Sara Iftekhar’s place in the Miss England final is a reminder that hijab-wearing Muslim women deserve to be in the public eye

There are many misconceptions about Muslim women who wear the hijab: that we’re oppressed, forced to cover our hair by male relatives; that we’re submissive, and incapable of being “integrated” into life in the western world. These misconceptions are perpetuated everywhere: from articles in newspapers condemning women for covering their hair or faces (or for wearing different kinds of swimwear), to the one-dimensional depictions of Muslim women on TV.

Muslim women are not a monolith, there isn’t one way to for us to be, and we certainly don’t embody the stereotypes that are foisted on us. In the past few years, I’ve been heartened to see Muslim women taking control of our own narratives and being visible in the public eye. Younger hijab-wearing women can turn on the TV and see Fatima Manji covering the news on Channel 4, or Nadiya Hussain presenting a show on the BBC.

They can go onto YouTube and get fashion tips from Dina Tokio, and other hijab-wearing fashion and beauty bloggers. They can even watch the Olympics and see athletes like Zahra Lari or Ibtihaj Muhammad compete while wearing headscarves. I was starved for representation like this as a young girl, and it means the world to me that I can see people who look like me in the public eye.

Sara Iftekhar, a 20-year old law student from Huddersfield, is now ensuring that young Muslim women also get to see someone who looks like them competing in a beauty pageant, and it’s a beautiful thing. Muslim women who wear the hijab are so often “othered” because we don’t conform to conventional ideas about beauty – society tells is that by choosing to cover our hair, or dressing in a modest way, we’ve given up our right to be considered beautiful.

When we are allowed to be beautiful, we are caught between two extremes: either by being fetishised by people who like the idea of unveiling us, or being told by others that we’re only beautiful because we’re covered. In both of these situations, we’re not allowed the chance to define beauty in our own way.

This is why Iftekhar’s decision to compete for the Miss England title this year is so important. Here is a vibrant, confident young woman who is proving, on a huge platform, that beauty comes in many forms, that Muslim women in hijabs can be beautiful, and that we can own our beauty, alongside other definitions of beauty.

Alongside other pioneers like Halima Aden, whose modelling career was kick-started by her involvement in the Miss Minnesota beauty pageant, Iftekhar is changing the perceptions of hijab-wearing Muslim women and what we’re capable of.

I started wearing the hijab for political reasons. I wanted people to see me as a visibly Muslim woman in all of the spaces I was in. I wanted people to get used to the sight of a Muslim woman at the front of a lecture theatre; in a Polar Research Institute; grabbing drinks at the end of the day with colleagues; at rock music festivals – I wanted to show people that Muslim women belong in all of these places.

Iftekhar is doing just that, but on a huge scale – she’s proving that hijabi women belong in the spaces we choose to occupy. The fact that she’s reached the Miss England finals is something that should be celebrated by the Muslim community, and by women at large, because the more definitions we have for beauty, the more women we can represent.