Muslim men respond to surveillance by suppressing visible markers rather than counter-narratives

Evidence

Because the Muslim men I interviewed did not wear religious signifiers, like the hijab, they did not feel the pressure to alter their dress, but they felt the gaze on their bodies when they accompanied Muslim women who wore the hijab. … This experience highlights the contradiction in the dominant notion that Muslim men force their wives or kids to wear the hijab. In this example, Reema’s husband desperately wanted to avoid any surveillance or negative interactions, so he tried to persuade his wife to remove her hijab. The fear that Muslim men felt from the state was real, and the attempt to control Reema’s dress reflected the stark difference in how men responded to their surveillance compared to women. Muslim men did not express the desire to transform the narrative of Muslims through their actions. Instead, they wanted to make invisible their religious identity. Their participation in self-surveillance reveals how citizenship is racialized in America. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 437

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers the reader’s guiding question about how surveillance lands on men vs. women; the hijab-as-visible-signifier contrast connects to the earlier veiling thread.