What Is Unique About Islamophobia for Women Who Wear the Hijab Is That They Experience It Simultaneously In Multiple Spaces
By Dr
Suriyah Bi
21st
November 2020
Following
the Islamophobic comments made by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who likened
Muslim women to letterboxes and bank robbers, Islamophobic hate crimes
increased by a harrowing 375% across the UK, creating fear and anxiety among
many British Muslims. A closer inspection of such figures unearths a stark
finding; British Muslim women are much more likely to be subjected to such heinous
crimes, particularly due to their visibility as hijab (headscarf) wearing
women.
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Also
Read: World
Hijab Day: Is Hijab Really A Question Of Choice?
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While the
shift of public and political discourse is rapidly leaning towards the right in
which Muslim men and women are being employed as tools for nation-making to implement
and justify such directions, the lived reality for British Muslim women at the
grassroots level, seldom pierces these very public and political discourses.
“A staff
member told me she wanted to burn my scarf when I was changing so I would have
no choice but to come outside the changing room without one.”
This was
the harrowing account of a British Muslim woman who participated in the world’s
largest study I conducted into Muslim women’s experiences of work and career
development, which was launched in Parliament in February 2020.
Amongst the
425 survey responses and over 50 one-to-one interviews, the “Empowered
Employment” report found that almost half of all women stating they had
experienced Islamophobia in the workplace. British Muslim women who were
doctors experienced patients who did not want to be treated by them because
they were Muslim. British Muslim women teachers faced parents of their students
removing them from the class and in some cases, the school, due to not wanting
their child to be taught by a Muslim. Another participant told me that she was
sacked after she refused to remove her headscarf at work. Some reported
receiving anonymous hate mail after terrorist incidents. Others shared
instances where colleagues held glasses of wine and alcohol mockingly in their
faces during Ramadan.
The
relationship between Islamophobia and work and career development for Muslim
women, therefore, is acuter than ever before, and being visibly Muslim by way
of wearing a headscarf, places women at greater risk.
The tug of
war between wearing your religion and being Muslim and being British was also
seen in the stark loss of aspiration and talent between the ages of 14-22. For
instance, while 79 participants wanted to enter the medical field in secondary
school, only 1 participant entered the field as a doctor. Similarly, while 46
participants wanted to become lawyers, only 12 became lawyers upon graduating
university, and while 39 participants wanted to become journalists and/or enter
the media profession, only 7 entered the profession.
These
results show an alarming discrepancy between aspired-to profession and actual
profession, which invites a discussion about the challenges and obstacles
Muslim women are faced with in this crucial period where women will complete
significant educational milestones such as GCSEs, A levels, and university
degrees.
For some
women like myself, Islamophobia and racism conflate with a specific
socio-economic background to exacerbate experiences in education and
workplaces. Born and raised in one of the most disadvantaged areas in the UK
(Alum Rock, Birmingham), the sheer weight of wearing the hijab in this
increasingly right-wing and anti-Muslim climate has been a hallmark of my
adulthood thus far.
In 2015, I
set out to study my Ph.D. as a 23-year-old, which I decided to fund through
employment after I was continuously rejected for scholarships. A week into my
employment, a teacher showed a graphic 18-rated video footage of people jumping
to their deaths during the 9/11 attacks to a group of 11-year-olds, some of
whom had special education needs, and the majority of whom were Black and
Minority Ethnic (BAME) children. The white teacher prefaced the showing of the
video with “the 9/11 attacks have been written out of history, we must show
what the Muslims did to us.” I raised a
concern as to the necessity of showing the video to find that 40 minutes later,
the school decided to unfairly dismiss me.
This led to
me seeking justice in the employment tribunals, for which I won some claims in
2017, but aspects of which are ongoing. The fact that I wore a hijab led
teachers to misunderstand my genuine child safeguarding concern for a religious
issue. This had a knock-on effect on my Ph.D. studies, for which I was denied
support from my university despite the university knowing how rare it was for
someone from my background to be studying for a Ph.D.
What is
unique about Islamophobia for women who wear the hijab is that we experience it
simultaneously in multiple spaces, burdened with the weight and tarnished with
the scars of each experience onto the next. For me, I experienced
discrimination in the workplace, in the education space, and in the legal space
all at the same time, as with many of the women who took part in the study.
Borrowing from Stormzy then, “heavy is the head that wears the hijab”, is more
fitting of a description for hijab-wearing Muslim women who experience the
amplified effects of Islamophobia in contemporary times, from the UK to France,
to the USA.
In the
report’s findings, I make specific recommendations for employers and
workplaces, educational institutions, community organisations, and
policymakers, and suggest they form a bedrock partnership to make work and
education spaces more inclusive environments for Muslim women.
For
employers and workplaces, the recommendations include implementing name-blind
applications as part of HR policy and practice, instilling a culture where
networking activities take place in non-alcoholic environments, and to issue
clear guidelines to all staff as to what comprises Islamophobic behaviour and
the steps that will be taken to address such acts of gross misconduct.
For
educational institutions, which can collectively take a leading role in
implementing the research findings to aid Muslim women’s development before
they enter the workplace, it is recommended that targeted careers events for
women and their families are offered to increase awareness about a wide variety
of career options. Further, it is recommended that universities offer mentoring
and development programs for Muslim women, such as the Muslim Women’s Skills
Workshops I delivered at SOAS, University of London earlier this year, which
were a first for any UK university.
Empowerment
must extend beyond lip service, to actual change in structures and systems.
Original
Headline: Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Hijab
Source: The Muslim Vibe
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/unique-islamophobia-women-wear-hijab/d/124239
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