(Under)cover and Uncovered: Muslim Women's Resistance to Islamophobic Violence

ABSTRACT

After 9/11, research highlighted how Muslim communities endured discrimination, surveillance, and violence. In recent years, few studies have critically assessed how gender-based harassment of Muslim women is simultaneously linked to hypervisibility (veiling), while “invisible” (non-veiled) Muslim women remain susceptible to verbal harassment and physical violence in the public sphere. Drawing from qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews with Muslim women (n = 27) across racial/ethnic and immigrant identity, this article examines the unique vulnerability of Muslim women during the Trump presidential administration, including covert and overt forms of violence. Findings indicate myriad forms of violence as veiled women navigate harassment at the axes of racialized Muslim identity and social categorization as immigrants (twice racialized intersectionality). Yet, Black Muslim women’s experiences are further complicated by anti-Black racism. Muslim women navigate gender-based anti-Muslim bias by disrupting notions of passive victimhood by leaning into invisible or hypervisible markers, revealing or concealing their ethnoreligious identity through racial ambiguity, and engaging in advocacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamophobia
• gender-based violence
• hate speech
• Muslims

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Dr. Chrysanthi Leon and Dr. Rosemary Barberet for their insightful feedback and support through various stages of this research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Defined as a Muslim woman; similarly, hijabi denotes a Muslim woman that wears a hijab (hair covering scarf), or niqaabi, one that wears a niqab (face covering veil).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the American Society of Criminology: Division on Feminist Criminology (formerly Division on Women and Crime) Larry J. Siegel Graduate Fellowship for the Study of Gender and Crime (2018).