The movement to ban the hijab in France was built upon a narrative that went against everything I learned at home. Detroit was not Paris and America was not France, but the imperial tale of the headscarf as a tool of masculine Muslim oppression clashed with my mother's story, and the millions more untold. Certainly, a single vignette does not set the precedent for everyone, but it was overpowering to witness my mother's strength and certitude bloom when she placed that turban on her head. Certainly, "not every Muslim women veils," but the force of gendered Islamophobia, and its feminine fronts, has levied the most disfigured stereotypes upon Muslim women who do, women like my mother.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 804