“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.“
– Dr. Maya Angelou
Hasbiyallahu wa ni’amal wakeel.
Dear Fellow Warrior,
Recently, I shared a critical moment on social media, and I wanted that moment to be here, at its rightful place here as well.
This past week, on December 16th, I honored four years since my doctoral hooding ceremony.
I have been reflecting hard on the time elapsed. I heard recently that it may take ten years to reach the one year that transforms your life. The number no longer matters once you realize that the “impossible dream” was always possible.
I spent that day at the library in part to write a reflection. Libraries have become my favorite refuge… surrounded by books… dreaming, researching, writing, and imagining one’s work on the shelves someday.
As I looked through the photos from my hooding, I felt both nostalgia and healing. This moment still matters, I tell myself. Especially through this prolonged transition and when the journey afterward had become nonlinear. And when there is so much more of the story that remains untold and unwritten.
I called it my “PhD Wedding” for many reasons. Not everyone relates to academic milestones in such a romantic/symbolic way, and that is valid. Not everyone will understand why you honor this moment for yourself, or why you choose to mark anniversaries and milestones with intention.
Sometimes, when people do not honor meaningful moments in their own lives, it becomes uncomfortable for them to witness others doing so. That discomfort is not a reflection of excess or ego. It is simply a difference in how we recognize worth, survival, and achievement.
Honoring yourself does not require permission, explanation, or shared understanding. It only requires truth.
For many who navigate higher education from the margins, these moments can hold significance because of the layers of struggle, survival, persistence, and earned dignity in systems not designed for our belonging.
I recall during the ceremony, the University President reminded us that roughly 2% of the world holds a PhD.
An even smaller fraction of that are women of color, and few still are Muslim women, or scholars in the margins.
That statistic can often conceal years of invisibility, evaluation biases, harassment, silencing, gatekeeping, selective credibility, and exclusion from informal networks that shape academic opportunity.
Decades of research confirm that these are not isolated incidents, documenting how women, especially women of color, face disproportionate harm within graduate/doctoral training and academic spaces. (Clancy et al., 2014; Settles et al., 2019; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018).
No, this is not inflammatory by any means. There are well-cited, institutionally acknowledged bodies of research beyond the true experiences and anecdotal evidence we have to carry on our shoulders.
This year’s reflection on “hooding” added a new layer for me. I entered my first major academic conference wearing a hijab, and my first panel was on violence against women. (I update this piece, linking my forthcoming Medium article about that experience shortly). In that paper, I argue that invisibility & erasure are mechanisms of violence. Often normalized, but no less real.
Because hooding is a threshold moment, I chose to honor myself with a personal hooding ceremony this year, wearing hijab post-pilgrimage after Ramadan. I shared this in previous blogs.
It was a modest, intentional act of reclaiming faith, knowledge, responsibility, and belonging.
I am now navigating the academic job market as a visibly Muslim woman, one who was never afraid to say “Allahu Akbar,” or “Free Palestine,” and to affirm the dignity & freedom of indigenous people everywhere.
One’s merit, scholarship, & service should speak for themselves without requiring self-erasure. And when considering the importance of humility, please remember that honoring one’s own journey, with presence, integrity, and courage, does not diminish others.
I remain resilient & empowered, with the firm belief that integrity, faith, & scholarship deserve space without erasure.
I am still healing from how profoundly that moment was minimized, shockingly, by people who were part of my journey in personal, familial, academic, and professional ways.
People minimize. People invisibilize.
The jealousy I encountered around this particular accomplishment became paralyzing for a time….not because I doubted its worth, but because of how unnecessary and cruel that response was.
This is a form of adversity many women of color experience simply for standing in their light, for honoring their milestones, for believing their voices matter too.
It should never have been that hard. Still, I know I will heal. I am already healing. Naming this truth is part of that process.
And I will always cherish the people who were present for that moment, and those who understood its significance for me then, now, and going forward.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Dr. Maya Angelou
Thank you for reading! You can find a longer reflection is shared on my Medium account... which includes just a few photos as well as YouTube videos of both my original hooding and a personal hooding ceremony I gave myself earlier this year. I love that I shared this reflection on my anniversary this year… given the significance of the hooding… You can learn more about that significance in that piece:
A New Meaning for My “Hooding”
Commemorating a “PhD Wedding” to Honor Resilience, Faith, Integrity & Academic Courage
I am very proud of this commemoration. I am glad that the “Be Open” Medium publication accepted the piece at the last minute. As I state in the article, there are many related personal essays about my doctoral journey that I look forward to publishing in the coming days and weeks into the new year and up until my next opportunity emerges. These will all be crucial works that could be repurposed for the academic memoir and essays on other platforms in the future. For the moment, I am glad I can honor it for myself in my own platforms.
Here are a few additional posts from the Chronicles of a Warrior KQueen that I shared in the past about this particular achievement:
A “Moment” I’d like to Remember…
Happy New Year: Reflections from a Memorable 2021, with Continued Hope & Resilience for a Powerful…
I was once told that it takes about half the length of a relationship to truly heal from it. This was a “relationship,” too, and there have been many layers of trauma within it that I am still navigating and processing.
But I can feel it now… I sense that I am finally, at least, beginning the healing process, slowly and honestly. Part of that healing is accepting just how much more difficult this journey became than it ever needed to be, and recognizing that the path forward will likely continue to demand more of me than it should… perhaps almost entirely because of my identity.
As I wrote in “Returning, Reclaiming, and Rising as One’s True Self”, I meet that reality with more wisdom and resolve. “Challenge accepted.”
“If light is in your heart, you will find your way home.” – Rumi
In Solidarity, Peace, Warmth, and Blessings,
Your sister, Dr. Elsa, Warrior KQueen
“She wasn’t looking for a Knight. She was looking for a Sword.” – Atticus
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Thank you for reading and engaging!
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