Tag: hijab tudung

Muslimahs At Workplaces – Gain Your Bosses’ Trust First

Some workplace, tak benarkan kita pakai pakaian yang “terlalu” muslimah (baggy clothes/tudung labuh).

After 11 years of working and jumping around few MNCs and gov offices, first time, boss aku talk to me about “professional attire”.

Aku is vendor. Engineer dari lain company giving service to another company. So he told me, dia nak aku dress professionally and deliver expertise aku accordingly. Aku faham apa dia trying to say bila dia tengok aku atas bawah.

He shared with me, dia taknak ada incident where he will be asked not to take “muslimah” again sebab diorang pernah encounter banyak problem with the previous muslimah.

Waktu solat takes forever.
Bila bercakap, tak tapis. Nak jaga with non mahram sampai appear rude.
Dressing terlalu labuh/extreme.
Datang kerja lambat.
Buat kerja selalu ada mistakes.
Bila ada mistakes, tak own up. Argue.

Aku pernah ada staff muslimah.
Bila kerja, mulut dia kumat kamit. Prolly berzikir.
I dont have any problem with that.
I dont have problem with dressing as well.
But kita selalu kena be mindful of other religion and race. Nak baca apape.. jangan lah sampai macam tengah berjampi. Maybe ada orang tak selesa.

And masa tu, aku was fronting auditors for my team. And tiap kali auditor spot a mistake, mesti it comes from this lady. Everyday datang lambat. Masuk waktu solat, hilang almost 45 mins. Pastu argue je.. dengan boss. Dia try to gunakan aku as a shield but aku, time kerja, kerja. Time friends, friends.

So aku share skit, aku stick to black bila masuk office. So “nampak” professional. Tudung je tukar2 color. Try to wear baju office gi office. Baju kurung ke, jubah ke, maybe boleh pakai on Friday. On weekdays, you can wear palazzo/skirt and tops labuh.

But one thing aku paling jaga is timing pergi balik office and work performance. Jangan lambat masuk office. Orang benci those yang tak datang on time tapi nak balik on time.
Those yang tak jaga break time. Tak pernah ada dekat desk. Kalau nak gi solat pon, tu bukan company bapak kita. So plan your time wisely. Jangan sampai mulut orang kata “amik muslimah, nak kena put on radar. Because they are so irresponsible”.

Bila boss aku amik aku, he told me honestly that dia akan put aku on radar, and aku baru dapat lepas his hook sebab aku selalu available bila clients ke customer carik.

Jangan busukkan nama muslimah. Be a professional productive muslimah.

Then once boss da percaya, nak pakai sari gi kerja.. pakailah..

Source: Nisa Tahir

December 7, 2017
Forced Into Hijab (Part 1)

Ramadhan has always been a special time for me because it’s the time when I sit down and reflect about my religion more seriously. I don’t mean for this to look like a biography, but I thought that it’d be easier to write things chronologically.

And with that I shall properly begin.

See, for as long as I can remember, the Hijab has always been an obligation enforced upon me and my sister.

As a young Muslim, you don’t really question these things but you just do it because your parents tell you to. When I was younger I don’t remember if I had true conviction for wearing it, but I wore it anyway. I just assumed it was the norm since my mother wears it, and because it was compulsory to wear it when you went to religious classes. So I did.

It was only in my pubescent teen years when this strong sense of dislike towards the Hijab sat at the back of my mind. The pubescent years was when how you looked started to matter, and for me, a person who has always struggled with low self-esteem, it aggravated the problem. I recall this incident that happened some time during my Secondary School years. My friends and I were out for a “Jalan Raya” outing. I was the only girl wearing the Hijab. I resented it the moment I put it on as it made me feel uglier than I already was. Seeing how pretty the other girls looked in something other than their Secondary School uniforms was enough to implant this small seed of jealousy within me. What worsened it however, was when the boys snickered, labelling me “alim” or pious because I wore the tudung. I remembered them laughing about it when I shortly excused myself to pray. It was something that damaged my self-esteem even more. At that moment I hated my parents for forcing such a thing upon me, and I hated the Malay community for endlessly criticising – it is a problem in their eyes to both wear it and not wear it. Most importantly, I hated that company; and that was when I swore to myself never to attend a “Jalan Raya” with anyone other than family.

This dislike for the Hijab continued into my JC years, although in a smaller scale. The JC years introduced me to new perspectives on the Hijab, both good and bad. For one, my Chinese friends were more accepting and encouraging of the Hijab than my Malay friends. They told me things like “You look good with the Hijab, it frames your face nicely”, “You’re pretty”, “I like the way you dress” which really made me feel better about myself. Never once did they question me for my decision to wear it. The Malays in my JC, were nicer than the ones I met in Secondary School. Not only were they non-judgmental, they never once snickered at me for wearing the Hijab. Furthermore, the girls were undergoing a transition like myself. We were all at the age where we wanted to take our lives more seriously, and the Malay girls I knew were all making the decision to wear the Hijab because of varying reasons. I was really happy that they were making the decision to do so, and listening to their stories made me feel more optimistic about the Hijab. However, along with it came a deep sense of jealousy. You see, my friends were the sort who were never forced to wear the Hijab by their parents. When they wanted to wear it, it was a decision they made on their own accord, and I truly respected them for that. It was something that was never in my capacity to do. How I wished I were them, loving and embracing the Hijab for all that it is. I couldn’t however, as my deep sense of repulsion for it was still there. You see, the more you are forced to do something, the more you shy away from it.

