A hijab-wearing student assumed she could not win a school election

Evidence

In the spring the next round of student elections was announced on the school’s PA system, and Yasmin mulled it over. That voice in her head told her, I probably don’t have a chance of winning, because no one is going to elect a girl who covers her hair, but she ignored her own misgivings, challenging herself as she frequently does. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 346

Categorization

• SEED: The internalized expectation that a hijab forecloses elective success — and the defiance of it — is a ready-made narrative arc for an essay on self-limiting assumptions among religious minorities.