Critical Literature Review of Hijab Wearing Women Post 9-11

Many scholars have demonstrated the ways in which hijab-wearing women are systemically discriminated against in Canadian legal systems and misrepresented in the media and society. I employ intersectionality theory, referring to the ways discursive marginalization materializes into concrete institutional and state exclusion to show that the relationship between representation and systemic exclusion is related. I argue that discrimination in the legal system, employment practices (as demonstrated by Quebec’s Secularism Bill), and discriminatory border practices are supported by longstanding cultural biases towards hijab-wearing women. Since light-skinned non-hijab-wearing Muslims do not experience this particular form of racism, I argue that the hijab is a unique marker of a kind of inferiority that is not determined by identity but rather by how Muslim women are viewed due to their belief system. Key Words: Muslim; Women; 9-11; Racism; Marginalization; Racial Profiling; Hate; Critical Race; Intersectionality; Discrimination; Hijab