And so it’s embarrassing how awkward and self-conscious I feel wearing one out and about. It takes a lot of confidence and lack of vanity to wear the hijab. Putting one on makes me feel dowdy and unattractive. I don’t realise how much I use my hair to hide behind until it’s completely vanished. I want to not care what other people think but, of course, I massively do.

Feminists get themselves in knots over it being a sad, regressive, demeaning weapon of patriarchy. The modesty it preserves is, after all, to avert “the male gaze”. But this is a reading that is myopic and patronising – it allows British Muslim women no agency and denies what a bold, gutsy, secure sense of self you need to wear one. And how it makes you feel. In my case, I’m calmer and more focused. I’m intensely aware I’m out in the world as a visible Muslim woman and so I’m mindful. And because I feel different – as if I’m trying out the alternate, Sliding Doors, prim and pious version of me – it’s a lot easier to walk into Dalston mosque and join the women there for mid-afternoon prayer.

“It’s about my personal journey,” says a fellow journalist who wants to stay anonymous. “We are all complex, nuanced, individuals but the judgment around Muslim women is so binary where, because I wear hijab, I’m in the good, ‘proper’ Muslim box and you don’t, so you’re in the other ‘more assimilated’ one.” She laughs, in case I’m offended, which I’m not. “Wearing one means you do face barriers,” she says. “You have to work extra hard. I understand that. Even at the beginning of this year, we saw women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage smashing it at school but they’re not able to achieve remotely the same highs in the workplace.”

I’ve resigned myself to having a bad hijab day – the cloth keeps slipping and coming loose. It’s more Angelina Jolie on a UN mission than [hijabi blogger] Dina Tokio. I try to do a normal weekend, though, so go to a yoga class. The instructor nods and I think she’s being reassuring but I’m projecting a lot because I’m nervous and take the scarf off before we start.

Later, I go for Turkish eggs in the same neighbourhood cafe I’ve been going to every other weekend for seven years. The waitress only recognises me when we’re paying the bill; my friend Alice points out it’s because the scarf has slipped off again. “It looks like you’re using it to shelter from the rain... except inside.” My face looks massive, I moan. She supportively suggests it would be elegant if I did it properly.

At an East End gallery, I barely get myself inside because it now isn’t a space I feel comfortable in. I’m attracting a fair amount of the ‘trying not to stare’ stare. It’s more curious than aggressive, but it’s not fun to feel like an exhibit. I’ve never quite appreciated the determination it takes for visibly Muslim women to go to places they’re not expected to be seen in. Generally speaking, it’s normal to see hijabi women all over London and so my self-consciousness, I think, is mostly on me. But it’s still uncomfortable to feel this exposed – here I am, Muslim lady! – and feel invisible at the same time.

On the way home, my Gujarati newsagent asks me what’s up and I end up pointing to my head and mumble “mosque”. It’s now Saturday night and I have no desire to go out: it would be too draining, too much of an effort to even bother.

In truth, as an exercise, World Hijab Day seems cheesy and embarrassing: join hands, don headscarves and congratulate yourself for being a beacon of positive, intersectional sisterhood. It’s just so... American? But, given that the planet at large seems to have got itself stuck on the dial between “bleak” and “relentlessly bleak”, perhaps cheese is fine right now. Perhaps cheese is needed.

Under cover: Nosheen Iqbal wears a headscarf for a weekend to mark World Hijab Day