Wearing a hijab does not mean a woman needs ‘rescuing’

Soumaya Ghannoushi | MEE Opinion

Soumaya Ghannoushi, a writer and expert in Middle East politics, argues that Western narratives about “rescuing” Muslim women often deny them the very agency they claim to defend.

In this Op-ed, Ghannoushi challenges the assumption that wearing the hijab is inherently a sign of oppression, pointing to histories of both compulsory veiling and forced unveiling in countries including Iran, Turkey and Tunisia. She argues that Muslim women are frequently treated as free to make choices only when those choices conform to a particular idea of liberation, describing this as “paternalism dressed in feminist garb”. Ghannoushi stresses that women should be free to wear or remove the hijab without coercion, arguing that there is no single experience of “the Muslim woman”. “If she is forced to cover, defend her right to uncover. If she is forced to uncover, defend her right to cover,” she writes. “And if she makes her own choice? Perhaps, after centuries of explaining the Muslim woman to herself, her would-be rescuers might attempt something genuinely radical. Listen to her.”