Muslim Immigrant Women Research Articles

In the Shadows of the Twin Towers: Muslim Immigrant Women's Voices Emerge

The senseless attacks of September 11 left marks of sadness on us all. In a focus group, seven young women immigrants of the Muslim faith shared incidents and reflections on the special effects the attacks left on them. Their discussions shed light on important issues and dynamics in their lives, counteracting stereotypes of them as passive or uneducated. In addition, sources of stress, primarily from discrimination and media stereotyping, were discussed. From their insights, the authors offer recommendations to help feminists raise awareness about, and acculturate to, these women in their quest to achieve without losing their culture.

Interpreting Gender in Islam

This article explores variation in how immigrant Muslim women in Oslo, Norway, interpret and practice gender relations within the framework of Islam. Religion, family, and work are important sites for the formation, negotiation, and change of gender relations. The article therefore discusses the views and experiences of immigrant Muslim women concerning wife-husband relations and participation in the labor market. Four analytical types of views toward gender relations are introduced, and the variation in gender practices and views found among Muslim women in Oslo is discussed in relation to these types. The analysis suggests that immigrant Muslim women use Islam as a flexible resource for interpreting gender relations. It also shows that while women generally uphold a religious ideal of complementary gender roles, their actual practice often contradicts with and contests this ideal.

Attitudes Toward Cervical Cancer Screening Among Muslim Women: A Pilot Study

ABSTRACT Background: Immigrant Muslim women have low rates of health care utilization, especially preventive care such as breast exams, mammograms, and cervical cancer screening. Religious and cultural beliefs, such as the value placed on modesty and premarital virginity, contribute to reluctance to seek health care. In addition, it has been unclear whether discussions of health care behavior that involve sexuality and reproductive health would be welcomed among immigrant Muslim women. Purposes: (1) To examine the impact of religious and cultural values on health care behavior of Muslim women from immigrant backgrounds in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly with regard to cervical cancer screening; (2) To determine whether these women would welcome discussing values and beliefs regarding sexuality and reproductive health. Methods: Our key informants were five Muslim women who identified pelvic and Pap smear screening exams as major sources of anxiety for their community, and therefore major barriers to health care. Three focus groups were then convened, including 15 women ages 18–25, to discuss these issues in more detail. Results: Many Muslim women from immigrant backgrounds face challenges in obtaining adequate health care due to some common barriers of language, transportation, insurance, and family pressures. Additionally, many Muslim women resist screening practices that are the standard in the US but which threaten their cultural and religious values. Equally important, many health care professionals contribute to the women's challenges by making inappropriate recommendations regarding physical exams and reproductive health. The women were enthusiastic and candid in discussing these highly sensitive and taboo topics.

The Other Side of the Veil

The “headscarf affair,” Muslim girls wearing veils to school, has generated a storm of controversy in France. This study uses the headscarf affair to explore Muslim immigrant women's views of their place in French society and reveals that even those who disagree with French public opinion often invoke arguments that are more French than North African. Interviews with 41 North African women show that younger, well-educated women defend the headscarf as a matter of personal liberty and cultural expression. Older, poorly educated women either defend or reject the veil but never discuss the issue of secularism. In dismissing the veil, they rely on a different understanding of Muslim womanhood. A third group opposes the veil, arguing that the goal of school is integration. Respondents' answers are interpreted according to structural factors and cultural repertoires, both North African and French.

Muslim Organizations in Canada: Gender Ideology and Women's Veiling

This article examines the Muslim shaping of gender ideology around the veiling practices of immigrant Muslim women in Canada. Women's veiling is often attributed to the mobilization of traditional values against the universalizing influences of Western culture. This is also a common theme in mainstream sociological studies that conceptualize cultural politics as being split between the global and authentically local. However, the veiling practice can also be understood as part of the transnational dynamics of Muslim claims for cultural authenticity, rather than a locally rooted rejection of Western culture. Archival data and interviews are used to examine the interplay between the global configuring of gender ideology and the local cultural practices of Muslim immigrants. Analyzed in this way, veiling is seen as posing a paradigmatic challenge to the dichotomy of global versus local in sociological theory.

Prenatal testing: The perceptions and experiences of Muslim women in Australia

This paper examines how Muslim women perceive and experience prenatal testing. In addition, we look at women's partners and their opinions relating to prenatal testing. The paper is based on in-depth interviews with immigrant women who identify themselves as followers of Islam and are now living in Australia. The women have, in general, positive attitudes toward prenatal testing, particularly ultrasound. However, some are ambivalent about amniocentesis. Despite their doubts, women tend to accept prenatal testing as they believe it is routine in antenatal care and confirms their own perceptions of being a 'normal mother', who should accept advice from their doctors. Women's partners also play an important role in the acceptance of prenatal testing among women in this study. We argue that women's perceptions and subjective experience of prenatal testing should be taken into account when providing prenatal services to them. Women need to be given a choice rather than being pressured and made to conform to the routinization of prenatal testing which has taken place in the Australian health care system. Only then will we see sensitive health care provided for women in general and for Muslim immigrant women in particular.