Your Mom's a Proper Woman.

I had a job interview on Friday morning. Scratch that, I had THE job interview on Friday morning. It was a 45-minute panel interview with four attorneys. The job I was interviewing for is a paid summer internship in the in-house legal department of a big-name corporation.

I left my house feeling great, until the cabbie gave me a lecture about dressing like a "proper Muslim woman."

It started out as a fairly typical cab ride. I told the guy the address, he said ok and went back to talking in Arabic on his hands-free headset, frequently dropping an "inshAllah" (Arabic for God-willing) into the conversation. He was obviously Muslim. I noticed he was making a lot of unnecessary turns and got the impression he was trying to extend the cab ride to make some more money. I asked him how much further it would be because I had a job interview.

Some irrelevant small talk later and he gets the hint that I'm Muslim. This is what ensued:

"Oh you're Muslim? Well, I couldn't tell from the way you were dressed. You're not dressed like a proper Muslim woman. You're dressed like an American woman. Maybe if you were dressed like a proper woman I would have known you were Muslim and said Salaam to you."
I seriously could not do anything but stutter in response. I completely froze. Conveniently enough this happened just as he pulled up outside the law firm, I paid him (No I did not tip him) and got out of the cab as quick as I could.

I know I should not have let something like that get to me but it was just so unlike anything I have ever experienced, at least in America anyway. Perhaps the biggest thing is that I try to be polite and nice to everyone, and it is beyond me how someone could want to embarrass me and hurt my feelings like that, especially knowing that I had a job interview. I felt so small and humiliated. I called both of my parents afterward.

My father was livid, he hates people like that. I agree with him, if you're going to live in America and take benefits from living here, then you can't complain. If you don't like the way women in America dress, go live somewhere where you can approve. My mother made a very important point, something that she has been telling me my whole life - it doesn't matter how many fasts you keep or if you pray 5 times a day or if you cover your hair if you are not a nice person to your fellow human beings. That man was shady, making unnecessary turns to extend the cab fare, and he was rude and cruel for saying what he did to me, and I don't think the fact that he will probably go home and bow down on a prayer mat will compensate for that, as far as Islam goes.

Just hope I didn't blow the interview too badly because of this!