What Southeast Asian research found
Studies interviewing women who wear cadar in Indonesian universities report motives beyond covering: obedience, piety, honour, identity, alongside persistent stigma in the same institutions.
The English-language literature on face veiling is dominated by Europe, where the framing is bans. Indonesian research asks a different question, because there is no ban to react to: why do women choose it, and what happens to them afterwards.
What the studies report
Across several studies of university students who wear cadar, the reported motivation is not primarily covering. Women describe it in terms of obedience, piety, honour and identity — the garment as a statement of who they are rather than a rule they follow.
Among Salafi students specifically, researchers report it framed as identity and as perfection.
And what happens next
The same research records the other half. Despite growing acceptance, women who wear cadar report social norms and discriminatory attitudes that shape their experience in academic settings — in Islamic institutions as much as elsewhere.
One study notes that research into public perception of veiled students, and how they cope with stigma, remains very limited in Indonesian scholarship. The gap is itself a finding.
A separate survey of ten cadar-wearing students at Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo (2020) recorded three meanings wearers gave the garment: protection from men's attention, a religious choice understood as sunnah rather than obligatory, and a tool of self-discipline for spiritual improvement. One respondent described discovering cadar through Instagram; another reported being called a "terrorist" by a neighbour — summed up in one recorded remark: "people tend to hate what they don't understand, and worse still if they refuse to try to understand."
Why this belongs in Voices rather than the reference sections
Because it is experience, gathered with consent, rather than argument from texts. It reports what women say about their own lives.
It carries no weight on whether niqab is obligatory, and is not offered as though it did. A woman describing the niqab as her identity is not making a claim about the jilbāb verse.
Sources. Riset ungkap 3 hal baru tentang perempuan muda bercadar di Indonesia · The Niqab Among Pattani, Salafi, and Nahdliyin Students: Piety, Safety, and Identity · Menjelajahi Pengalaman Wanita Bercadar di Institusi Pendidikan · Cadar dan Persepsi Pemakainya di Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo
Individual studies will be read and summarised properly rather than cited from abstracts. Treat this page as a pointer until that is done.