In a recent New York Times podcast on the alleged “Trojan Horse” Islamisation of schools in Birmingham, England, a Muslim woman who worked in one of the schools under discussion relays what happened when she started wearing the hijab. She had just got married and non-Muslim colleagues interpreted her head covering as a sign that her new husband was controlling her, that she was oppressed.
In reality, as she explains to the podcasts’ hosts, she had not previously worn the hijab because she was afraid of exactly this: people’s biased reactions to it. She only started to cover when she felt more confident that the school was a safe place where she could be herself without fear of Islamophobic repercussions.
