Unveiled Sentiments: Gendered Islamophobia and Experiences of Veiling among Muslim Girls in a Canadian Islamic School

Muslim Women and Sport: Tansin Benn, Gertrud Pfister, and Haifaa Jawad (Eds.). This book provides a powerful and valuable introduction to the global experiences, challenges, and achievements of Muslim women participating in physical activities and sport. Muslim Women and Sport is the first book (in range, depth, and courage) to discuss the sensitive issues of religion, culture, gender, sport, and diverse realities in the lives of many Muslim girls and women from across Europe, North and South Africa, and many countries of the Middle East. The challenges and opportunities for women in sport in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries are well documented in the book, offering illustrations of diverse realities in this regard. It is a collection of works by researchers and practitioners in sport who are experts in Muslim women's issues, either through personal experiences or through working alongside Muslim girls and women to increase knowledge and understanding of issues related to participation in physical activity. The book provides the only international collection of such works to date. Twenty-three authors from both Western and Eastern backgrounds contributed to this collection, allowing for rich insights from a variety of points of view and perspectives. Diverse ideological orientations, life histories, and contexts are mirrored in their writings. The book is divided into four parts. The introduction and conclusion by the editors (Benn, Pfister & Jawad) contain useful overviews of the field, history of the emergence of international dialogue, and recommendations for ways to increase participation opportunities for Muslim girls and women globally. Part one contains three chapters and examines underpinning perspectives. Chapter one (by Dagkas, Koushkie-Jahromi, & Talbot) reaffirms the value of physical education, physical activities, and sport in the lives of young Muslim women. One of the interesting ideas discussed in this chapter is that while in Islamic countries, such as Iran, the sporting structure builds in Islamic requirements for modesty in dress and sex segregation, Muslim women in more Westernised or secular contexts can struggle to find conducive environments in which to practice physical education or sport. Generally, the topics of Islam, women, and sport have been discussed in different languages in the Islamic world; however, there is very little such literature written in the English language (for greater global access). Chapter two of the book (by Jawad, Al-Sinani, & Benn) takes an important critical-historical approach to issues of religion and culture by examining tenets of early and revivalist Islam, in order to increase understanding of the diversity of Muslim women's experiences described in the book. It clarifies overlaps of religion and culture that are sometimes used to limit or restrict women's participation in physical activity, and explains the diverse ways in which faith is embodied and expressed throughout the book. The overall conclusion of this chapter is that Islam promotes good health and fitness, and encourages both men and women to engage in physical activity to maintain healthy lifestyles. Chapter three (Pfister) gives a valuable overview of socio-cultural theories used to explore issues of religion, culture, and gender, and applies these in a case study in Denmark where migrant Muslim women meet European sporting structures not designed to meet Islamic requirements. Part two of the book documents different experiences of Muslim women in sport from Islamic and non-Islamic countries. …

Muslim Women and Sport: Tansin Benn, Gertrud Pfister, and Haifaa Jawad (Eds.). This book provides a powerful and valuable introduction to the global experiences, challenges, and achievements of Muslim women participating in physical activities and sport. Muslim Women and Sport is the first book (in range, depth, and courage) to discuss the sensitive issues of religion, culture, gender, sport, and diverse realities in the lives of many Muslim girls and women from across Europe, North and South Africa, and many countries of the Middle East. The challenges and opportunities for women in sport in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries are well documented in the book, offering illustrations of diverse realities in this regard. It is a collection of works by researchers and practitioners in sport who are experts in Muslim women's issues, either through personal experiences or through working alongside Muslim girls and women to increase knowledge and understanding of issues related to participation in physical activity. The book provides the only international collection of such works to date. Twenty-three authors from both Western and Eastern backgrounds contributed to this collection, allowing for rich insights from a variety of points of view and perspectives. Diverse ideological orientations, life histories, and contexts are mirrored in their writings. The book is divided into four parts. The introduction and conclusion by the editors (Benn, Pfister & Jawad) contain useful overviews of the field, history of the emergence of international dialogue, and recommendations for ways to increase participation opportunities for Muslim girls and women globally. Part one contains three chapters and examines underpinning perspectives. Chapter one (by Dagkas, Koushkie-Jahromi, & Talbot) reaffirms the value of physical education, physical activities, and sport in the lives of young Muslim women. One of the interesting ideas discussed in this chapter is that while in Islamic countries, such as Iran, the sporting structure builds in Islamic requirements for modesty in dress and sex segregation, Muslim women in more Westernised or secular contexts can struggle to find conducive environments in which to practice physical education or sport. Generally, the topics of Islam, women, and sport have been discussed in different languages in the Islamic world; however, there is very little such literature written in the English language (for greater global access). Chapter two of the book (by Jawad, Al-Sinani, & Benn) takes an important critical-historical approach to issues of religion and culture by examining tenets of early and revivalist Islam, in order to increase understanding of the diversity of Muslim women's experiences described in the book. It clarifies overlaps of religion and culture that are sometimes used to limit or restrict women's participation in physical activity, and explains the diverse ways in which faith is embodied and expressed throughout the book. The overall conclusion of this chapter is that Islam promotes good health and fitness, and encourages both men and women to engage in physical activity to maintain healthy lifestyles. Chapter three (Pfister) gives a valuable overview of socio-cultural theories used to explore issues of religion, culture, and gender, and applies these in a case study in Denmark where migrant Muslim women meet European sporting structures not designed to meet Islamic requirements. Part two of the book documents different experiences of Muslim women in sport from Islamic and non-Islamic countries. …

