Hijab-wearing women must perform confidence to cancel stereotypes.

Evidence

Ayesha: The thing about wearing [the] hijab is you have to counteract it a little because people think you’re timid. They think that maybe you’re forced to wear it and stuff. But by just being a confident and strong person, [it] takes those misconceptions away. I know a lot of Muslim women think that they’ve been discriminated against in an interview setting. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 382

Ayesha felt it was imperative for Muslim women who wear the hijab to behave in ways that counter the stereotype of Muslim women as timid. She told me she speaks in a confident manner and looks people in the eye when she talks to them. Ayesha makes sure her behavior in public spaces does not in any way reinforce existing stereotypes of Muslim women. And while Ayesha tries to control her representation, her statement reveals how confined Muslim women are by their hypersurveillance. They are not free to just be themselves but have to constantly think about their behavior and the way they present their bodies in their daily interactions. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 383

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s map of surveillance-driven racialization of Muslim Americans — this is the visceral, body-level interior of being watched that the reader is hunting for. Also resonates with Beydoun’s account of Muslims managing public identity under suspicion.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 382; Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 383