For most of us free thinking individuals, crusading for equality across genders and races, wearing a hijab is considered to be the very epitome of oppression.
However, the amazing Hanna Yusef, in this thought-provoking video, talks about how her personal decision to wear the hijab has nothing to do with her being oppressed, and challenges the narrative of equating the veil with exploitation.
"My concern with the hijab being unfairly portrayed as a symbol of oppression is in no way a denial of the fact that some women are forced to wear it in some parts of the world, sometimes through appalling violence", Hanna clarifies.
She makes a fantastic point when she says that assuming that all veiled women are oppressed, we belittle the choice of those who wear it. "In a world, where a woman's value is reduced to her sexual allure, what could be more empowering than rejecting that notion?", asks the "passive little hijabi who can't think for herself" (sarcasm, obviously).
She talks about how a scarf does not in any way control a woman's sexuality.
She raises that very pertinent question that, if pressure to wear the hijab is seen as oppression, and rightly so, why is social or legal pressure to not wear it excused as female emancipation?
Watch the full version of what she has to say in this video:
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