Article Title: Khatija’s niqab reveals that each woman might have her own personal definition of freedom

Article Summary

The article discusses how the idea of freedom has progressed as a homogenous concept. Anything not adhering to the accepted norm is seen as being too backward and is ostracized on the social media. A case highlighting this issue is brought forth in the passage. The musician Maestro A R Rahman was seen along side is daughter who was wearing a veil over her head and was covered from the torso to the bottom with clothes. The audience was quick to deride and mock Rahman over his patriarchic and backward view and the Musician and his daughter had to come out to explain the situation to the fuming public.

This case highlights the bigger underlying issue that people are too fixated and centered on their own ideas of freedom that they can’t think of a woman’s decision to wear a Burkha as anything but subservience and restriction of freedom. This could or could not have been the case in the medieval times. But as far as the current times go, a woman’s choice to wear a veil can signify a number of different things. For example, for the Turkish women, wearing a veil reaffirms their identity as a Turk, and is representative of the juxtaposition of the old with the new. For others, similarly, wearing a hijab can have different individual connotations which help their churn out their own individuality.

The author then sums up the article appropriately by stating that although all women strive towards freedom but that does not necessarily should mean that their road to freedom has to be the same.