The present is when I’ve been starting to really rethink the whole idea of the Hijab. I am in uni now and it seems that in uni, at any given point of time, people see you in the Hijab and only the Hijab. I remember in year one I didn’t even bother to adopt a defensive attitude towards the Hijab. My friends asked me why I wore it, and I just answered “Because my parents forced me to”. I remember in JC I would tell my friends lies like “Because it allows me to be more modest” or something of the like, which, looking back, must have sounded really baseless and presumptuous. In uni I find myself being able to articulate my thoughts about the Hijab more clearly.

Source: beyondhijabsg.wordpress.com

November 4, 2014
Part-Time Sales Muslimah Discriminated Due to Hijab

I am a teacher. I am an employee of the Ministry of Education. I am a a civil servant. I am a Muslim. I don the tudung and I am proud to be all of the above mentioned. As a teacher, an educator, everyday I teach my pupils life lessons. Trying my best to instill values in them, so that they will grow up to become a respectable, responsible and kind member of the society. I teach all of them equally no matter their race, religion and nationality. I resognate our government’s belief of living in harmony as a cohesive society despite our differences. I have never been treated indifferently because of the piece of cloth I choose to wear over my head. I believe I am not stereotyped by my outfit, religion or skin colour. Rather, by my mannerisms in the way I interact with society.

Today, I am appalled, angered, disgusted, devastated. I could go on, but I would rather not. In this month of Ramadan, my younger sister a part-time employee from PUMA was treated in a prejudiced, biased manner just because of the cloth she wears over her head.

She was sent to ISETAN located at Wisma Atria to help mend the PUMA section in the ISETAN outlet due to a lack of manpower. An hour later two ISETAN managers approached another staff at PUMA and conversed in Mandarin while throwing dirty looks at my sister and made hand signals indicating the headscarf she was wearing. She was then approached by the PUMA staff and was informed that she had to leave the premises as she was wearing a headscarf and should not be working there. Fine, I CAN tolerate that.

Next, they called a PUMA manager in a nearby outlet saying that manpower or not my sister had to leave, not once acknowledging my sister’s presence or even having the decency to speak to her directly. As though she was a fly on the wall and the only thing they saw was her head scarf. Fine, I WILL tolerate that. Headscarf or no headscarf, some people are just incapable of respecting others, much less understanding anything seemingly different from what they are accustomed to in their small, small world.

As my sister was making her way out of the store. She was stopped and told to leave through the service exit and proceed to the security guard post to have her bag checked. Now that is the last straw.

People are afraid of anything that is different. They are uncertain and may not be accepting. However appalled I am that such a stigma still exists in Singapore today, I can still accept the fact that some people are still living with a mindset of a backwards society. Everyone’s different right?

But to make an assumption that a person wearing a tudung does not have morals and will most likely shoplift is an atrocity. Ironic even, do you know the amount of faith one must have to don the tudung? The physical challenges like the weather is one of many things to overcome before making a commitment to wear the tudung forever. Not to mention the emotional, mental and social challenges brought upon by people like the 2 managers from ISETAN.
My sister left the store crying and heading straight home after being treated so unjustly and in such an inhumane manner. How ironic, and here I thought being in the customer service line would have taught you to be sincere, kind and not biased towards a person’s physical appearence.

In this fasting month, let me educate you a little about people who wear tudung. We are normal people, under this scary, scary tudung is a normal person, 2 eyes, 1 nose and a personality that you may even grow to like if you try to get to know us.

You did not have the courtesy to address my sister directly. Well here’s a direct message to you managers of ISETAN:

Firsly, I hope you don’t treat your tudung-wearing customers the way you treat your tudung-wearing staff. You know checking all of their bags everytime they leave the store. Secondly, good customer service comes from the heart and is sincere, going the extra mile and treating customers with respect and kindness without judging their physical appearance. You reflected none of that, I suggest you reconsider your career before any customer catches a whiff of you real personality.

Finally, you owe my sister an apology. It would be good, if you can throw in some dignity and self-worth in your apology because God knows she lost a basketful of those when she walked out the service exit of your store Isetan Singapore.

Authored by Zafirah Edwards

EDITOR’S NOTE

Here’s an update.

Several people have contacted the Ministry of Manpower to enquire about this case.

One of them is PAP MP Zainal bin Sapari who demanded an investigation into the matter. Steady lah!

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July 11, 2014