Thematic Analysis of the Hijab Issue from the Perspective of Young Girls (in Shiraz)

Abstract
The unexpected and rapid changes affected by modernity and globalization caused lots of challenges and contradictions in different areas such as religion and morality, especially in the case of women’s covers and hijab. In connection with that the pre-Islamic revolution’s generation of girls in Iran, are trying to contradict themselves with others by rethinking over the case of the hijab. This research, with the aim of analyzing the attitudinal differences of three decades of girls after the Islamic revolution about the case of hijab, has occurred by systematic analysis method using half-structured interviews with 29 women of Shiraz city. The demographic physiognomy of understudied women indicates that the majority have a university education with an average age of 25, and 13 people were constrained and 17 persons were against the hijab. The founded text of this research is categorized into 8 concepts/variants, political device, affirmation of friends, family’s inner value, self-hijab, social occasion-based hijab, sexual discrimination hijab, and duty hijab. Therefore, what can be argued as the result of this study is that putting on a hijab and cover according to religious values and norms are still counted as a core factor of the Iranian Islamic lifestyle? Even though nowadays women are struggling with a hijab with the challenges of modernity and traditions, in the way that our young girl generation’s clothing style has been reviewed and different styles and clothes are to be seen. The schools of humanism and liberalism and the effect of the globalization phenomenon have changed the view on hijab in the country.
Keywords: Thematic Analysis, Hijab, Attitude, Girls.
 
1. Introduction
The behaviors of social interactors and their interpretation of their own social environment and others have a reciprocal effect on the construction of social relations, in such a way that according to the Symbolic interactionism theory, communication particularly symbolic communication is known to be the core and base of all social interactions. (Mahboubi Manesh, 2006, quoted from Mohsenian Rad, 2005: 39). By this means, from a sociological point of view, hijab as a coverage, actually forms in social relations that on the one hand, it might have a diverse form and shape and a unified essence and content (or vice versa), and on the other hand from a communicatory perspective, hijab acts as an identity and communicatory medium which plays a symbolic role in the intrapersonal area. Thus there are cultural, sociological, political, and economic aspects to the hijab issue, and has spiritual-religious, status, personality, and behavioral indicators which can be observed through different angles, paradigms, and aspects.
Through the past two centuries, clothing pattern was a sign of social status, but in the current century, what is being worn indicates a body-oriented, identity- gaining and fashion idea through clothing as one of the lifestyles (Salajqa and Musapour, 2010: 159). Because of the religious structure and the devotion of Iranian society to Shiite beliefs, the hijab, and continence are technically known as an apparent symbol of social dedication to Shiite rituals (Alavi, 1396:8). Somehow, the matter of a person’s loyalty and dedication towards hijab and continence is not one dimensional and it’s necessary to study and analyze this matter from different perspectives such as family, social groups, the condition of media’s effectiveness, effectiveness of the government, effectiveness of education and more (Alavi, 2016: 9).
With more than four decades passing the Islamic revolution, different mindsets have caused the hijab as a sort of governmental affair to be challenged. In fact, the acts of minor hijab and unveil-ness are in total contrast with Iran’s cultural and social system which causes the duality of voluntary hijab and forced hijab amongst women, thus the necessity to proceed with this issue is inevitable. Therefore, this study is on to answer this basic question what different mindsets were formed about hijab among three different generations of girls after the revolution.
According to Goffman’s dramatic theory and Symbolic interactionism, people in society show themselves in terms of others’ expectations. They want to show the part of them which appear acceptable to others. People’s self is shaped by their interactions and executing roles. Since symbolic interactionism is formed based on human relations and because the hijab is a social category and it only appears meaningful through social relations, in conclusion, hijab is a category driven by social relations and the way social relations are also affected by symbolic interactionism.
This is a thematic analysis study. Thematic analysis is one of the qualitative analysis methods. The tools used by the means of gathering information is a deep and semi-structured interview. The statistical society is 60’s, 70’s, and ’80s (based on the Persian calendar) women and girls who reside in the city of Shiraz 29 of them were interviewed regarding theoretical saturation. The questions were about girls’ tendency towards unveil-ness and which people or organizations have the most important and effective role in the discussed area. Interviewing with people continued until reaching theoretical saturation. For the means of validating the data, the member validation method was used in such a way that subjects were asked to evaluate the entire founding and comment on the accuracy of the researcher’s interpretations and perceptions and to resolve whether there is an ambiguity or a misinterpretation and by utilizing the audit technique, data reliability was evaluated. What veiled means is a hijab that has all the hair under the scarf? A semi-hijab who partially has her hair out of the scarf. An unveiled is also the one who does not wear a scarf at all.
 
2. Analytic Results
1- Hijab as political party’s device: Politicians employ women’s issues to achieve their highly regarded place. Indeed, hijab as a belief category is downsized to politics. 2- Acceptance of friends: Some also believe that friends and peers have more impact than others. Some girls avoid hijab because they fear being mocked by their friends or not being accepted among their group of friends. This mindset forms mostly through university. 3- The in-Family values: Throughout the girls’ teenage hood, their father’s opinion is especially important to the girls. Therefore, at this age, the father’s role was very important.  In fact, they seek the fathers’ consent. 4- Personal hijab: In this point of view people choose for themselves how far the restriction of hijab should be. They choose hijab based on the latest fashion.  This way, she adapts herself to the parts she desires. 5- Hijab based on social circumstances: Hijab should be reconsidered by the terms of society and get changed along with the changes of society and the scarf they are wearing today should be normalized and not be hashed.6- Gender discrimination in the hijab issue: They believe hair isn’t provoking.  Hijab nor non-hijab, neither differentiate men and women in clothing. Therefore, both men and women should mind the type of clothes they wear; although a situation should be provided to prevent men from harassing women.7- Hijab duty: This perspective belongs to the people who deeply accepted the religious law/ sharia and the related issues and they do not disassociate hijab under any circumstances. They have a religious view on every matter. 8- Hijab as a law: From the follower’s point of view, the type of hijab is determined by national law. Surely, the people who agree with this law obey it; but some, also, believe that governmental pressure cannot be effective.
 
3. Conclusion
Considering the fact that forced and voluntary hijab was propounded in society, the current research has examined hijab through three decades of girls’ perspectives and their diverse mindsets have been put to study. In Iran, people seek to build new identities because of the transition to modernity. Additionally, cultural, social, political, and religious sources are involved in it. Some girls are not against the hijab and accept it in terms of Iranian culture, but do not stand for domination and command. The hijab-bond girls in all three decades know their friends and peers to be an impactful factor in their tendency towards hijab; this is different than some consider friend’s impact where a family has an inconspicuous role and the person is in the age of forming her characteristic. Friends can change her opinion by either encouraging or mocking her. In their opinion legal force with cultural preferences should exist, or else the person would resist to it.
Girls with no bond to hijab also, considered the role of friends to be efficient. Some were pressured by a friend’s ridicule. They all knew the role of the family to be important but the role of friends was more. They considered the role of force to be negative and even cause obstinacy and secrecy. Some of the other reasons are the girls’ willingness to be seen and be attractive. They expressed discomfort with being forced to wear headbands during school.  Even girls at strict schools mentioned that some girls from chador-obligatory schools got out of school to take their chadors off. They know the hijab to be restricting and divesting freedom. The increase in modernity outcomes will update a person’s social identity and types of Hijabs.