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Hijab Shaming in Social Construction

(This is the English translation of my early paper: Hijab Shaming Dalam Konstruksi Sosial. I dedicated this post to all of my colleagues who want to read this paper, but can’t speak Bahasa. Sorry for my English. I'll try my best)



Disclaimer:
This article carries the potential to cause pros and cons, both because of its opinions and the experiments I acted. Hopefully, the reader can be rational in reacting, if it can’t be, don’t read it all! THIS PAPER ALL BANNED FOR READERS WITH CONSERVATIVE FLOW. IF YOU ARE ACCIDENTALLY OPEN THREAD, PLEASE CLOSE YOUR BROWSER TAB IMMEDIATELY.


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Hijab is one of the many symbols of obedience for a Muslim woman against her religion. In Islam, it interprets the hijab as clothing that covers the body as a protector of women from the view of men. Based on history, the hijab was first used by a nobleman from Makassar around the 17th century and then followed by Javanese women, after the establishment of the Aisyiyah organization, one of the largest Muslim women’s organizations in Indonesia.

Based on research conducted by Jean Germain Taylor in his book, Indonesia - Peoples, and Histories said that there is no hijab picture in the photo of Acehnese women Muslim between 1880 to 1890, although there were some women who used hijab in the past. This carries implications that hijab is a decision for a woman.

During Soeharto’s era, the government banned the use of the hijab in the school to control religious issues in the public area. The Soeharto-era government assumed that the hijab was a political symbol of Egypt, whose political situation differed from Indonesia, so it worried the regime that the hijab would turn into a political identity that disrupted the governmental process.

Along with the times, hijab increasingly welcomed and turns into a recent movement in the community, specifically among Muslim women who supported by leading Islamic institutions in Indonesia, which describes that the hijab is a standard outfit for a Muslim slowly forming the perception that the quintessential Muslim is a Muslim woman who wears a hijab. Hijab slowly turns into a spiritual identification and definition of religiosity which promotes the knowledge that Muslim women wearing hijab are more pious than those who prefer not. (Saba Mahmood: 2005).



Hijab women in community life

Currently, Muslim women can wear hijab everywhere; Muslim women can use their hijab in social places and become quite a profitable industry in Indonesia. However, this cannot be separated from State intervention through the laws in Indonesia, which control the way women wear their hijab. At the end of 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued order number 325/10770 / SJ in 2018 on the Control of Official Clothing and Neatness of the State Civil Apparatus in the Ministry of the Interior and the National Border Management Agency, one instruction of which was a Muslim woman wearing a hijab to insert into the uniform and completely revoked after protests from diverse community.

Other interventions emerge from social life itself, where conservative groups set ideal hijab standards with religious propositions which opposed by progressive community groups who argue that this claim can curb women’s rights; we can see this intervention as an effort to control women themselves.

One intervention that occurs in societies is hijab shaming. This discussion is not as exciting as the body shaming, but the hijab shaming has taken several victims. When body-shaming associated with comments about people’s bodies, hijab shaming specifically refers to a Muslim woman who is a ‘part-time user’ or former user. Forms of hijab shaming can vary, such as satire and rejection either directly or indirectly, lectures with religious arguments or perhaps expressions of anger from people around. The perpetrators can be anyone, ranging from family to the outer circle like the community where Muslim women are.

Part-time users can interpret as someone who wears the hijab on certain occasions, for example, when in college or attending certain events. This type of user is often found in society, where most hijab users practice this in their lives. The former users can interpret as a Muslim woman who initially wore the hijab and then at a certain period removed the hijab completely and live a daily life without wearing a hijab.
Part-time users and former users are experiencing the same problem: hijab shaming that comes from the community. However, the level of hijab shaming can be different, can be heavier and can be lighter. This happens because of the social construction that has built that the hijab is a religious identity that makes someone ‘forced’ to wear the hijab to get recognition from the community as an ideal Muslim woman. Society can still tolerate the behavior of ‘part-time users’ compared to ‘former users’ which considered deviating from the norms that have built-in society.

