Islamophobia discourse weaponizes Muslim women’s oppression for a neoconservative agenda

Evidence

This section discusses several examples of Islamophobic discourse in which the oppression of Muslim women by Islam takes center stage. This oppression takes many forms, but it is emphasized, written, and spoken about, and publicized by a range of actors from Newt Gingrich to Pamela Geller and Phyllis Chesler. And it serves a neoconservative and right-wing agenda to mark Islam as a religion not only foreign to the United States but also threatening the very foundations of its society. The assumed gender inequality and oppression of women by Islam is juxtaposed with a quintessentially American gender-egalitarianism and respect for women’s rights that can only be described as ironic in the face of recent political developments regarding women’s reproductive rights in the months leading up to the 2012 presidential elections. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 532

Categorization

• XREF: The irony the author names — championing women’s liberation while restricting American women’s reproductive rights — parallels a pattern seen in the author’s earlier chapters on ‘immodesty’ moral panics echoing class/identity signaling. — connects to: Neocons recruit non-Western voices to delegitimize Muslim critiques of US policy