Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

Finding confidence through covering up

By Audrey Davis, News Editor

First-year Emma Wott, a theatre major with a religion minor, is not afraid of being different. She dyes her hair every six months - right now it's a faded teal - and is covered in tattoos. So when she was asked to do a risk project for her principles of acting class, she was unsure of what to do.

The risk project requires students in the class to step outside of their boxes and do things they would never normally do. Some kids in the class dyed their hair a different color. One girl cut her hair short. Someone in the class last semester, who was extremely shy, asked someone out for a cup of coffee, but Wott knew she couldn't do anything like that - that would be too easy.

"My boyfriend also studies religion, so we were just kind of bouncing ideas like, 'What can we do that's kind of risky and be willing to actually get something from it?'" Wott said. "We both came up with the idea of wearing a hijab because I have friends who are Muslims and just with everything going on nowadays, I thought, 'What would it be like to spend a week just seeing it through those eyes?'

"I paid full respect to it," Wott said. "I even had the under-scarf, the outside of it and the long skirts."

Megan Zimmerer, a sophomore international studies and French double major with Arabic and Middle East and Islamic studies minors, is a member of Miami's Muslim Students Association and said she thinks Wott's project was a great idea.

"If you want to know if I'm offended by it or anything, I'm definitely not," Zimmerer said. "As a Muslim, I don't feel like you're necessarily obligated to wear [a hijab], even though some people feel that you are. I encourage people to do it."

Wott herself identifies as an eclectic Wiccan, so she draws from a lot of different religions.

"I love just learning about cultures and seeing 'Why do they believe that?' 'Where's the connection to that?' 'Oh! That's why you do that!'" Wott said. "I knew a little bit about [Islam], but while wearing the hijab, and even before, I researched as much as I could."

While the Quran does not specifically mention the hijab, a couple of verses state that women should wear a khumar, or headscarf, and dress modestly. One verse translated to English reads, "Say to the believing women that: they should cast down their glances and guard their private parts (by being chaste) and not display their beauty except what is apparent, and they should place their khumur over their bosoms..."

"Wearing a scarf on your head and dressing modestly is something that women have done since the beginning of the Abrahamic faiths," said Gina Petonito, professor of sociology at Miami University's Middletown campus. "Basically, it's only been with more secular societies the last hundred years or so that women have taken off scarves and hats and long dresses and things that cover their bodies."

Most of Wott's Muslim friends were in complete support of her. She said they understood that one doesn't have to be a Muslim to wear a hijab.

"It's more about your own faith and your own connection to God, and no one really has the right to question it," said Wott.

Wott did have two friends who felt that she shouldn't wear it. Once she explained why she was wearing it and the meaning behind it, though, they seemed more open to the idea.

People who didn't know Wott never outwardly shouted slurs at her on campus, which she had feared, but lots of people stared.

"Being a girl," Wott said, "you will sometimes get glances when you go out. I got glances like that - just negative stares from some people."

On the last day that Wott wore the hijab, she went to a dinner theatre showing of "Fiddler on the Roof" with her family at La Comedia Dinner Theatre in Springboro.

"The people at the table in front of us at this big buffet left within two minutes of the show starting, and we all thought that was weird," Wott said. "My mom is friends with the stage manager and found out that they left because a Muslim woman was sitting behind them. On campus, I never got anything like that. No one ever moved if I was sitting near them."

Petonito said that what Wott is doing shouldn't be something that people care so much about.

"What she's doing is just an extension of what people have practiced," said Petonito. "People in the Mennonite and Amish communities, collectively called Anabaptists, believe that they're always in a state of prayer and, to be faithful, they should always cover their hair. You have Orthodox Jewish women who cover their hair, and some of the Orthodox Jewish women even wear wigs so that you're not aware that their hair is being covered."

Petonito added that what Wott is doing is not even something unusual with regard to Christianity. The Bible even states that women should cover their hair while praying.

"It's just something that societies have lost and somehow equated with modernity," said Petonito.

Petonito talked about a contemporary Muslim activist named Dalia Mogahed, who says that the value of women lies in their sexuality.

"When a woman's sexuality is viewed as private, then it becomes a controversy because the person can't place the value on her," Petonito said. "A woman who is stepping outside of it saying, 'I refuse. I refuse to have my value be dictated by my sexuality and how I fit it with modern fashion,' is then viewed as the deviant."

Wott said that, through this project, she learned that people pay too much attention to the media.

"They pay attention to social media and the articles and then suddenly that's, like, black-and-white correct for them when it isn't," Wott said. "They just don't know. The only ones who questioned me wearing the hijab were people who weren't of the faith. I just don't understand why people wouldn't just talk to someone [who is Muslim] instead of relying on what the media is feeding them."

Petonito stressed that people should be free to wear whatever they want.

"So people want to change the way they look? Why is that so problematic? You're not hurting anybody with how you dress," said Petonito. "I'm not going to worry about that. I worry about people who want to attack others and harm them. There is no harm in what this woman is doing. The attention is on a woman who just changed her fashion. Who cares?"

Petonito said the way people dress, the way people look and the way people act in Oxford can be very homogenous.

"There's a lot of conformity," said Petonito. "She decided to break the mold. It's horrible that we just live in a society that's so based on looks."

Zimmerer has seen first-hand what happens when someone breaks the status quo.

"I think some people who are close to you get worried that you're straying from mainstream religions. I know my family was pretty concerned and some close friends expressed concern when I starting wearing the hijab and really practicing," said Zimmerer. "I know people who are interested in doing it without necessarily converting just because dressing modestly is a beautiful thing, and I have a lot of respect for her for doing it. It is hard. I know that."

Wott said she plans to wear the hijab again and research even more about it, as well as learning about other cultures and religions that emphasize the wearing of headscarves.

"My biggest outcome, amazingly, was that I found a lot more confidence in myself," Wott said. "There were two days where I didn't wear makeup at all. You become kind of self-conscious because the only thing you're showing is your face. I became much less aware of what people were seeing me as and becoming more aware of myself."