Hijab By Muslim Women

For centuries, clothing has played a significant role in the interpretation of people’s identity. It is an undeniable fact that people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds may dress differently, however their choices in clothing do not necessarily define or categorise who they are as a person. Stereotyping can have a negative influence on people’s self-esteem, and consequently, negatively affect how they identify and view themselves, unfortunately it is human nature to categorise people in order to identify them. For this case study I have chosen to concentrate on the “hijab” – the traditional headscarf worn by Muslim women, and the stereotypes associated with it.

Case Study:

From May 2012 till May 2013, the Powerhouse Museum

In a review written by Mayowa Adeniyi, Faith, Fashion, Fusion has allowed Muslim women to show Australia that the hijab is not at all oppressive, and despite the limitations to what they can wear, it should not imply a ‘lack of style.’ (2013). In another review for Omniloquence, PhD candidate, Petra Mosmann claims that the exhibition “successfully challenges the public’s preconception of how Muslim women can dress”, however “liberation and oppression depends on the garments use, rather than its design” (2014). Apart from clothing’s’ use, it can be said that liberation and oppression are also dependent on the actions and behaviours of the person wearing the garment. Despite Faith, Fashion, Fusion’s, success in breaking the stereotypes through their display’s of fashionable and personalised dress, the use of non-Muslim women as models leaves room to question their apparent “non-oppressive life”. Founder of Hijab House, Tarik Houchar, claims that as a Muslim man, he finds it ‘unacceptable’ to use Muslim women as models for fashion shoots. This may have not been such a problem if the exhibition was to also address Muslim men’s clothing, which also has some limitations, although not as many as Muslim women. (Mosmann,

In understanding how people come to stereotype, through social psychology, specifically social identity theories, understanding how people perceive things may aid In tackling the problem visually. Being prejudice is not something that is embedded in us at birth, but a trait that is later acquired as we grow older. Defined by Allport, Prejudice is “an antipathy based on a faulty and inflexible generalization” (1949). When meeting someone for the first time, the first things to be noticed are many in number, making our understanding of them quite complicated. As a result, we inevitably categorize them into a group based on the first things we see, namely sex, race, and clothing (Allport, 1954). This being the case however, how has the hijab, for example, been associated with stereotypes such as not being educated, or able to speak English (Rashid, 2015)? According to studies conducted by Michael Savelkoul, countries that have a high Muslim population showed less disrespect for Muslims, compared to countries where the Muslim population was lower, and therefore exposure to the religion was little (2009). This in mind, it would seem that the main trigger when categorising or stereotyping is memory a notion that has been further justified through the research experiment conducted by Dovidio, Evans, and Tyler in 1989