By wearing a seemingly simple piece of clothing, a few De Anza College women evoke a complex range of reactions.

Some people assume they don’t speak English. Men have stepped aside and opened doors for them. One woman has screamed, “Why are you oppressing yourself?” Male classmates seem scared to talk to them. And others simply question, “Why do you wear the headscarf?”

The headscarf is called the “hijab,” (pronounced hee-jab.) Dozens of women who attend De Anza have donned a headscarf in compliance with the Muslim holy book, the Koran, which instructs both men and women to “guard their modesty.” While the hijab is a style of dress including long sleeves, loose clothing, and figure-concealing garments, the most commonly recognizable element is the fabric covering a woman’s hair, neck, part of her forehead, and shoulders. While the cloth is not sacred, often a plain length of material, it is symbolic of an “ideology of respect” and a “value of chastity.”

Women who wear the veil say they also limit their physical contact with men. “I shake hands for business matters,” said Mariam Harasis, a De Anza student who wears the scarf. Even to men who aren’t sure about the meaning of the hijab, the women seem to effectively communicate how they wish to be treated. These women are not familiar with whistles, overly friendly strangers, and rude sexual comments.

“When men see us covered up, they give us respect,” said Asmaa Mourad, a De Anza student. “[I’ve gotten] no inappropriate comments,” said Luba Shaiich, who has been wearing the hijab since before she came to De Anza.

Melannie Dunn is not a Muslim, but at times wears a headwrap because she thinks it protects her from viewed as a sexual object and takes away interference with the focus of her face.

De Anza student Clare Foord said she notices a difference in the way she is treated with and without the hijab. Without the hijab, she will have men ask, “Hey girl, let me get your number.” But wearing the exact same outfit with a hijab, she will not be bothered. She compared it to other women with openly religious clothing. “You don’t hit on a nun,” she said. Foord said the hijab helps her self-esteem. “I feel like more than a piece of meat.”

“What are you talking about, oppression?” said Zahra Rizvi, a De Anza history major, in response the American media portrayal of Islamic women. She pointed out that half of the Islamic country of Iran’s legislators are women, and that Pakistan, a country not much more than fifty years old, has elected two women as prime minister (one who wore a hijab). The United States, on the other hand, has existed for more than 200 years without a female president.

These countries did not have women’s liberation movements similar to those in the United States. “Women never had to struggle to be treated as human; it was already written in the Koran.”

“Oppression is a loss of self-empowerment,” Rizvi said, “going along with popular ideals.” While women don’t want to viewed as “stupid sex objects,” by wearing revealing clothing, they “fall into the trap of self-imposed inferiority.”

She said, “Reducing a person to a body as property is a disgusting thing.” Under the hijab, “beauty is not the basis of value,” Rizvi said. Under the hijab, women are “not being objectified, [viewed as] a pair of breasts or a pair of legs.”