Saleh says she’s reached a point where she feels comfortable wearing jeans to work. Now, teaching in a university setting, Dr. I’m ashamed to say that when I first started, I was really conscious of that.” “You don’t want to be seen as being ‘less than’ in any way. “For me, a big part of what I’ve been trying to undo is this notion that I have to be very, you know, crisp,” she says. It’s something she is working to disrupt. She notes that there is a very “fixed and static notion of what counts as professional and what looks professional,” and she has sometimes internalized those expectations. “All of those things are constantly being negotiated.” “You’re very hyperconscious of how you look, how you present yourself and what that might read to other people,” she says. She says that due to the assumptions she faced as a visibly Muslim woman, she often found herself compensating by trying to appear especially put together. Saleh, becoming comfortable in her professional appearance has been a process. “It’s about creating an environment where people of diverse backgrounds feel comfortable being themselves.”įor Dr. “ looking at your culture as an organization, it’s not just about having representation or diversity,” Ms. In her current role, however, she says she feels like she’s having conversations that come from a genuine desire to create a safe and welcoming workplace. In past experiences working in EDI, she says she was often asked questions about her experience that felt performative. Gunjal says that efforts need to extend beyond “surface-level” change. ![]() When it comes to making workplaces more inclusive for Muslim women or others marginalized people, Ms. “It’s important to know that yes, Quebec has Bill 21, but unfortunately Islamophobia doesn’t know any boundaries.” Disrupting expectations “There are families that have left Quebec thinking that Ontario would be safer, or other provinces, but still the discrimination happens,” she says. El Bakir stresses that the issue extends beyond the province’s borders. In Quebec, the workplace barriers faced by visibly Muslim women are written into law. “They have to make this heart-wrenching decision, of compromising part of your identity in order to fit in a society that discriminates against you.” “We’ve had testimonies from students in universities studying education who decide to remove the hijab because they feel like they can’t be themselves while teaching,” Ms. In some cases, she says women are forced to choose between their religious beliefs and their livelihoods. El Bakir says they’ve heard from hijab-wearing women whose potential career opportunities have been stalled. NCCM has been working on a legal challenge alongside the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), arguing that the bill is unconstitutional. her capacity to withstand discrimination in the streets and in accessing services.” “She also has to think about the opportunity cost in her career, her dreams, her aspirations. “In Canada, when a woman decides that she’s ready and she wants to wear a hijab, she can’t just think about the religious ramifications,” says Lina El Bakir, a Quebec-based advocacy officer with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM). The case was indicative of the broader issues impacting the careers of Muslim women in Quebec. In 2021, Quebec elementary school teacher Fatemeh Anvari was removed from her position because she wore hijab. The ongoing imposition of secularism legislation known as Bill 21 prevents those in many public sector jobs from wearing religious symbols. The challenges of navigating the workplace as a woman in hijab are further complicated in Quebec, where hijab is explicitly banned in certain professions. ![]() “I can tell you from personal experience that the hijab is very much a choice that I made and that I celebrated for myself, and I was really excited about it,” she says. This, she says, is accompanied by incorrect assumptions that take away agency. Gunjal says that visibly Muslim women in the workplace may experience a “lack of power and privilege” at the intersection of race, gender and religion. “You kind of become the beacon of the religion, where people are bringing all of their assumptions about Muslims to you,” she says. Because of this, they may experience heightened scrutiny. She notes that an added challenge for Muslim women who wear hijab is that they are often the only visibly Muslim person in their workplace. Shefaly Gunjal is the manager of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at Citizen Relations, a global communications and PR firm. Saleh says that women who wear hijab are stereotyped as being “inherently oppressed, potentially not intelligent or capable enough to make an informed and rational decision about her body.”
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