Halim Aden, The First USA Pageant Contestant To Wear A Hijab
The future is female. Find a shirt with The Future is Female on it. Sew this words on your favorite baseball hat or jacket. Write those four words on top of your school notebook. Just understand that the future is female indeed. Women in different walks of life could hold the most poignant job in our nation thanks, to women like Hillary Clinton. Women in different races and religion are being given more opportunities that would have be excluded or unimaginable based on phobias on sexuality and religion. A teenager named Halima Aden is part of the realm.
Rightfully so at the age of 19, Halima Aden has already made U.S. history. The Somali-American is officially the first contestant in the Miss Minnesota USA beauty pageant to wear a hijab. Aden's choice of dress that correlates with her religion could have cost her the competition. She also came out for the swimsuit portion wearing a burkini. She told Minnesota Public Radio, (MPR), that she hoped to raise awareness about Islamaphobia by competing in the pageant. “This pageant is so much more than just beauty; their whole message is being confidently beautiful, so I didn’t think that I should allow my hijab to get into the way of me participating,” she told MPR. “This is a great platform to show the world who I am... just because I’ve never seen a woman wearing a burkini [in a pageant], it doesn’t mean that I don’t have to be the first.” She doesn't have to be the last. News like this is truly inspiring for those we feel distraught about what's going on in our government. She continues “what I wanted to do was to just give people a different perspective. We just needed one more thing to unify us. This is a small act, but I feel like having the title of Miss Minnesota USA when you are a Somali-American, when you are a Muslim woman, I think that would open up people’s eyes.”
Given the fact of what that this country is currently experiencing, it wouldn’t hurt to see Aden win the title of Miss Minnesota USA. That would be a beautiful thing. Opportunities as big as a pageant or becoming president might seem less likely for women. Things as simple as going out in public is a potential risk for Muslim women for example teen activist Amani Al-Khatahtbeh. The fact that this could be a surefire way for any women regardless of stigma towards religion, race, body type etc. could make a pivotal shift in history: that's a even more beautiful thing. And Halima is a force of nature that can inspire more diversity in any realm of entertainment.
Advice of the Day:
"We are not and will not become passive members of our society. I refuse to watch the undoing of centuries of progress,"-Yara Shahidi
