member of the human race

i wear a jilbab because in my opinion i feel comfortable and to me its my expression of modesty although there are many ways to dress in a modest manner.

anyway we always think that non-Muslims look upon a Muslim woman's attire as being preventative of doing many things, particularly if she wears a jilbab, but what i didn't realise until recently was that many Muslims in particular woman have the same opinion!!! it is deep rooted that many don't realise they have these misconceptions...

i teach RE at an Islamic school and I've noted on many an occasion that the girls judge my abilities to do things due to my jilbab. for instance recently the year 8s and 9s where taken to an ice rink as part of a reward trip for achieving the highest house points. i was asked to accompany as a teacher due to the large number of girls who where going.

on the way there many of the girls approached me and presumed that i had never been on the ice saying things like 'oh miss don't worry we will hold onto you to make sure you don't fall', 'miss i will make sure that i stand behind you so that i catch you when you fall'.

i played along...

when we got there and made sure everyone had there skates etc... i got the old feeling of excitement come back to me when i saw the ice skaters, you see my parents used to take me and my brother every few weeks to an ice skating rink when we lived in Glasgow, and we would stay for hours on end skating, so basically falling was not an issue for me.

i got a pair of skates, sat down and began to wear them, and a rush of girls came running towards me excitedly shouting 'miss malek is gonna go on the ice, ha ha ha this is going to be so funny'.

'miss how you going to skate with a jilbab?'
'miss can i film you falling'
'miss why dont you take your jilbab of?'

the comments where never ending...

i decided i was going to show of to teach these girls a lesson...

i got onto the ice aware of the fact that nearly every single student was watching me and it was like i had never gotten of the ice, the feeling of flying rushed at me and i zoomed round the place, making sure i winked at the girls and put a thumbs up at them.

there reaction was hilarious, they rushed at me later saying 'miss we never new you could skate'.

one girl even said ' miss i thought wearing the jilbab would prevent you from doing anything fun'.

i guess the lesson of the day was 'never judge a book by its cover'...