Living in a material world
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 7: The Lure of Fundamentalism
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Randa Abdel-Fattah
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Randa Abdel-Fattah's biography and other articles by this writer
This is not a comic-book plot. This is not a Paul Jennings tale. This is real. There are pieces of material floating around in Australian stores, in your well-known fabric establishments such as Spotlight and Lincraft, which, when worn, have the power to transform a woman from an intelligent, articulate, strong character to a passive, muted, oppressed dimwit. The PhD doctor, the university graduate, the TAFE-trained, the well-read, the poet, the mother, the eloquent, the hard-working – no woman is impervious to the evil, twisted power borne within the fibres of this material...
I've gone to supermarkets and had checkout girls take one look at me and start talking to me in slow, deliberate monosyllables. I've stood in queue at a major department store and watched the woman behind the counter cheerfully chatter away with the customer before me. When my turn arrived, she was suddenly sullen and rude; her happy unpunctuated babble was now a strained collection of single syllables and blunt full stops.
I wore the hijab as part of my school uniform at King Khalid Islamic College, Melbourne, which I attended for all my high-school years. Usually, I'd rip it off the moment I walked out of the school gate as I was too nervous and self-conscious to wear it in public. It was so uncool and daggy; and besides, I didn't have the courage to get onto public transport with it on.
It was a Friday night, sometime at the beginning of Year 8. I arrived home and was going to go shopping with my mother. We walked out the door and my parents suddenly realised I had changed out of my school uniform but that I'd forgotten the ripping-off ritual.
"Oh yeah, by the way, I've decided to wear it from now on," I told them, as they looked at me with a mixture of awe, apprehension and shock. "You know," I continued, "full-time."That was loose jargon my friends and I had concocted. Full-timers were girls who wore the hijab outside of school. Part-timers were girls who wore the hijab as part of the uniform only. Casuals were girls who wore the hijab whenever they felt like it. Bad-hair day on the weekend and can't be bothered battling the mousse? Bring on the hijab. Trying to impress your friend's mother so that your friend will be allowed to your birthday sleep-over? Put on the good girl act: go over to her place wearing hijab, batting your non-mascaraed eyelashes and making sure you get up to pray one of your five daily prayers outside commercial breaks on Home and Away (demonstrates sacrifice).
I lasted until Year 12.
You see, I wanted to study law. All the top-tier firms presented a career fair at various universities to help students decide on their tertiary preferences and to give us a personal feel for life in the law. I noticed all the female lawyers wore short smart suits and had blonde hair. Then we were given the war stories. Interview disasters. Résumé stuff-ups. That sort of thing. We were given tips about what not to wear at clerkship interviews if we wanted to fit in, leave a proper impression. One woman advised girls to wear skirts instead of pants, at least for the first interview. The whole "don't give the impression you're resisting traditions, norms ... get your foot in the door and then show them what you've got".
Gag.
After three years of being stared at everywhere I walked, called a nappy head, a tea towel head, a wog, I was now being advised to show some leg to impress the big end of town. So I basically freaked out, went into major meltdown, and lost faith in what my teachers at school had drummed into our heads: you will get a fair go no matter what your religion is. In this great country of yours, you can be whatever you want to be if you work hard for it.
Er, really?
Meet "Neslihan". After several years' successful practice as a lawyer at a large city law firm, she approached the managing partner, showed him a photograph of herself wearing a hijab, and informed him that, as of tomorrow, she would be attending work dressed accordingly.
After catching his breath, the partner proceeded to quiz my friend about how exactly she proposed to dress and why: Is this your husband's choice? Are you being forced? How will the scarf sit on your head? Can any of your hair show? Will there be any problems with your representing male clients? Is this your final decision?
Intelligent, dynamic, capable lawyer one minute. Oppressed, passive dimwit the next.
MY MOTHER IS DEPUTY DIRECTOR AT KING KHALID ISLAMIC COLLEGE. For the past several months she has been conducting interviews of teachers and teachers' aides for the new school year. But something is wrong. Terribly, chillingly wrong. There are young, Australian-born women who have science, psychology, engineering, IT degrees applying for positions as teachers' aides. One woman is from a Middle Eastern country where she obtained her master's and lectured in chemistry at a prominent university. She can't find work here, despite her command of English, and so she is now undertaking her diploma of education so that she can teach primary-school science or Arabic.
Did I forget to tell you most of them are wearing the hijab? It doesn't matter how long the lists of academic qualifications and credentials run in their résumés, they simply cannot obtain employment because we all know that a piece of material covering the hair strips a woman of the ability to communicate intelligently, pursue a career, work a remote control. And so they are finding the only means to work is to fall back on Islamic schools; to forget their knowledge of the formulation of atoms in order to assist prep teachers paint collages with their pupils.
How many veiled Muslim women appear as advocates in court? One hears a familiar story: interviews in which outstanding candidates are overlooked because they cover their hair. Some have been told that if they removed their headscarves, the jobs would be theirs.
"It doesn't fit in," they were told. The legal profession is "unfortunately brutal" and they would "stand out". The firm has "nothing against Muslims, but has concerns about how clients would react to a woman wearing a headscarf handling their case".
Hmm. Kind of like Seinfeld's "not that there's anything wrong with that".
Perhaps it's all just mere speculation. Paranoia. A victimisation syndrome.
Really? Perhaps proponents of such theories should try wearing the hijab for an hour. Walk down Martin Place, Sydney. Walk among the crowds in Collins Street, Melbourne. Personally submit a résumé to a big firm, a small organisation, a boutique company, a perfume counter at a trendy department store, a five-star restaurant. They should do all that and then revisit their theories on the psychology of the Muslim woman.
In the corporate world, women generally complain about the glass ceiling. Statistics, studies and surveys provide ample evidence of its existence. So for those who worry that Muslim women are beleaguered by a victim complex, go ahead and add a hijab – with all the stereotypical, banal racist baggage that comes with it – to your glass ceiling contender.
The glass ceiling becomes a triple-reinforced concrete ceiling with booby traps and electric fencing.
OK, I hear you. Maybe there is some legitimacy to the concerns that plague our interview panels. Maybe this is how it goes: Hmm, an applicant named Jamila Abdel-Rahman. Now, let's see, how will this honours graduate represent a client who may suspect she is a potential terrorist? Can we be bothered explaining her to our clients, reassuring them that she is capable of performing, when there are other candidates, with good, easily pronounceable Anglo names who, ahem, let's face it, look normal, don't stand out so much? What's the less complicated option?
With perceptions abounding about Muslim women as oppressed and ignorant, and given the hysteria against Muslims in the aftermath of September 11 and the Bali bombings, one indeed wonders how a client or colleague, exposed to a daily barrage of such stereotypes, would react to a Muslim woman advising them on their business dealings, financial status or legal rights.
Of course, one thing is forgotten in the world of employment selection. It's that spirituality is deeply personal. That's right folks. Personal. This piece of material won't have Jamila suddenly break out into Islamic hymns at a boardroom meeting and start preaching salvation. Society has to face the fact that some faiths celebrate spirituality through an overt expression of inner convictions. The hijab or Sikh turban or Jewish skullcap are all explicit symbols, but they do not represent a threat or affront to others, and have no bearing on the competence, skills and intelligence of a person.