Does clothing truly reveal our identity? In today’s world, as Alison Lurie argues, clothing reveals a lot about the sex, age and socio-economic status of an individual. The things we wear act as a language that communicates to the rest of the world some information about ourselves. When a woman wears a hijab, we identify her as a conservative Muslim who is obliged to fully cover her face and her body from the eyes of the strangers. Moreover, the hijab makes Muslim women seem oppressed and shy to western societies.
As Shabana Mir argues in her article, it is unfair to make such statements because it creates false stereotypes. The wearing of the hijab is not an essential part of Islam. Just because a woman wears the hijab, it does not mean that she is subjugated or timid. I’m not sure if this is the case at Hamilton, but there are plenty of Muslim women like Latifa on other campuses, that wear the hijab and are sociable and broad-minded. One of my friends at Hamilton does not wear the hijab and is not identified by the majority as a Muslim because she dresses and acts “normally”. Therefore, the form of identity that is suggested by clothing can be deceiving in many ways. On one hand, clothing does reveal the sex, age and socio-economic status of an individual, but on the other, it doesn’t fully reveal his or her character. What is shown on the outside is just a visual identity, an abridged projection of our individuality to the outer world.
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