Olivia Brink: Ten thousand steps toward understanding

I am on my eighth lap of the perfectly rectangular fifth floor. The linoleum floors squeak obnoxiously with each step in my Franco Sarto sandals from Off the Rack. Who knew getting 10,000 steps every day when it’s 97 degrees could be so monotonous?

As I turn the corner on my ninth lap, I see I’m not alone on my journey to 10k. There is another step-count queen. She passes me quickly and I say:

“Doing laps too?”

“Yes,” she says, “way too hot to be outside.”

“I know!” I say enthusiastically.

This would have been an otherwise standard interaction if it weren’t for one distinction. This woman was covered from head to toe, other than a slit for her eyes. She was wearing what I thought was a burka, but after a quick Google search, I determined it was a niqab — a full-body covering worn by some Muslim women as an expression of modesty and religious practice and often seen by the world as one of the most conservative interpretations of Islamic dress.

I couldn’t help but fight internal bias that bubbled up in my brain.

Why does she have to wear this?

Why does she have to hide herself away?

This goes against everything I believe in. 

I am a progressive Christian who loves Jesus and believes that women are magnificent and powerful. Women were the first humans to ever see Jesus Christ rise from the dead. They were granted what some theologians argue to be the greatest call in religious history: to tell the disciples that Jesus is alive after they watched Him be wrongfully murdered.

It goes against my passion for women and girls, which I lived out through my time in Uganda working with high school-aged girls on the importance of staying in school and fighting for their rights. It goes against the work I’ve done in my MPA program, where I created a semester-long strategic plan for the nonprofit Girls Inc., which focuses on grassroots and national efforts to provide mentorship and empowerment to underrepresented youth.

It goes against everything I stand for.

But as I pass her in the hallway and high-five her, saying,

“Look at us go — we are the step-count queens,”

I can feel her smiling behind her niqab, even though I can’t see it.

Perhaps this woman I do not know wants to wear her niqab for the same reasons I try to wear appropriate clothes to church on Sundays. Maybe it’s an outward reflection of her inward faith and devotion to her God. It could be the very thing that she identifies with spiritually — she may even be passionate about it. Or her husband might be forcing her to wear it. She might be miserable, alone, and afraid. It could be a mixture of both, perhaps.

Humans are complex, and I think that women are the most complex creatures on Earth.

I do not know her. I do not know her story.

But maybe next time I high-five her while we walk near one another at lunch, I can ask her.

I can seek to understand before making assumptions.

I think the world would be a kinder place if we all chose to do this.

Olivia Brink writes about identity, work, and the quiet tensions of everyday life. She is pursuing her Master of Public Administration. She believes that the smallest moments often carry the deepest truths.