The Dignity of Hijab

Mirit Girgis – Student, Department of Medical Education, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine; Bryan Pilkington – Professor of Bioethics, Department of Medical Sciences, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine

Abstract: Equity in patient care is essential for the ethical practice of medicine. Unfortunately, that is not always the case for ethnic or religious minorities. From January to June 2024 alone, there was a 69% increase in anti-Muslim hate cases. That prejudice has spilled into the world of medicine, harming Muslim women in particular, especially those who wear the hijab, or Muslim headscarf. Among a study of Muslims in Michigan, over 25% reported being treated with less courtesy than non-Muslims. Furthermore, 24.3% felt that providers often acted as though they were not intelligent and almost 30% expressed feeling that a provider failed to listen to them. In this paper, we will explore what the hijab is and attempt to dispel misconceptions surrounding it. We will examine many of the prejudices surrounding the hijab that often arise in areas where the Muslim faith is not well understood due to ignorance, indifference, and the epidemic of Islamophobia. In doing so, we argue that the violation of dignity in women who wear hijab occurs more often than realized, and its constant presence demands education about cultural competency, in particular with women who wear a hijab. We root our analysis in the bioethics literature on dignity, relying on a widely accessible account of dignity to generalize its understanding. It is an ethical obligation, we argue, that medical providers preserve dignity in these patients by avoiding placing them in humiliating situations and without greater education around diverse cultural practices, this obligation cannot be satisfied.

Keywords: Dignity, Hijab, Cultural Competency