Men will never understand what it's like to wear hijab

Whenever I hear someone say, "hijab protects women!" or "hijab lets people judge you based on your personality instead of appearance!" I immediately know it's a man. Although they may have good intentions, those things could not be further from the truth.

It's easy to say "hijab protects women" when you are not the one being harassed or assaulted for wearing one.

It's easy to say, "People will judge based on your personality instead of appearance," when you are not the one being discriminated against, denied jobs, and treated poorly for wearing one.

It's the equivalent of a white person telling a black person who's had bad experiences with the police that "the police protect people!". The white person might have had good intentions, but they ironically invalidated the black person's experiences. Sure, the police can and do protect people, but that doesn't negate the fact that the police often do the opposite. That is how I feel whenever I hear men (especially scholars, imams, and sheiks) talk about hijab.

I wish the Muslim community would stop propagating such lies. I'd even go as far as saying that Muslim men should not be speaking on hijab at all. It's one thing to encourage women to wear hijab; it's another to falsely advertise it as something that it's not. You don't hear the Catholic Church telling nuns that their habits will "protect" them. You don't hear Sikhs telling their men that their Turbans will make people "judge them on their personality". The hijab should be treated as religious clothing, nothing more and nothing less.