keeping it on. So I hope that people will allow Muslim girls and women to make that decision for themselves and respect those decisions.