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The Hijab: My Identity
Muslim Women in France are fighting for the right to wear their identity
By Laiba
You may have seen some of us Cal Prep Muslim sisters wearing scarves covering our hair. In the recent news, as the war in Palestine (Gaza) proceeds, you’ve also seen that many of the women fleeing bombing also wear a scarf. It’s called a “hijab” and is worn by Muslim women around the world. These “sisters” also wear long and loose fitting outer-garments called “abayas” as they follow Islam practice.
When we say ‘hijab’ many people think it’s just a piece of cloth Muslim women use to cover their head, not realizing that it’s an entire lifestyle and a major part of identity for the women wearing them.
A Cal Prep student tells us that “As a Muslim woman I feel proud to wear my hijab. My hijab feels like a shield. She explains that the choice for Muslim women to wear a hijab isn’t forced upon them. “Here at Cal Prep we are free to wear our hijab.”
However in France, that’s not the case.
Since 2004 Muslim women have been struggling to wear the hijab, after the government passed a law stating that headscarves are banned in school. Later in 2010, the French also banned full-face veils and abayas in public. In 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that France’s ban on the niqab (full-face veils) violated the human rights of those who wore it.
To justify this ban, the French Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, claimed, “When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the students’ religion just by looking at them,” which doesn’t seem like a genuine explanation for me. The hijab doesn’t show a person’s religious views completely- Christian, Jew, or anyone else can wear it.
On January 19, 2022, the French Football Federation banned players from wearing the hijab, while making the excuse, that ‘the hijab could risk the safety of athletes wearing it while playing sports.’
The hijab isn’t just something Muslim women wear. It’s our freedom of expression and we shouldn’t be told whether or not we can wear it.
The French Interior Minister, Gerard Darminin, was also against the idea of female athletes wearing a hijab in all French sports competitions. “You don’t wear religious clothes when you play sports,” he said. “When you play football, you don’t need to know the religion of the person in front of you.” In France, Muslim women were already fighting against discrimination at the gyms in universities and the French Senate now makes it impossible for them to compete in sports.
