From bin Laden to Paedos: Islamophobia and Muslim Men

Abstract

As regards Muslim men, the number of scholarly studies relating to their experience is not only far less in number than those focusing on Muslim women but so too has a quite different focus with most typically themed around masculinity. An indicative sample of these might include the studies of Archer (2001), Hopkins (2006), Kalra (2009) and Dagistanli and Grewal (2012) among others. Focusing on factors that are both religious and cultural, these studies comprise a broad interpretation of masculinity albeit typically problematising Muslim men through the various attributions of violence or aggression. Aslam (2012) for instance does this through an exploration of the perceived nexus between Muslim masculinities, jihadist Islamism and terrorism. Given the normative truths of Islamophobia, it may be somewhat unsurprising that matters relating to violence and aggression—as also jihadism and terrorism—are recurrent features in the scholarly canon. Potentially problematic, there is however a similarity between the current literature relating to Muslim men and women, that is, that both evidence an overriding emphasis and focus on that which shapes and informs Islamophobia thinking (Allen, 2010). While so, the approaches deployed through which male Muslim aggression and violence is considered are multifarious. These include approaches that consider patriarchal violence within Muslim migrant communities (Razack, 2004), the specific patriarchal violence and control exerted by Pakistani-heritage men over Pakistani-heritage women (Macey, 1999), the role and perpetration of violence linked to notions of honour (Ewing, 2008) and maybe unsurprisingly, political and terroristic violence as per Hopkins (2007), Macey (2007), and Dwyer, Shah, and Sanghera (2008) among variety of others.