Amanda has researched in the area of social justice and schooling for two decades. Her feminist sensibilities have led her to explore the inequities experienced by marginalized girls and women. These experiences draw attention to the ways in which gender injustices are compounded by experiences of racial and religious oppression. In this chapter, Amanda explores the ongoing and perhaps unresolvable ethical dilemmas associated with her research encounters with Muslim women and girls. The chapter articulates a feminist approach to ethical research. It provides an account of Amanda's research positionality and in particular her wrestling with how her feminist and atheist subjectivities inform her research with Muslim girls and women. To illustrate some of the ethical dilemmas of doing research with marginalized communities, Amanda examines some of the ethical processes and challenges associated with a recent project she led in collaboration with a small Australian-based community organization. The project assisted the organization to conduct its own research into the efficacy of one of its programmes designed to support young Muslim women's public action for human rights. This process involved members of the organization gathering their own data to ascertain the effectiveness of their programme and working with university researchers to interpret and generate writing from these data. The chapter considers the ethical processes and challenges of this project in light of key feminist approaches to ethical research.

Can the displaced speak? Muslim refugee girls negotiating identity, home and belonging through Photovoice

Even in diverse schools that provide opportunities for interreligious friendships, Muslim youth disproportionally tend to be friends with Muslims rather than non-Muslims. Echoing broader debates about minorities’ self-segregation versus exclusion by majority group members, a key question is whether religious friendship segregation arises because of Muslims’ in-group bias or because of non-Muslims’ reluctance to befriend them. We suggest that the answer differs for Muslim boys and girls. Building on research on interreligious romantic relations and accounts of the lives of young Muslims and other ethno-religious minorities in Western societies, we propose that religious in-group bias is stronger for Muslim girls than for Muslim boys. Conversely, we expect non-Muslim youth to be more open to befriend Muslim girls than Muslim boys. Applying stochastic actor-oriented models of network dynamics to large-scale longitudinal data of friendship networks in German schools, we find that Muslim girls indeed have a strong in-group bias, whereas non-Muslim youth are not reluctant to be friends with them. Muslim boys, by contrast, have a much weaker in-group bias, but non-Muslim youth are less willing to be friends with them rather than with non-Muslims. A simulation analysis demonstrates that these gendered individual-level processes result in comparable aggregate patterns of friendship segregation among Muslim boys and girls. Religious friendship segregation thus arises because Muslim girls tend to self-segregate and non-Muslim youth are less willing to befriend Muslim boys although the latter are open to interreligious friendships. This gendered friendship-making behavior has implications for the larger question of minority social integration.

This article explores interactions of 'race', gender and ethnicity within British Asian Muslim pupils' constructions of Muslim girls' post-16 choices. Dominant policy discourses have framed educational choices as rational and individualistic, against which, popular public discourses have positioned Muslim girls as having limited 'choices' due to restrictive gendered cultural values and practices. This article problematises both such conceptualisations through a focus upon the constructions of Muslim young men and women. It is argued that Muslim girls' post-16 choices are not simply or homogeneously 'restricted'. Instead, analysis reveals how the theme of 'choice' can be a site of emotion, power, and contestation, because it is intricately bound up with the re/production of identities and inequalities. The focus of the article is not so concerned with 'what choices are made' or 'what resources are drawn upon to make choices'. Rather, it addresses how pupils understand and explain notions of post-16 choice through themes of culture, change, identity and inequality. It is suggested that the young people's negotiations around Muslim girls' choices can be read as part of a process of 'doing' masculine and feminine racialised identities.