Various cases about hijab celebrity shaming is the general case in Indonesia, ranging from how to dress that was not following the standards of women wearing the hijab, two celebrities who removed their hijab for certain reasons. For example, in the case of the actresses, Marshanda and Rina Nose, when wearing the hijab get praise as a role model for good Muslim women, and when removing the hijab turned into blasphemy. What’s worse with Rina Nose, one of the largest hijab producers in Indonesia also sneered by offering to provide a free hijab if Rina was willing to wearing the hijab again. The effects of this hijab shaming can vary, but what most often arises is an ex-communication from the community to harassment which can be fatal to hijab shaming victims.

Responding to hijab shaming that infiltrated in social life made me interested to start a social experiment about my community about hijab shaming. I want to know the reaction of people around when I was a different person by removing the hijab and doing something is out of my habit.

This opportunity arose when I worked as a Public Relation & Human Resources Manager in a local company based in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara Province at the end of June 2019. I did this social experiment carefully to make it look natural. I took off my hijab temporarily to experience what kind of hijab shaming by myself. I took off my hijab and started smoking in public. For your information, my current phase is part-time users and has been using the hijab since 2013 voluntarily.

I am familiar with many people in the city of Kupang because I have studied at one of the state universities there. This is a good opportunity to prove that hijab shaming can happen to anyone includes me. In the initial plan, I did this social experiment for 6 months, by my tenure at the company, but I had to leave for India in November, so I had to finish the experiment in the 4th month and resign from my job.

During this period, I met new people at the time and they accepted my different circumstances because they did not know who I was. My experiment only began when I invited several friends to meet. I caught a few shocked expressions and didn’t recognize me when we met. On another occasion, a religious friend when I was holding a cigarette caught me. I found an unpleasant expression, and we just got involved in a brief conversation and then she left. Until now, we didn’t communicate anymore, and I didn’t know the reason.

One interesting story is when I met a close relative, he played a video lecture of an alumna who talked about the importance of hijab to a Muslim woman so I can listen. The funny thing is, the video is a video of Quraish Shihab’s lecture, which known to be very moderate and supports the choice of women. Some people ask me if I have a problem so I remove the hijab, some say that my hijab is just to cover up my bad behavior. Some people pray that I can return to the right path as if I am a person who has gotten lost far from God’s path. It sounds harsh enough, but this is the treatment I received.

The existence of hijab shaming when doing this experiment is influencing my psychological. I felt quite excluded from my community, feeling afraid when I met my old community and they found me and they compared me with my past. At that moment, I realized that I avoided people from the old community to reduce the psychological burden. The existence of hijab shaming for former users makes a person withdraw from their community because of the difference in treatment-experienced when the person is still wearing the hijab.

Apart from getting hijab shaming because of this experiment, I also found many people who still treat me the same as when I used hijab; they still think I am ‘same Kiki’ but with a different appearance. I think this can be a good support system for former users because I still have support in every decision I took even though I believe in their minds that those people must be curious about the reason I took off the hijab.


Hijab shaming is our common enemy

After going through experiments and writing about hijab shaming, I learned that so many people can easily judge others through their hearts, minds, mouths, and thumbs without respecting a decision and thinking someone has full rights over herself. During the four months of doing this experiment, I lost my friends a lot and ‘power’ as a Muslim woman, because of a piece of cloth covering her head. I got the stigma of being lost, problematic women and not being strict in carrying out God’s commands. I can feel how difficult it is to be a Muslim “former users” who must fight with the norms of society because of the decisions she makes about the hijab.

Hijab shaming is an enemy of humanity that must defeat if we want to become great human beings. We don’t have any right to judge every decision taken by a woman; whether she wants to wear a hijab or take it off completely. Women have full rights to themselves to wear whatever they want, including wearing a bikini or wearing a hijab on the beach. Regarding religion, let her and her Lord to do the business. We as humans have to respect every decision as long as it does not have a detrimental impact on ourselves.

Isn’t respecting the decisions of others and seeing them as free human beings is a brilliant step to make the world a better place? ;)













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