It has been more than two decades since 9/11. However, islamophobia is still prevalent, and negative stereotypes against Muslim women have only worsened. Such a hostile climate against Muslim women makes it extremely challenging for them to persist and thrive in higher education. This week, our tips focus on debunking the impact of negative stereotypes about Muslim women and extendingour discussion to the intersection of religious discrimination and sexism. We also invite you to connect with our campus communities, such as Muslim Voice, which makes extraordinary efforts to create more inclusive cultures for Muslim students and faculty.
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Reflect One’s Own Bias Towards Muslim Women
Muslim women, particularly those who wear hijab, encounter the vision of alien and foreign in the eyes of their peers and colleagues and struggle from their under-represented status in higher education.1 They often find themselves as the only Muslim women wearing hijabs in their courses or entire major programs.2 They also experience physical threats targeting Muslims and are especially vulnerable because they are more “visibly Muslim” with their hijabs.3 For these reasons, some Muslim families have reached the point of even discouraging their daughters from choosing to wear hijab4 as wearing a hijab is not required for young Muslim women in many Islamic spheres.5
Hijab means “to cover” in Arabic and is a type of headscarf and shawl.6 Muslim women also wear modest full-length outer cloaks or garments (such as abaya and burqa) depending on their affiliations to Islamic practices. However, their choice of wearing a hijab and Islamic clothing is greatly stigmatized in the form of hijabophobia at colleges and universities in the U.S. The hijabi (hijab-wearing) students and faculty often undergo gendered-islamophobic microaggressions such as being automatically perceived as afraid, uneducated, unaware of their rights, and thus, needing to be saved.7 However, like many negative stereotypes, these images of hijabi women are largely shaped through the media portraying Muslim women as backward and oppressed by Muslim extremist men.8 In fact, much research shows that Muslim women, particularly hijabi women in higher education, suffer from externally imposed stereotypes against them which “homogenize Muslim women and (mis)represent them as oppressed by Islamic patriarchy.” The negative stereotypes of hijabi women also lead to the undervaluing of their academic agency and work.9 So, consider your inner thoughts when you see a hijab-wearing (hijabi) woman on campus and reflect if any negative stereotypes of Muslim women wearing hijabs unconsciously influence how you value their work.
Recognize Agency, Strength, and Courage of Muslim Women in Higher Education
However, it is critical to understand many hijabi women choose to wear it rather than being forced to wear it, especially in the U.S.10 It is their religious choice and determination to prioritize modesty and their intentionality to carry out Islamic teachings through their daily lives physically and spiritually.11, 12 Their decisions to wear a hijab do not make them less academic, agentic, or productive for any reason.
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Action Tips for Allies
Listen to the narratives of each Muslim woman: Many of them share they feel empowered by choosing to wear hijab.13 It makes them live more focused, intentional, and meaningful lives and strive in the field to which they want to contribute.14 Some even capitalize on the visibility of their faith as they wear hijabs to educate their non-Muslim peers and colleagues.15, 16 However, due to the negative stereotypes about hijab-wearing women, they are likely to face formal and informal discrimination at work and in the hiring process.17 At the same time, it should also be noted that hijab is politicized in certain Islamic countries outside the U.S., and thus, many other Muslim women also choose not to wear it as a form of resistance against institutional rules controlling women’s choice in religious practice.18, 19 There can be various reasons and narratives regarding why Muslim women choose to or choose not to wear hijab.20 Besides their decision to wear hijabs, Muslim women make choices for their social practices, such as handshaking that reflects their identities as Muslim women, their minoritized status, their political stances, and so on. So, by first listening to their reasons and narratives of their choices, you will learn how well-intentioned, brave, and agentic Muslim women are.
Support Muslim students and faculty associations and appreciate their impact: Young Muslim women need support and role models to navigate and maintain their Islamic identities in colleges and universities. Farzaneh Khosrojerdi found that Muslim women greatly benefit from the Muslim student associations on campus, which makes it essential for allies to support Muslim student and faculty associations to be visible, accessible, and grow on campus.
Call out spiritual microaggressions: People of all (non-)religious backgrounds can perpetuate and experience microaggressions around religion and spirituality. Several features of the expression of religious identity can lead to organizational conflict when religious diversity is not explored: in-group/out-group classification (worsened by fundamentalism), religious expression vs. proselytism, and how religious expression highlights potential inequities.21 A more common and visible manifestation of this conflict is microaggressions,22 including making jokes about religious clothing, calling someone “crazy” for their beliefs, making statements of the superiority of one’s religion over another’s, and overgeneralizations about all people of a religious group. If you see someone speaking this way, “call them in” and ask them what they are trying to say.
Weekly Resources
Podcast: She Speaks: Academic Muslimahs - Saba Fatima, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsvill, features interviews with self-identify as Muslimah and are in academia. The podcast intends to increase the representation of Muslimah academics and covers critical issues in academics from their lenses.
Book: Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity – This book touches on various aspects of Muslim women who are undergraduate students in the U.S. It includes multiple forms of academic writing purposefully to capture the emotional tolls those students go through by being on campus.
Article: Don't Underestimate The Power Of The Muslim Woman – This article certainly counters the negative stereotypes of Muslim women.
Article: How Leaders Can Better Support Muslim Women at Work – Higher Education leaders can learn how to create an inclusive working environment and network opportunities to reduce social anxiety that Muslim women can experience.