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Muslim Women and Gender Stereotypes in ‘New Times’: From Multiculturalism to Islamophobia

  • Chapter
The State of Race

Part of the book series: Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series ((CAL))

Abstract

The Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen have exploded the Western stereotypical image of the oppressed Muslim Arab woman. Daily there are images on the news of Muslim women in designer clothes or their long black abayas (Muslim female dress) facing tear gas and baton-wielding troops, or risking sexual assault and even death in their struggles for democracy. From Tahrir Square in Cairo to Pearl Square in Manama, women have leafleted, blogged and led crowds in seemingly ‘genderless’ mass demonstrations (Moussaoui 2011). In Yemen, Tawakkol Karman, a rights activist, became in 2011 the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. However, as I will argue in this chapter, Muslim women in Britain are still constructed as either the romantic heroine, struggling for the benefits of the ‘West’ against her ‘cruel and inhuman father and family’, or as a victim, succumbing to her backward and traditional ‘Eastern’ culture. There are real physical consequences to such constructions in the highly contested multicultural space occupied by the postcolonial Muslim Diaspora in Britain. The rights and freedoms of Muslim women appear to be ‘slipping through the cracks’ of everyday policy and politics in a climate where our political leaders in Britain and Europe are heralding the ‘death of multiculturalism’.

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Authors
  1. Heidi Safia Mirza
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, USA

    Nisha Kapoor

  2. University of York, UK

    Nisha Kapoor

  3. University of Manchester, UK

    Virinder S. Kalra  & James Rhodes  & 

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© 2013 Heidi Safia Mirza

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Mirza, H.S. (2013). Muslim Women and Gender Stereotypes in ‘New Times’: From Multiculturalism to Islamophobia. In: Kapoor, N., Kalra, V.S., Rhodes, J. (eds) The State of Race. Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313089_6

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