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                         My BODY is MY Own Business
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                             By Naheed Mustafa
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   MULTICULTURAL VOICES: A Canadian-born Muslim woman has taken to
   wearing the traditional hijab scarf. It tends to make people see her
   as either a terrorist or a symbol of oppressed womanhood, but she
   finds the experience LIBERATING.
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   The Globe and Mail Tuesday, June 29, 1993 Facts and Arguments Page
   (A26)
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   HEADLINE: MY BODY IS MY OWN BUSINESS By Naheed Mustafa 
   
   I OFTEN wonder whether people see me as a radical, fundamentalist
   Muslim terrorist packing an AK-47 assault rifle inside my jean jacket.
   Or may be they see me as the poster girl for oppressed womanhood
   everywhere. I'm not sure which it is.
   
   I get the whole gamut of strange looks, stares, and covert glances.
   You see, I wear the hijab, a scarf that covers my head, neck, and
   throat. I do this because I am a Muslim woman who believes her body is
   her own private concern.
   
   Young Muslim women are reclaiming the hijab, reinterpreting it in
   light of its original purpose to give back to women ultimate control
   of their own bodies.
   
   The Qur'an teaches us that men and women are equal, that individuals
   should not be judged according to gender, beauty, wealth, or
   privilege. The only thing that makes one person better than another is
   her or his character.
   
   Nonetheless, people have a difficult time relating to me. After all,
   I'm young, Canadian born and raised, university educated why would I
   do this to myself, they ask.
   
   Strangers speak to me in loud, slow English and often appear to be
   playing charades. They politely inquire how I like living in Canada
   and whether or not the cold bothers me. If I'm in the right mood, it
   can be very amusing.
   
   But, why would I, a woman with all the advantages of a North American
   upbringing, suddenly, at 21, want to cover myself so that with the
   hijab and the other clothes I choose to wear, only my face and hands
   show?
   
Because it gives me freedom.

   WOMEN are taught from early childhood that their worth is proportional
   to their attractiveness. We feel compelled to pursue abstract notions
   of beauty, half realizing that such a pursuit is futile.
   
   When women reject this form of oppression, they face ridicule and
   contempt. Whether it's women who refuse to wear makeup or to shave
   their legs, or to expose their bodies, society, both men and women,
   have trouble dealing with them.
   
   In the Western world, the hijab has come to symbolize either forced
   silence or radical, unconscionable militancy. Actually, it's neither.
   It is simply a woman's assertion that judgment of her physical person
   is to play no role whatsoever in social interaction.
   
   Wearing the hijab has given me freedom from constant attention to my
   physical self. Because my appearance is not subjected to public
   scrutiny, my beauty, or perhaps lack of it, has been removed from the
   realm of what can legitimately be discussed.
   
   No one knows whether my hair looks as if I just stepped out of a
   salon, whether or not I can pinch an inch, or even if I have unsightly
   stretch marks. And because no one knows, no one cares.
   
   Feeling that one has to meet the impossible male standards of beauty
   is tiring and often humiliating. I should know, I spent my entire
   teenage years trying to do it. It was a borderline bulimic and spent a
   lot of money I didn't have on potions and lotions in hopes of becoming
   the next Cindy Crawford.
   
   The definition of beauty is ever-changing; waifish is good, waifish is
   bad, athletic is good -- sorry, athletic is bad. Narrow hips? Great.
   Narrow hips? Too bad.
   
   Women are not going to achieve equality with the right to bear their
   breasts in public, as some people would like to have you believe. That
   would only make us party to our own objectification. True equality
   will be had only when women don't need to display themselves to get
   attention and won't need to defend their decision to keep their bodies
   to themselves.
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   Naheed Mustafa graduated from the University of Toronto last year with
   an honours degree in political and history. She is currently studying
   journalism at Ryerson Polytechnic University
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