Just because you have millions of followers, doesn’t make you right. And just because you wear a hijab, doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want without being scrutinised. But most of all, if you have a public platform and use it to build your brand and business, you should expect to be fully accountable for what you say.
This is the story of Kuwaiti blogger Sondos Al Qattan, her comments about Filipino domestic workers and the subsequent backlash.
What we should hope for from this sorry tale is that it becomes a turning point in our public conversation, shedding light on serious social problems surrounding domestic workers’ rights and true empowerment for all women.
After complaining to her 2.3 million followers about maids having one day off each week and holding on to their own passports, because if they run away “who will refund me?”, Ms Al Qattan sought to silence her critics by explaining that she does pay her workers and doesn’t beat them.
This hardly seems worth applauding. I’d hope Ms Al Qattan can see the irony in fighting for her own autonomy while being complicit in crushing that of other women.
She has been dropped by the beauty brands for whom she acts as an ambassador. While comments on her social media are blocked, she has just posted images of herself decked in a heavy gold necklace and bangles. From someone who has quibbled about a domestic worker’s day off and “refunds”, the pictures seem distasteful.
The first result of this episode must be that protecting the rights of workers is put firmly on the agenda. But more significantly, the respect and perception of workers must radically shift. They are not objects, but real human beings.
Ms Al Qattan has also just released a statement asking why her critics are not talking about humanitarian crises elsewhere. It’s simple: to say that one day off a week is excessive, to hold a worker’s passport so they can’t “escape” and to demand a refund in exchange for a human being is a humanitarian crisis.
Next, she has claimed that the criticism she’s facing is an attack on Kuwait, the hijab and Islam as a whole. She’s wrong. This is a criticism of Ms Al Qattan’s specific and toxic attitudes, which as it happens are in contravention of Islam’s guidelines on treating people with respect and dignity.
There are many women like Ms Al Qattan who in the past decade have orchestrated a positive shift in the public presence and depiction of Muslim hijabi women. This has been a welcome development.
And yet while a Muslim hijabi might be breaking down barriers and prejudice, she can still be complicit in the oppression of others.
The bottom line is this. Building your own “liberation” on the backs of others is not a form of empowerment. Influencers and advocates (whether explicit or implicit) of freeing women from traditional constraints – as the rise of the female Muslim hijabi influencer has been all about – cannot do so at the expense of other women.
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