“Veiled Intentions” appeared in Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image (2003),
edited by Ophira Edut. Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image.
“Body Outlaws offers stories by those who have chosen to ignore, subvert, or redefine the
dominant beauty standard in order to feel at home in their bodies.” (FROM ignored groups –
minorities.)
The founding publisher of HUES (Hear Us Emerging Sisters) magazine
Edut is a social worker who lives in NY, and has written for many publications, including the Nation &
Spin magazine.
PURPOSE
Context – 2003. Not long after 9-11. Debates about veils and muslim dress.
Book about challenging body and beauty stereotypes.
Purpose The author clearly wants to challenge assumptions about Muslim women [262a] and why many
wear the veil.
MAJOR CLAIM The veil is a positive, affirmative choice for many Muslim women because it can reduce
objectification, promote authentic relationships between men and women, and foster some important
kinds of freedom. As she puts it, the veil can be “feminist, forward thinking, and progressive.” [AT THE
HEART OF MY VEILING IS PERSONAL FREEDOM.” Last sentence]
CLAIM The veil can help women avoid many damaging experiences, and help foster authentic
relationships that are not primarily about looks and sex appeal. [260b]
EVIDENCE: her experiences at school; construction sites;
Qualification: “Of course, girls deserve to be treated with respect no matter what they wear. But since
we live in a world of mixed messages, I got to bypass a lot of damaging experiences.” [260b]
Claim: Many people in the U.S. hold mistaken assumptions about the veil and Muslim women.
The veil does not mean you have to be conservative, passive, or traditional. The author is a feminist who
likes heavy metal and piercings, and is married to a white catholic.
Evidence: her many examples in which she confounds stereotypes (like karate and skateboarding
[260b])
CLAIM: There are many different reasons for wearing he veil, and many different interpretations of
modesty. [263b]
CLAIM Western cultural values are “out of line” – American women get dressed up for strangers not
intimates; they place too much value on body image alone
Evidence: 260a; 262b
Rebuttals: [262a and 262b
You might assume that because Muslim women traditionally don’t display our bodies, we don’t hold
them as important or feel connected to them—or that we don’t value ourselves as human beings. Guess
again. While our degree of modesty is high, the value Muslim women place on their bodies underneath
our veils is higher. In Sunday school, girls are taught that our bodies are beautiful (“God is beautiful and
loves beauty” is a hadith, or saying, of the prophet Muhammad) and that they’re so valuable that
1
they’re only meant to be shared in an intimate relationship: husband and wife, mother and baby, among
women, and in clinical or safe places (for example, with your doctor, among family members).
Rebuttal: [263b] “It’s utopic and ridiculous to assert that looks don’t matter and that by veiling I’m
avoiding the messiness—particularly after September 11th.
It frees her, whereas she thinks Western norms do not free women, and in fact imprison them.
Women wear the veil for many different reasons
It is unfortunate that many Americans see veiling as an oppressive tool forced on women by men. [260a]
For many, covering hear and body is a choice, and this is true for women of many religions, not just
Muslims.
Ethos – self-aware, reasonable, cosmopolitan, but someone who is free spirited and a little mischievous
(“I grew to enoy their disbelief and shock.” [260b]
She will let her daughter do what she wants; she is against forcing women to veil, or requiring them.
She talks of the “contradictions” of her life.
She “didn’t watch boys and girls learn about watch other from the sidelines” [260b]
STRATEGY - connect her experience to those of other outsiders
“Like anyone else who’s visibly different from the norm, I encountered ridiculous ideas about what a
covered person should be, do, and enjoy.”
STRATEGIES – CHALLENGE STEROTYOPES – she embodies qualities assumed not to belong
together. WE ARE NOT SO DIFFERENT – e.g. 263b:
STRATEGY - ENACTS contradictions – New York freed her, but exemplified what was wrong with
image obsessed society. Wanted veil for silly reason, but now values it. Girl on train talked of freedom,
but seemed oppressed by need to dress certain way.
CRITICAL QUESTIONS – seems to just accept that in Saudi Arabia you wear a full covering in order to
adapt. You just adapt there. In U.S., you also adapt. But makes little distinction between kinds of
adaptation.
THIS IS PERSONAL NARRAVIE – a lot depends on reader being drawn into, identifying, or
sympathizing with the narrator’s. ALSO – ability to tell stories that engage the reader.
2
Maysan Haydar (b. 1977) is an outspoken feminist and an observant Muslim. A
native of Flint, Michigan, Haydar now lives in New York City where she is a social
worker. Her articles have appeared in a variety of publications ranging from The
Nation and Spin to Venus Zine, HUES (Hear US Emerging Sisters), and
CMJ (College Music Journal). “Veiled Intentions” appeared in Body Outlaws:
Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image (2003), edited by Ophira Edut.
Reflection Questions
1. How does Haydar relate the term “oppressive,” usually associated with
the dress of Muslim women, to the dress of women in North American
society? Do you agree with this parallel of various “freedoms”? Why or
why not?
2. Haydar writes in her essay that while she did not choose her hobbies
in order to get surprise reactions, she did enjoy the shocked looks on
people’s faces when she revealed her interest in skateboarding and heavy
metal, for example. Many people get excitement from overturning stereotypes
about themselves, yet we continually use stereotypes and social
expectations to understand our world. Can you think of a time when you
“surprised” someone by bucking the expectations they had for you? Was
this an enjoyable experience? Why or why not?
3. List the advantages and disadvantages that Haydar associates with covering.
Do you agree that her hijab enables her “to be seen as a whole
person” (para. 6)? Why or why not?
