Huma Mohibullah and Christi Kramer do a great job at explaining it in their article “Being True to Ourselves…Within the Context of Islam”: Practical Considerations in Hijab Practice among Muslim American Women by saying “The term hijab comes from the root h-j-b, which indicates a “covering”, “partition”, “curtain” and “protection”, among other, similar ideas. It is now a standard name for a piece of cloth commonly worn as a headscarf, and also in other styles of cover” (105). This term means covering and protection rather than oppression and inequality. People are so quick to judge when it comes to traditions outside of their culture or religion, but let’s see where it actually came from. “…historians of Islam remind us that hijab practices were not invented by Islam and were customary among pre-Islamic Jews, Christians, and others (including the women of Classical Greek and Byzantine empires)” (106). It is interesting to see that Islam wasn’t the first to have women cover their hair, but religions like Judism and Christianity were. This is an important idea to keep in mind since most of the time Muslim women are judged by Christians, who were one of the first religions to put a head covering on a woman. To this day, Christianity still has the head-covering present in the religion and that is shown by nuns who wear a veil to cover their hair. Now that we are …show more content…
In reality, these women aren’t oppressed, they aren’t weak, and they aren’t terrorists. After completing my research, I myself, learned very worthy information about the religion and the women who are a part of it. When in public and some explosion occurs or news hit the televisions, women with hijabs are automatically stared at and feared by the people around them even though, they have nothing to do with the criminality. There is also discrimination when it comes to Muslim women applying for jobs because of their hijabs. A religious piece of cloth should not be the deciding factor of any job, but rather the image of diversity to show our society that Muslim women aren’t harmful and that they are just like anyone else. Women who wear the hijab aren’t forced to do it, they do it for modesty and privacy. They dress in loose clothes and cover their in order to keep themselves for their husbands and curve any sexual harassment when they only expose their face, hands, and feet. They simply feel empowered with the head covering on and that is so beautiful about this religion. Women do not display their beauty by showing off their bodies, but they show the beauty within. As stated in the beginning that Muslim women need help from high-middle-class white women, when in reality the society just needs the knowledge to understand and be