They stared back at me, unflinching. It seems as if they felt my judgmental gaze and were determined to let me know that they were just as judgmental about me. This is before I traveled the world enough to know that many people around the world disdain Americans and our values, just like how I had a preconceived disdain for theirs. The women in hijabs and I ogled one another with the same wonder and patronizing compassion in our eyes. I got into a few staring matches with a couple different women, but each time I was always the one who got nervous, always the first to look away, pretending I got a call on a cell phone that didn’t even have international service. These women may have been oppressed, but they certainly weren’t shy.
I was taken aback by this whole situation because I was anticipating that the women would be meek, scared, beaten down. I thought they’d be mere shells of themselves given they had been treated like they were worthless for so long that maybe they finally started believing it. But it felt to me like they knew I was making that assumption and were trying to tell me with their eyes that my assumption was wrong. They didn’t want me to pity them. The older women intimidated me too much for me to approach them, but I came across a group of younger girls sitting on a bench, laughing gregariously. Since I’m constitutionally unable to mind my own business, I was dying to ask them a million questions. They all had their heads covered with hijabs, but paired them with very fashion-forward, youthful outfits. Some even seemed to be intentionally coordinated, as if they had numerous hijabs so they could mix and match them with various outfits. I found it particularly, well, ironic that a couple of them paired their headscarf with a tiny tank top and Daisy Dukes. This felt like it should be offensive—pairing what seemed to be sacred tradition of muting sexuality with a modern expression of aggressive sexuality—but, again, this country refused to pick a lane. Regardless, I was very confused. Were they allowed to show skin or not? My brain couldn’t compute what kind of oppression I was dealing with.
The girls looked about twenty-five, but when I mentally removed all the makeup from the faces of those who were actually revealing their faces, I deduced that they were probably closer to twenty-one. They were cracking jokes, taking selfies, and texting. They seemed so American, I thought. But then I realized that having that thought is so American. The point is, these were young, impressionable women. Our girls. Our world’s future. Being oppressed and abused, being forced to cover their heads and faces with scarves. They must be saved, I thought. And who better to save them than an American girl with some dick jokes and eight grand in credit card debt?
I wanted them to know that nothing that was put in their heads was true. They could go to school, marry whomever they wanted, and have kids when they were forty—that is, if they even wanted kids at all. Did they know they could be anything they wanted in life? That they could run the world? I took a deep breath and sauntered over to the girls in headscarves, with my head covered in nothing but a bad dye job.
“Excuse me? Can I ask you a question?” I asked, speaking too loudly, enunciating every syllable. I’m not sure if it’s a uniquely American thing to assume that saying a language loudly makes someone immediately learn it, but that’s what I did. As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, they spoke flawless English.
The girl who responded first had her face almost completely covered by a hijab. She was breathing heavily, which I could tell from the fabric fluttering around her mouth. It was surprising to me that the girl who was the most covered up was also the most confident in responding to me. Did the covering of the face act as a sort of shield? Did it oddly empower them because of their anonymity, the way the Internet does for trolls? My head was swirling with guesses about what happens to someone’s personality when their physicality and identity are removed from the equation.
“So, I can ask you a question?” I asked again.
She responded with a simple and powerful “yes.”
She didn’t say “Sure.” She said yes. If someone asked me if they could talk to me, I would say “Sure,” a more apologetic affirmation, which half the time means “I want to say no but I’m too worried you’ll be mad.” This girl said yes. With the one word I had heard her say, she was already more direct and self-possessed than I have ever been.
I responded with some version of “I’m just curious if wearing headscarves makes you feel oppressed at all?”
They laughed. A lot. Now I was the one being looked at as if I was from the Dark Ages.
I remember what one of the girls said verbatim: “We are not oppressed. We see American women as oppressed. You’re judged by your appearance, the women get plastic surgery, everyone has an eating disorder. We aren’t judged on our looks.”
Damn. That’s not how I thought that was gonna go down.
Before we process how wrong and reductive I was about the Middle East, let’s address how wrong and reductive this girl was about America. Although we seemed like total opposites, we did have one thing in common: We both had no clue what the other person’s life was like. I mean, yes, I personally had corrective surgery and an eating disorder and am judged by my appearance on a daily basis. In fact I’m often lambasted for it, so the girl was on to something, but not all American women go through that, right? RIGHT?
The girls, seemingly all at once, explained to me that they didn’t feel subjugated by their traditional garb. They very assertively stated that they were relieved that they didn’t have to obsess about their hair or makeup, even though the ones whose faces I could see were wearing some makeup. When I timidly pointed that out, they explained that if they didn’t want to wear makeup or didn’t have time to put it on, they’d choose a headscarf that covered more of their face. If they wanted to wear makeup, they’d cover less. I wasn’t sure if this was a traumatized person’s rationalization for their oppression or a genius life hack, but regardless they felt that they didn’t have to spend time and money trying to mirror a socially constructed ideal of beauty. They could if they wanted to, but were not bound to it. Suddenly my face not being covered by a scarf was actually frustrating because I really wanted to hide my confusion.
Although I’m horrified by the way women are institutionally treated in conservative parts of the Middle East, I was able to see the point being made here. Whether they were trying to convince me or convince themselves, I could see how hijabs could be self-empowering if it helped them remove the obsession with being physically perfect. It made me think about how I couldn’t leave the house without concealer under my eyes, how I had wasted days of my life trying to glue on false eyelashes, applying and reapplying liquid eyeliner because it’s impossible to get straight, and lasering every hair off my body. I’m ashamed to say I’ve looked into tattoo eyebrow filling more than once.