On the niqab

Photo by Ranoush. Found on Flickr.

“No matter how smart I was, I wasn’t getting the respect I wanted. They still hit on me, made crude remarks and even smacked me on the butt a couple times. [With the niqab,] they have to deal with my brain because I don’t give them any other choice.”

That’s American-born Muslim woman Hebah Ahmed describing her previous life as one of few woman in an overwhelmingly male industry. She was often the only woman on an otherwise all-male oil rig, or in the lab. As such, she frequently experienced the sexism and hostility described above.

Hebah Ahmed (that’s not her in the photo above), her sister Sarah, and five other niqab-wearing women were interviewed by the New York Times for its article Behind the Veil (log in required).

Ahmed chose to wear the niqab as a spiritual choice. Yet it had the effect of making her male coworkers act like they have some damn sense. Sad that those men couldn’t grant her the respect due a colleague any other way.

I suspect this is partly why many Muslim women still choose to wear the niqab in places where they can choose not to: it deflects the male gaze.