The Day Before Day 1

I decided to tackle Islam in my first set of thirty days.

A typical American Muslim woman dresses something like this:

...that is to say, exactly like ME, except with a head covering, and making sure that they are modest and covered. In North Richland Hills, Texas, it is fairly rare to see a Muslim woman. It happens from time to time, but this town is a stud on the Bible belt. Other areas of the metroplex (like North Dallas) have larger populations of Muslims, but here in North Richland hills, and really, in Tarrant County as a whole, there is not a large visible population of Muslims.

Understanding this, I debated whether I should tell my co-workers what to expect and why I was showing up dressed differently.

Negatives of informing my co-workers:
1. They don’t take my experiment seriously.
2. I don’t get an authentic reaction (as a new Muslim convert might) therefore I’m missing the point (and the reason) I’m dressing as a Muslim to begin with.

Positives of informing my co-workers:
1. They don’t think I’m crazy, showing up one day with a head-covering
2. I don’t have to explain the experiment eighteen times to different people
3. They don’t think I’m a religious flake (when I stop being Muslim in a month)

I decided to tell my co-workers. The day before my experiment began, I sent an email to them and my boss letting them know that I would be wearing a hijab to work the following day. It went something like this:

As most of you know, I write quite a lot in my spare time. I am doing some research for a project I’m working on about how people’s religious beliefs influence their lives, specifically how religion impacts women in all phases of life in American culture. Tomorrow, I will begin an experiment. During this experiment, I will be living as a traditional Muslim woman, including wearing the clothing that a traditional Muslim woman wears.

This research will last for 30 days (starting tomorrow). During that time, you can expect to see me in the hijab, which is a traditional head covering (without a face cover –not a burka), and more modest clothing than I usually wear. Other than that, there will be no major changes that you notice. I was just letting you know so that I didn’t catch anyone off guard.

After a ten minute pause, my boss called me to his office.

“What is this experiment you’re doing?” he asked, looking perturbed.

I explained that I was going to be experiencing other religions for thirty days each, immersing myself in the religion, and talking to women about their experiences with each religion, then writing about it.

He looks angry. This is not good.

“Is this going to be a problem?” I asked (obviously a rhetorical question).

He wanted to know why I had sent the email to the whole office without talking to him first. He wanted to know what the “costume” would look like, and if the next six months would be me parading around the office in different “costumes”. His questions in rapid-fire, I could see a wall going up before my eyes. He was not angry, he was offended.

I sat in shocked silence for a second before I even justified his comment with a response. “A COSTUME?” I said. “An hijab is not exactly a costume, it is a piece of clothing worn out of respect and relationship with God in the Islam faith. Is there a company policy on head coverings that I don’t know about?”

There was no policy, however, there WAS a policy on beards and one on blue jeans, and he quickly told me that anyone could say they are “doing an experiment” on beards and blue jeans, or anything else, and try to wear that to work. This would be unacceptable. He believed that my hijab was an open door to mass chaos at work. He told me he would get back to me with his decision on my head covering.

His decision?? I have to say, I never considered the idea of even asking his permission, or whether he would actually have a choice on whether I would wear a head covering. I never thought it would be a problem and I was surprised at his resistance. We are a relatively open-minded and diverse company! He prays before company dinners, and I know that his religion (Christianity) is very important to him, but I never expected him to react with such venom to another religion in our office.

An hour later I received a text from him:
“After further consideration, please do not deviate from regular business attire at work.”

Day 1 has not arrived, I have not donned my hijab, and already I have been humiliated and discriminated against. I can see this will be fun.