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after the burkinis lets talk abt jobs that don’t allow veiled women to apply, restaurants that screen your social media, compounds that don’t allow veiled women to rent or own, universities that don’t allow niqabi women to enter, clubs that require nannies to wear a uniform..
we all know this is a classism problem but here’s the main issue: the fact that upper-class venues ban “modest” dress and working-class women are arrested for dressing “immodestly” are not “two different egypts.” they are actually related.
its a catch-22 for working class women. you cannot be accepted at these venues/jobs unless you change yourself. you cannot change yourself as long as you live where you live and are born into the family you’re born into.
meanwhile for upper class women: it is an inconvenience and a reminder that your dress is policed wherever you go, and that your freedom is guaranteed only by the generosity of whoever owns the place you want to work or visit, not by any real social acceptance.
ig while its often framed that way, it can’t just be about upper class hijabis wanting to be treated like the rest of the upper class community they belong to. it’s a chance to think about controlling women & why this extreme exclusivity exists in the first place. bc we have to.
