If I take off my hijab...
Who wins?
I said I wasn’t going to talk about this.
I don’t usually write about politics. And I know the moment I press publish, that changes.
But lately, it feels like my brain won’t let this go. They say the mind fixates on unfinished business. Maybe this is mine.
A video has been circulating, a woman removing her burqa as a symbol of freedom from the Iranian government. Western media applauded. The narrative was familiar, taking it off equals liberation.
And I was annoyed.
Not because I don’t understand oppression. But because I’m tired of watching Muslim women’s bodies become metaphors.
When did my hijab become your freedom campaign?
When did my body become a before-and-after photo for someone else’s ideology?
Because here’s what unsettles me.
If a government forces a woman to wear a hijab, that is oppression. Full stop. No debate. No nuance.
But if global media constantly suggests that removing it is the ultimate symbol of enlightenment, what is that? It’s still a script. It’s still a prescription. The costume changes, but the stage direction stays the same: perform liberation for the audience.
Both are forms of prescribing what a woman’s body should communicate. Both decide, before she opens her mouth, what her appearance means.
When does “choice” quietly become choreography?
I’ve seen it everywhere. In films. In documentaries. In slow-motion scenes where a woman pulls off her hijab and the wind catches her hair like she just unlocked oxygen for the first time. The music swells. The lighting softens. The audience exhales.
Freedom.
That scene has been filmed so many times, it has become its own genre. And like any genre, it has rules... a beginning, a middle, a redemption. The woman was covered. Now she isn’t. She is saved.
But what if she liked it? What if she chose it?
What if she wasn’t waiting to be rescued? What if her story had no dramatic turn because there was no crisis to resolve?
The genre doesn’t have space for that version. It doesn’t know what to do with a woman who simply... stayed, and meant it.
And that’s what bothers me. Because the conversation keeps swinging between two extremes: Forced to wear it. Saved by removing it. Both narratives still center control. They just switch hands.
And somewhere in between those loud ideologies are women who are simply… choosing. Or questioning. Or changing their minds. Or staying where they are. Or genuinely unsure and not yet required to perform certainty for anyone.
Those women exist. I know them. I am, some days, one of them.
Why does it have to symbolize anything beyond what it is to her?
If I take off my hijab tomorrow, is that rebellion? Liberation? Growth? Or is it just fabric off my head?
If I keep it on, am I oppressed? Conditioned? Less free?
Why does my autonomy need a verdict from either side?
Here is what I keep coming back to: maybe freedom isn’t about the cloth at all. Maybe it’s about the absence of coercion, in all its forms. No government mandates. No cultural shame. No Western applause. No ideological script telling me which direction counts as forward.
Just a woman. A choice. No performance required.
That version of freedom is quieter. It doesn’t trend well. It doesn’t make for a clean narrative arc or a shareable clip. But it’s the only version that actually belongs to the woman living it.
I almost didn’t write this.
But neutrality feels dishonest when the conversation keeps circling around women who look like me, using our image, our bodies, our cloth, to settle arguments we were never invited into.
So I’m saying it plainly: I don’t need to be liberated by your narrative. And I don’t need to be protected by mine.
I just need the choice to be mine.
That’s all liberation has ever been.
Oh well…
Your anonymous bestie
Ree 🤍