MODESTY STANDARDS
Sana Barakat, 20, wore the hijab for five years before she decided to take it off in her final years of high school. “I felt like I wasn’t fitting in with either community,” she said. She felt judged by some members of the Muslim community for not wearing the hijab to its “modesty standards,” so she felt she “wasn’t doing it right.” Currently in her third year at U of T Mississauga, she decided she’ll go back to wearing the hijab after she finishes university. “The scarf, it looks so simple,” she said. “But it does a lot of things to the woman.” Because she’s seen both sides, with and without the hijab, she feels she understands it better now. “When I put it on now, I know it’s a responsibility in how I dress and represent myself. I guess I’m just at that comfortable level of figuring out who I am.”