A New Intersectional Model to Illuminate the Workplace Discrimination of Arab-American and Muslim Women in the U.S.

Abstract

Prejudices about Middle Eastern women have created a trend of male-centric approaches to studying Middle Eastern people and societies. Following terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001; increases in stereotyping and prejudices have made these studies more discriminatory in addition to excluding the women that these prejudices impact. In this paper, I examine how changes in the conceptualization of Arab-American identity following the attacks of September 11, 2001 impacted the experience of all Arab Americans and how discrimination models have failed to account for this. I use intersectionality theory, specifically, the works of Kimberle Crenshaw and Rachel E. Luft to argue that discrimination models are faulty because of their focus on men in a sexist system, as well as, their focus on Islam in an Islamophobic era in American history. I review the data and research that has been collected on sexual and ethnic harassment in the workplace, highlighting the absence of Arab-American women in these works as evidence of male-centered study. I argue that an improved discrimination model must use tools of intersectionality such as narratives and decentralize religion in order to demonstrate that cases of discrimination are a racialized gendered problem rather than a cultural problem.