Maryam Amir – Aging and Hijab

Maryam Amir
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AI: Summary ©

The speaker discusses how women in their community are being pressured to wear shades of orange to show their aging appearance. They acknowledge that women are not just concerned with their appearance, but also their mental health and energy. The speaker suggests that women should focus on their actions and not be afraid to speak their own language.

AI: Summary ©

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			There's currently a trend where
women are sharing their and there
		
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			are so many people in the comments
talking about how they thought a
		
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			39 year old woman was actually 50,
or how they thought a 22 year old
		
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			woman was actually 37
		
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			right now, there are women in
ghaza whose babies are being
		
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			murdered at a few days old. There
are husbands in ghaza whose wives
		
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			are being massacred. There are
children in ghaza whose mothers
		
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			are no longer alive. And I think
about all of those women, the
		
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			daughters, the aunts, the cousins,
the sisters, how every single one
		
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			of those women would do anything
		
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			to be able to see the wrinkles and
the graying hair and the signs of
		
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			aging on their loved ones.
		
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			I know we talk about it being a
privilege to age. I know that so
		
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			many of us are aware that it's a
privilege to be able to get older,
		
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			but the fact that this privilege
is so
		
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			deeply intertwined with hatred for
what it looks like to grow older.
		
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			To me, obviously speaks of immense
privilege. Because how can you
		
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			live in a society where you fight
aging with
		
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			injections and paying money for
lots of over the counter or
		
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			medical surgeries, unless you come
from a place of privilege to be
		
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			able to even think, to be able to
even think that you want to
		
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			address that. But two, it really
makes me think about my hijab,
		
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			myself, my hijab, and for many of
you who are not Muslim right now
		
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			and who don't know much about
Islam, but who are learning more
		
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			about Islam because of Palestinian
Muslim faith, of wearing their
		
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			hijab that they are wearing it in
the middle of, you know, being
		
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			bombed because they don't want to
be murdered without wearing it.
		
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			And it's made me really reflect on
how
		
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			Islam has this very physical
		
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			reminder for women that our worth
is not tied to what we look like
		
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			at all. I'm not saying that any
woman believes that her worth is
		
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			tied to her looks, although I
think many women struggle with
		
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			that, and that's completely
understandable because of the
		
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			messages that we are given as
little girls. Of course, women who
		
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			wear hijab are also affected by
those messages, so women who wear
		
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			hijab also probably do get Botox
and fillers and struggle with the
		
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			way that they look. But
conceptually the concept of hijab,
		
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			one of the wisdoms and blessings
of it is that it really is
		
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			supposed to dissociate you from
any like effort or not effort, not
		
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			to look presentable, but like to
obsess or to care or to be so
		
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			overwhelmed with thinking about
what you look like, so that your
		
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			full mental focus and capacity and
energy is really about the actions
		
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			that you're putting forth. And I'm
not trying to say that women who
		
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			don't wear hijab, who are Muslim,
are women who are not Muslim and
		
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			don't care about hijab, or know
about hijab or or anything like
		
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			that, don't also focus on their
action. But what I'm trying to say
		
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			is that a messaging to society
that there is a deeper emphasis
		
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			religiously, on a religious level,
for us as women, not to care about
		
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			how we go out into society other
than to put on a very clear
		
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			message that my focus is what I'm
doing, and my inter.