Reviewed by: Muslim Women and Sport Christina Kwauk (bio) Muslim Women and Sport edited by Tansin Benn, Gertrud Pfister, and Haifaa Jawad. London: Routledge, 2010, 296 pp., $168.00 hardcover. Sport, usually described as a male preserve, has become a yardstick of gender equality and an arena in which women’s rights are championed and challenged. Often though, (Western) advocates, fans, and feminist scholars assume sport to be an endeavor pursued by women with shared gold-medal dreams and common gender-based sociocultural obstacles to overcome; differences in religious identity and cultural values are ignored in favor of the view that sportswomen share a universal sport agenda. The increased visibility of elite Muslim sportswomen wearing the hijab in international sport competitions reminds us, however, of the nonuniversality of women’s experiences and values. The topic of religion, women, and sport, therefore, opens up a unique area for expanding discussions on gender equality, women’s empowerment, and social change by challenging scholars and popular audiences to question deeply held assumptions about women’s identities, bodies, and public roles in society. Expanding this discussion, Muslim Women and Sport, edited by Tansin Benn, Gertrud Pfister, and Haifaa Jawad, is a timely collection of sixteen essays that highlights the diverse experiences and realities of Muslim women participating in sport. The volume is a product of an international meeting on the sporting opportunities of Muslim women held in Oman in 2008, and it represents the diverse perspectives, experiences, and research of its twenty-three contributing Muslim and non-Muslim authors. Muslim Women and Sport makes three important contributions to scholarship in this area: first, it gives voice to Muslim women athletes, coaches, teachers, and leaders who have been silenced, marginalized, or gone unseen in physical education and sport studies—a field dominated by non-Muslim Western researchers; second, the volume challenges negative stereotypes and assumptions about Islam, Muslim women, and sport by offering alternative, “woman-friendly” (32) interpretations of Islam, and by making a compelling case for the compatibility of Islam and women’s sport; and third, Muslim Women and Sport expands the analytical potential of gender analysis by recognizing the significance of religious identity and embodied faith as factors shaping the choices, values, and experiences of Muslim women participating in sport. Specifically, Pfister’s chapter aptly employs Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to frame a theoretical discussion on the sociological and political significance of different “body projects” and body practices for women who have been socialized in Muslim cultural practices, and the chapters on the Muslim diaspora make insightful contributions to understanding how central women’s bodies, and the control of these bodies, are in mediating the complex relationship among Islam, women, and sport. [End Page 186] The book is organized into four parts, with part 1 (chapters 1–3) providing a comprehensive overview of the underlying concepts and debates framing the entire volume. It also introduces the “Accept and Respect Declaration” (the first product of the Oman meeting), which states that “Islam is an enabling religion that endorses women’s participation in physical activity.” The declaration also recommends that “people working in the sport and education systems accept and respect the diverse ways in which Muslim women and girls practise their religion and participate in sport and physical activity,” including their “choices of activity, dress and gender grouping” (5). These points inform the foundational assumptions held by the authors in the remainder of the book—namely, that the religious values of Muslim girls and women must be respected, and that inclusive sporting environments can be created without religious transgression. The remaining three sections provide an encyclopedic representation of the history and contemporary status of Muslim women in sport in thirteen Muslim and non-Muslim societies. Muslim-majority nations in the Middle East serve as the sociocultural and political context for most of the volume, including Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Branching out to other Muslim-majority countries in southeastern Europe and North Africa, two chapters provide snapshots of Muslim sportswomen in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Morocco, respectively. Finally, three chapters cover the Muslim diaspora in Denmark, Germany, and South Africa. It should be noted that...

Feminist counter-authoritarian political agency: Muslim girls re-generating politics in India

We examine the emerging meanings of hijab practice as feminist strategy, and as a symbol of visibility for young Muslim women and girls in India. Through digital ethnography based on Instagram pages of selected retailers of hijabs, we explore the possibility of hijab as a costume of insubordination, and Islamic fashion as a critical practice against the backdrop of the 2022 Karnataka hijab row. We employ an analysis of Instagram posts to mark the intersecting points of faith, fashion media, and market in framing aesthetics for clothing practices among young Indian Muslim women. We also explore new contours of feminist assertions in the Muslim community, and how the digitally mediated visibility of Muslim women and girls contests the notion of Islamic fashion as oxymoronic.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Hijab and the Abrahamic Traditions

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether there is a difference in the readiness to accept Western standards of beauty in which thinness is an ideal of beauty and attractiveness, as well in body and appearance satisfaction between Muslim adolescent girls attending madrassa and dressing in accordance with tradition, that is to say wearing hijab, and Muslim adolescent girls who do not wear hijab and who follow contemporary Western-influenced fashion trends. Both of these groups were also compared to a non-Muslim group of adolescent girls. The sample consisted of 75 Muslim adolescent girls with hijab, 75 Muslim adolescent girls without hijab and 75 Orthodox adolescent girls. The following instruments were used: the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), the Sociocultural Attitudes towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ-3) and the Contour Drawing Rating Scale (CDRS). The highest level of body satisfaction (despite this group having the highest body weight in the sample) was evident among Muslim adolescent girls attending madrassa and wearing hijab. They also showed significantly less pressure to attain the Western thin-ideal standards of beauty than adolescent girls who accept Western way of dressing. Research results indicate a significant role of socio-cultural factors in one's attitude towards the body image, but also opens the question of the role of religion as a protective factor when it comes to the body and appearance attitude among Muslim women who wear hijab.

