862.3
Hijab Blogs As Explorative Media-Based Spaces of Social Recognition
As studies have shown, women with headscarves are faced with discrimination and prejudice in their everyday lives. This becomes clear in professional settings and when job hunting in particular, as the Senate Administration for Integration and the Anti-Discrimination Office in Berlin have demonstrated. ( Senatsverwaltung für Integration, Arbeit und Soziales (Hrsg.), Mit Kopftuch außen vor? Berlin, 2008). Some explanatory approaches in the literature trace this back to a strong stereotyping in the media. Veiled women are thus perceived as less attractive, less intelligent and less educated, as suggested in the study by Yusr Mahmud and Viren Swami. (Mahmud Yusr/Swami, Viren (2010), The influence of the hijab (Islamic head-cover) on perceptions of women’s attractiveness and intelligence, in: Body Image, p. 90-93).
In Western culture in particular, the hijab is seen as a symbol of traditionalism, a lack of individuality (uniformity) and religious fundamentalism. On this basis, my study deals with “hijab-style” blogs as areas of recognition/ areas of exploration. In these platforms, recognition is realised strongly via technical-media and aesthetic exploration. Using selected examples of “Islamic blogs”, which young Muslim women use as a platform to present and document “Islam stylings”, the meaning of such media platforms for aesthetic and social recognition is examined. As part of this, the presentation focuses in particular on the role of body/dress/image for the constituting of “the self” as aesthetic configurations of social visibility.