4. Haydar begins her essay by quoting two passages from the Quran. What
rhetorical purpose do you think this move serves? Is including these
quotes appropriate given the subject at hand? What does this rhetorical
move tell you about who Haydar sees as her primary audience?
This is a fun, straightforward essay that students will most definitely enjoy discussing.
Haydar’s voice is inviting; she earns our trust immediately, then presents an argument we
may not have ever heard: a defense of covering from a Muslim woman’s point of view.
Before reading the essay, you may want to have students write or talk about their preconceived notions
concerning covering. When they see a Muslim woman who is covered,
do they think of oppression or modesty? Choice or coercion?
Haydar argues that covering makes people, particular men, treat her with respect,
essentially because they are not judging her solely on her looks (question 1). Thus, as a
teenager, her friendships weren’t muddied by a lot of sexual tension. Her hijab told them
that she was not available and thus could be taken seriously.
The downside to covering is
that, especially in a post–9/11 climate, people assume that she is a radical, a terrorist, or at
the very least, someone to be pitied for her lack of rights in an oppressive culture. You may
want to transition into question 3 at this point. Do your students agree on what constitutes
modest or immodest dress? How is the dress of Muslim women the same or different than,
say, Pentecostal women who wear long-sleeved blouses and ankle-length skirts, and who
don’t cut their hair?
Is modest dress an integral part of religiosity, as Haydar implies in
3
paragraph 7? Can one be religious and dress immodestly? Why or why not?
Question 4 asks about one of the most provocative moments of the essay. You may
want to have your students brainstorm about all the rituals they perform in order to be
“masculine” and “feminine.” Likewise, you could ask the women what rituals they expect
men to perform, and vice versa. Do your students ever feel confined by these rituals? Have
any of the women ever rejected some or all of them, such a wearing makeup, shaving legs
and underarms, wearing deodorant, dressing in a feminine way? Have any of the men
started wearing makeup or shaving their legs and underarms? Have they ever worn or
thought of wearing a dress or skirt? Some of your more adventurous students may be willing to
participate in an experiment of rejecting cultural norms and writing about it. They
might incorporate this experience into a research paper, in which they discuss what’s
expected, describe reactions to the unexpected, and suggest ways for cultural change.
Question 5 could be used as an opportunity to discuss male-female relations in general. Have your
students debate Haydar’s assertion, “girls deserve to be treated with
respect no matter what they wear (para. 11).” Do your students agree or disagree? Do they
feel scantily clad women invite negative attention? Why or why not? What can we do as a
society to foster respect toward women? Does the change need to come from within men,
women, or both?
If some or all of your students’ dress is already on the conservative side, they may
choose to write about how their lives would change if they chose to dress immodestly or
otherwise outlandlishly. Again, the survey in question 9 could be expanded to gauge attitudes toward
several styles of dress. To what extent do the student body and the community judge a book by its
cover? Students can write up their results and present them to the
class.
Every article or essay has a purpose, and every author does their best to forward their purpose through the
use of rhetorical devices, usually in the form of appeals to a variety of the reader's sensibilities. Maysan
Haydar's essay, Veiled Intentions: Don’t Judge a Muslim Girl by Her Coverings is no different. She
addresses the American people in an effort to convince them that what we perceive as oppression of
women may, in fact ,be no more than a different way of viewing beauty. She effectively employs appeals
to logic, as well as an appeal to authority to convince the reader of this.
Haydar uses many tools to achieve her purpose, but perhaps the most effective is her use of examples to
show how coverings are freeing, as opposed to confining. She relates various incidents, such as walking
past a construction sites, and shows how these are no longer threatening because of her modest dressing
style. While construction workers still comment on her as she walks past, she usually gets comments
along the lines of "nice skirt," which she feels is "harmless compared to the degradations [she] usually
hears women complain about." She also gives an account of a girl on a subway who wonders at Haydar's
coverings, remarking "Me, I gotta be free." Haydar then comments on the confining and restrictive nature
of the girl's choice of modern clothing. Haydar tells the reader that the girls' tight pants, excessive
makeup, and complex hairdo seem more confining than the traditional veil Haydar wears.
Haydar also uses an appeal to the emotions of the reader to get her point across. Everyone remembers
high school, and how weird it suddenly became to deal with members of the opposite sex. Haydar points
out that, instead of alienating her, her jilbab allowed her to interact with boys on a purely platonic level.
This may not have been the case in all relationships, but she tells us that she was liked for who she was,
4
beyond her body. By using examples that ring a common chord among her readers, she gives us reasons
that we feel and sympathize with, instead of merely understanding.
The final tool that Haydar uses to convince us of her viewpoint is that of credibility. She uses verses from
the Quran, the Muslim holy book, to support her points and convince us that she knows the religious
reasons behind her decisions. The article starts with two verses telling women to cover themselves, so that
their beauty might be hidden. She later tells us how much physical beauty is valued by Muslim society,
"In Sunday school, girls are taught that our bodies are beautiful [. . .] and that they’re so valuable that
they’re only meant to be shared in an intimate relationship." By comparison, Haydar tells the reader that
"Western priorities are out of line: American women spend hours getting ready for strangers to see them
but don’t give the same effort to those who see them in intimate settings."
Haydar's essay is an important piece of literature for the American populace. It is a view on Muslim ideas
of modesty from a Muslim perspective. It causes the reader to re-think their views about Muslim society,
and re-think their views about Western society as well. It effectively uses appeals to logic, emotions, as
well as the reader’s sense of authority. Her well placed examples of various forms of freedom, along with
her clearly stated authority on the subject, and her appeal to the reader’s memories of relationship
insecurities in middle and high school all combine effectively to form a convincing essay on the subtle
freedom behind the veil.
5