In recent years, the Muslim female headscarf has been in the spotlight of discourses related to east/west relations: the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers, the bombs in London and Paris and the various western ‘wars for democracy and civilization’ have intensified civilizational differences and located the veil as the symbol, the metaphor, of an intrinsic incompatibility between the east and the west. While in the ‘east’ the veil has been elevated as an identitarian Islamic symbol by emerging Islamist groups, in the west Muslim women’s veil has started to be understood as something endangering society (MacMaster & Lewis, 1998). Representing Muslim veiled women as threatening the peace of a society goes hand in hand with the idea that veiled women are inherently oppressed by a backward and patriarchal religion. In March 2016, for instance, the French minister for women’s rights, Ms. Laurence Rossignol, compared women who wear the veil to ‘Negroes who supported slavery’ (Allen, 2016). She criticized western fashion companies for selling items such as the burqini and new, fashionable and ‘modern’ hijabs. For Ms. Rossignol, a legal regulation over the practice of veiling was necessary to ‘save’ Muslim women from a backward anti-secular religion that oppressed them. Similarly, the British Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston declared that “[it] should be clear that the burka is a symbol of oppression and segregation,” while the Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson declared that “‘bin-bags’ prevent women from playing a full part in society” (Pearson, 2014). The idea that the veil is a threat to secular values and gender equality, expressed by politicians, columnists and journalists, contributes to the visual construction of the Muslim woman as oppressed and needing to be saved by tolerant and liberal western values. This notion has been strengthened by western mass media which have repeatedly portrayed veiling as the symbol of violent (Islamic) political/religious values and un-veiling as the symbol of women’s liberation. During the Iraqi war, for instance, western mass media widely reported how the American/European occupation of Iraq and its (weak) political institutions improved the life of Iraqi women by releasing them from the normative burden to veil imposed by religious/rebel groups in the country after the fall of the Saddam regime (Mclaughlin, 2017). Similarly, in 2017, when part of Syria was liberated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), western media showed repeated images of Syrian women removing and burning their veils (Pasha-Robinson, 2017) as the symbol of the liberation from Islamic State’s rules (IS) and violent occupation. While the symbolic juxtaposition of veiling and un-veiling echoes Said’s (1994) understanding of the western construction of the ‘other’ as backward, it also reveals the fundamental dichotomies through which the practice is constructed. In fact, most of the discourses related to the practice of veiling focus on ‘us’ v ‘them’, modernity v tradition, public v private, religion v secularism, veiling v un-veiling.

Local contemporary academic feminist historical accounts of the Women’s Antifascist Front (AFŽ) develing campaign in socialist Yugoslavia overwhelmingly applaud it, understanding it as yet another instance of emancipatory politics and policies championed and defended by the organization. Few accounts problematize the campaign (and later legal ban) and contextualize it in terms of the socialist state’s Orientalist motivations, exclusion of considerations of the bodily autonomy and preferences of those traditional and/or religious Muslim women who wished to continue with such veiling practices. We ask, how do these historical accounts of the AFŽ campaign today appear in contemporary feminist meaning-making at the post-Yugoslav semi-periphery? We conclude that such uncritical contemporary recounting of socialist state Orientalist motivations and a predominant lack of critical feminist grappling with state-ordained undressing of women works to reproduce Orientalist frames of Muslim women as “oppressed”, “backward” and “lacking in agency”. In other words, we show how hasty and superficial feminist remembrance bundling the "veil lifting“ campaign in with other AFŽ triumphs works to normalize the Orientalist readings as well as the idea that the modern secular state-sanctioned ban on (Muslim) women’s dress is by default an emancipatory and acceptable feminist practice.

On the Politics of Viruses and Visibility

Political interventions, media coverage and research often refer to the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities, particularly girls and women, participating in physical activity and organised sports. In both public and academic debates, reference is made to the religious culture as a particular barrier to participation in sports among Muslim girls and women. This article aims to provide a counter-narrative by focusing on young Muslim girls who simultaneously practice their religion and sports. The main research question was: How do young Danish Muslim girls align participation in sports with their religious and cultural frames of reference? The study uses a case study approach with interviews of ten 13–17-year-old Danish Muslim girls, as well as explorative observations in two football clubs and interviews with five coaches and club leaders. In further developing an analytical model for interpreting religion as hegemonic, embodied and dynamic cultural phenomena, the analysis points to the diversity through which Muslim girls and women participate and engage in sports. Finally, the article discusses the extent to which counter-narratives may contribute to changing perspectives on so-called hard to reach target groups.