The Muslim woman functions as a fixed stereotype absorbing cross-discourse readings

Evidence

How then is Islamophobia gendered? There are several angles to this question that can be explored. Islamophobia is gendered in the way described above, in that gender is inherently part of social construction; thus, there have to be elements of Islamophobia that can be described as gendered. Furthermore, as Krista Riley pointed out above, the genderedness of Islamophobia can productively be explored through a nuanced study of the ways in which Muslims are represented and described as gendered. This genderedness is most obvious in the representation of Muslim men as violent terrorists (both against “us” and Muslim women) and the representation of Muslim women as oppressed and silenced (by Muslim men, Islam, and Muslim culture). Muslim men and women in these representations (or stereotypes) are two sides of the same coin: The violence of oppressive Muslim men is demonstrated in their treatment of their women; and the oppression of Muslim women is perpetrated by violent Muslim men. No other factors or influences can be explored or considered in such a neatly organized scenario. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 487 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

As a Bangladeshi woman, Asma’s ability to traverse even the immigrant spaces of New York is severely circumscribed. She rarely ventures out from her home in Little Dhaka, as their part of Brooklyn is known, considering Manhattan “like another country” (71). Moreover, in a move that perhaps indicates that The Submission, despite its concern for stereotyping in the media, does not always escape stereotypes of its own, the restraints on Asma are depicted as cultural as well as Islamophobic. She begins as the archetypal oppressed Muslim woman, cowed by the patriarchal conventions of her community. Her tentative attempts to break free of tradition are crushed under the weight of convention and respectability—as when she attempts to rescue a neighbor from domestic abuse but finds her efforts rejected even by the victim, whose concern is primarily for reputation. Arin Keeble suggests that “the characterization of Asma that emerges,” despite this surface image, “is of a strong compassionate woman who won’t accept her husband being written out of history.” That may be so, but her ultimate fate reveals the combined weight of a paranoid host nation and an imposed collective responsibility to community. Her decision to speak up for Mo’s design at the public hearing brings plaudits from many Americans, who see her as acting against silencing oppression by Muslim males. Yet it also brings renewed scrutiny to her own residency status and that of fellow members of the Bangladeshi community in New York, many of whom are also irregular, and leads to an order for her expedited removal from the country. Her murder at the hands of an unknown knifeman—Is he a right-wing extremist or an outraged Bangladeshi community member?—takes place in the full glare of the nation’s media, for whom she has become a cause célèbre. In Waldman’s novel, there is no question but that those most directly at risk from hatred and Islamophobia will always pay the highest price. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 292 (#expands, via linked claim)

In an attempt to escape the gaze and control the narrative about Islam, Muslim American women were purposeful in how they navigated public spaces. Muslim American women altered their dress, made attempts to smile more and appear assertive, and tried to perform what they saw as American values to the public. Many women told me they felt it was their duty as Muslims to represent Islam in a positive light and in order to counter the stereotypes that have racialized them. Monitoring one’s behavior and actions like this is a form of self-­discipline enacted by the threat of surveillance. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 486 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Western media depicts Muslim women solely as passive victims stripped of agency — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 510; Muslim characters can break stereotype when faith is incidental to personality — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 537; Romantic fiction made Polynesian and Muslim women interchangeable objects of desire — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 370 (+10 more)

Related

• Muslim women alter dress and demeanor to counter surveillance-based stereotypes. (similarity 0.86)
• Islamophobic stereotypes of Muslims form a closed gendered loop. (similarity 0.86)
• Media coverage of Muslim women collapses them into an oppressed-or-dangerous binary (similarity 0.86)
• Muslim women treat public behavior as a duty to represent Islam favorably. (similarity 0.85)
• Western media depicts Muslim women solely as passive victims stripped of agency (similarity 0.85)
• Gendered Islamophobia imposes the most distorted stereotypes on veiled Muslim women. (similarity 0.85)
• Gendered stereotypes of Muslim men and women are formed in relation to each other. (similarity 0.84)
• Anti-Islamophobic novels can still reproduce the stereotype of the oppressed Muslim woman (similarity 0.84)
• Western women’s post-feminist agency is constructed against the figure of the oppressed Muslim woman. (similarity 0.83)
• Western discourse displaces Muslim threats onto obsessing over women’s clothing (similarity 0.83)
• Muslim women are simultaneously attacked as threats and pitied as victims (similarity 0.83)
• Muslim women alter their dress in response to fellow citizens’ surveillance, not male oppression (similarity 0.82)
• Anti-Muslim hate crime targets veiled women partly for gender performance, not religion alone. (similarity 0.82)
• The Muslim-man-violent and Muslim-woman-oppressed stereotypes are mutually reinforcing. (similarity 0.82)
• Western journalists describe veiled Muslim women as faceless victims lacking personhood (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Islamophobic stereotypes of Muslims form a closed gendered loop. #corroborates (0.70) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 487
• Anti-Islamophobic novels can still reproduce the stereotype of the oppressed Muslim woman #expands (0.65) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 292
• Muslim women alter dress and demeanor to counter surveillance-based stereotypes. #complicates (0.60)
• Circulating veiled-woman imagery deadens Westerners’ sense of Muslim women’s diversity #corroborates (0.60) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 394
• Muslim women treat public behavior as a duty to represent Islam favorably. #exemplifies (0.60)
• Muslim women perform their behavior and dress as self-discipline enacted by surveillance #exemplifies (0.60) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 486
• Muslim depictions served as foils for unrelated domestic critiques #expands (0.55) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 106