The hijab’s meaning shifts between liberation and oppression across contexts

Evidence

For Mernissi, a Muslim feminist proponent of “lifting the veil,” the hijab was once a political necessity that mutated into a enduring tool of patriarchal control. For every Ayaan Hirsi Ali who sees the hijab through the prism of oppression, there is an Ilhan Omar who wears it as a trailblazer, creating new inroads for Muslim women in an American Congress that has never seen the likes of her before. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 850

Categorization

• DEFINE: Encapsulates the contested semiotics of the hijab — the same garment read as liberation or patriarchal control depending on the observer and era.