Concerned with what she calls the “increasing rhetoric about the wearing of the niqab by Muslim women,” an Anglican priest in Regina decided to take matters into her own hands. She wore a hijab for a day to see what’s like.
In a post on Facebook, Cheryl Toth said she’s “uncomfortable with the way the debate focuses on what women wear (or decide not to wear). I am afraid that [the rhetoric] will increase hostility towards women who choose to wear a hijab, a niqab or a burka.”
She said she sees her trial run with the hijab as a way “to contribute to the conversation.”
She wore it around Regina including on campus at Luther College, walking around her neighbourhood, at a public lecture and while shopping at a mall.
I can treat women who wear the hijab with courtesy, although I will not join them, because they wear it as a sign of their submission to Islam. I pray when I see women wearing the niqab or burqa. It is dehumanizing.