For Her, the Head Scarf Is Liberating

Charles K. Sergis wrote that your Jan. 12 story about the hijab was a “positive spin about the slavish Muslim dress code for women” (letter, Jan. 17). I am a Muslim American woman who, at the age of 30, began wearing the head scarf, and I have to say one has to try it for oneself to know how it really feels. It really does feel liberating, but narrow-minded people simply don’t understand something that they have no firsthand knowledge about. I have been raised since I was a child in England and then here in the U.S. by thoroughly secularized parents. My mother and younger sister do not wear the head scarf, but I do and I very much regret not having worn it much sooner in my life. Sadly, many people just don’t want to believe us Muslim women if our opinions and experiences clash with their view.

Shereen Sabet

Huntington Beach