The Hair Scarf Again

I was called a name the other day. I don't know what the name was and it is probably best I don't. From the look on the young man's face who said it, I know it was not a pleasant one. I was riding to the office and since I had my hair in a headband, I was wearing a scarf so it wasn't completely windblown when I arrived at my destination. I've written before about how I feel when I wear a headscarf in a previous blog. (I have cut and pasted it below for those who haven't read it before.) I get stares and looks which have made me feel that folks view me as Muslim when I wear my scarf. This incident cemented that perception. I was approaching a school, biking along, minding my own business. I heard someone call something out, but not expecting anyone to be talking to me, I paid no attention. This same word was called out again, then again each time louder. Finally I looked in the direction of the voice. When I did a saw a young man glowering at me and he repeated the word. I tried to remember what it was so I could ask my Dutch friend when I got to the office, but it was time for staff meeting and by the time it was over I could not remember it well enough for her to understand it. Again, it is probably just as well. I didn't really need a translation. His face said it all. Such seething anger in someone so young. It reminded me of a painting Jon and I saw at a place which used to be called The Biblical Museum and is now the Orientalis Museum. I will write a whole blog on that experience another time, but in it was this painting. It showed the profile of a volcano and below ground level were words of racism and anger and tension. And the title or remark with the painting was that The Netherlands was about to blow like a volcano from this pressure. I believed it when I saw the painting. We have seen signs of this. Underneath the veneer of tolerance, which is so highly valued here, is this resentment and anger. The government is making it increasingly expensive and difficult for people to immigrate here or even reside in Holland, as we do. It is a passive way of restricting or limiting immigration. It is a method which will fit with the Dutch value of tolerance, while perhaps having some effect on the rising foreign population in this already overcrowded land. There has even been talk among candidates and holders of office to more openly restrict immigration. This incident with the young man tells me that perhaps that explosion is coming sooner than I thought. I do so wish I could think of another way to hold my hair tidy when I bike.

Hair Scarf

I have longish hair. When I bother to fix it, I like it stay nice. The problem is that if I leave the house I am often biking to my destination. When I bicycle, I make my own breeze and my hair gets quickly messed up. To counter this I will wear a scarf over my hair. I wear the square kind, folded into a triangle and tied under my chin. Think movie actresses of the 60's driving in their convertibles. They had breezy problems too. I always feel self-conscious when I wear my scarf. Scarves are never worn here in a western way. The only women covering their head or hair are Muslim. I wonder if I will be mistaken for a Muslim woman. I am not sure the casual observer would notice the difference in scarf styles or how I wear it. I do not cover my bangs and my hair hangs out the back, but still I feel funny at the possibility of being mistaken for a Muslim. I think in part because I have a hard time getting my mind around the concept of a woman's hair being such a sexualized item that every strand of it must be concealed. The men in my family assure me that a woman's hair is very alluring, but is that the same thing? Can it really send men into such paroxysms of lust that it must be totally concealed? You never hear construction workers making rude comments about the shine and body of a woman's hair. I didn't know for decades that men even noticed that women had hair on their head nor that the men cared anything about it. I do know this. It seems that men are universally interested in the woman in their life having long hair and women tend to have a love/hate relationship with their own hair. Hence the phrase - bad hair day - meaning if your hair doesn't do right, then nothing goes right for the rest of the day. How a woman's hair looks to her can profoundly affect how she feels about how she looks in general. I know one young woman who, after getting a bad hair style at the salon, came home in tears and told her mother that she would rather have all her teeth fall out than have her hair! I think the other problem I have is being mistaken for an adherent to a religion which I see as so oppressive to women. To me the head scarf symbolizes this oppression. When I was in language classes there were mostly Muslim men and women. One day three of us women were in the computer lab and the young Turkish woman took the opportunity to take off her head scarf and show us her pretty, wavy long hair. She longed to show it and to have it admired. It is perhaps a universal thing. This relationship of women to their hair. The other day I headed out of our neighborhood onto the main road. I had to stop for a pedestrian, a woman in a robe and hajib (head scarf). She saw me sitting in my car with the head scarf, nodded and motioned me to go ahead. That has never happened before. Did she see me as a sister under the scarf? It adds to my unease.