Political and popular tropes portray Muslims as monolithically, uniquely, and inherently patriarchal and misogynistic—a phenomenon of which Muslims are acutely aware. This study asks whether and how Islamophobic tropes influence Muslims’ gender ideologies. Using life history interviews with Muslim Americans, we find a diversity of gender beliefs, challenging the discourses that frame Muslims’ gender ideologies as monolithic. Four major typologies emerge in our data: Loyalist Complementarians, Patriarchal Reactionaries, Critical Egalitarians, and Reformist Egalitarians. These beliefs are multifaceted and are composed of a dialogic exchange between beliefs toward gender relations, perceptions of Islamic doctrine, and negotiation with what we call the Orientalist gaze. Each group navigates how their ideas about gender fit into or challenge a broader society that is scrutinizing Muslims, and each group articulates their gender beliefs through and against Islamophobic discourse, a process akin to walking an Orientalism tightrope.
Plain Language Summary
Walking the Orientalism Tightrope: How Muslim Americans Construct their Gender Ideologies
This article summarizes four ways that Muslim Americans think about gender. We argue that each mode is defined, in part, by how it responds to the stereotype that Muslims and Muslim communities are particularly gender oppressive.
AbdelhadiEmanEnglandPaula. 2019. Do values explain the low employment levels of Muslim women around the world? A within- and between-country analysis. British Journal of Sociology70 (4): 1510–38. doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12486.
2.
AbdulhadiRababAlstultanyEvelynNaberNadine, eds. 2015. Arab and Arab American feminisms: Gender, violence, and belonging. 1. paperback ed. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
3.
Abu-LughodLila. 2002. Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others. American Anthropologist104 (3): 783–90. doi:10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.783.
4.
Abu-LughodLila. 2013. Do Muslim Women Need Saving?Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5.
AhearnCaitlin E.BrandJennie E.ZhouXiang. 2023. How, and for whom, does higher education increase voting?Research in Higher Education64 (4): 574–97. doi:10.1007/s11162-022-09717-4.
6.
AjrouchKristine J.2004. Gender, race, and symbolic boundaries: Contested spaces of identity among Arab American adolescents. Sociological Perspectives47 (4): 371–91. doi:10.1525/sop.2004.47.4.371.
7.
AlbrechtStan L.HeatonTim B.1984. Secularization, higher education, and religiosity. Review of Religious Research26 (1): 43–58. doi:10.2307/3511041.
8.
AliMuna. 2018. Young Muslim America: Faith, community, and belonging. New York: Oxford University Press.
9.
AliTazeen M.2022. The women’s Mosque of America: Authority and community in US Islam. New York: New York University Press.
10.
Alimahomed-WilsonSabrina. 2020. The matrix of gendered Islamophobia: Muslim women’s repression and resistance. Gender & Society34 (4): 648–78. doi:10.1177/0891243220932156.
11.
AlsultanyEvelyn. 2012. Arabs and Muslims in the media: Race and representation after 9/11. New York: New York University Press.
12.
BagbyIhsan.2020. The American Mosque 2020: Growing and evolving. Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
13.
Bakić-HaydenMilica. 1995. Nesting orientalisms: The case of former Yugoslavia. Slavic Review54 (4): 917–31. doi:10.2307/2501399.
14.
BartkowskiJohn P.1997. Debating patriarchy: Discursive disputes over spousal authority among evangelical family commentators. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion36 (3): 393–410. doi:10.2307/1387857.
BeekMirreFleischmannFenella. 2020. Religion and integration: Does immigrant generation matter? The case of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies46 (17): 3655–76. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2019.1620417.
17.
BrintonMary C.LeeDong-Ju. 2016. Gender-role ideology, labor market institutions, and post-industrial fertility. Population and Development Review42 (3): 405–33.
CharaniaMoon M.2014. Imperial Gazes and Queer politics: Re/reading female political subjectivity in Pakistan.” In Border Politics, edited by NaplesN. A.MendezJ. B.New York University Press.
20.
CharaniaMoon M.2015. Will the real Pakistani Woman please stand up? Empire, visual culture and the brown female body. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
21.
CharlesMariaFriedlandRogerAfaryJanetYangRujun. 2022. Complicating patriarchy: Gender beliefs of Muslim Facebook users in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Gender & Society37 (1): 91–123. doi:10.1177/08912432221137909.
22.
ChuaPeter. 2008. Orientalism as cultural practices and the production of sociological knowledge. Sociology Compass2 (4): 1179–91.
23.
CollinsPatricia Hill. 2009. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. 2nd ed.New York: Routledge.
24.
CollinsPatricia Hill. 2019. Intersectionality as critical social theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
25.
DavisShannon N.GreensteinTheodore N.2009. Gender ideology: Components, predictors, and consequences. Annual Review of Sociology35 (1): 87–105. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-115920.
26.
DentonMelinda Lundquist. 2004. Gender and marital decision making: Negotiating religious ideology and practice. Social Forces82 (3): 1151–80. doi:10.1353/sof.2004.0034.
27.
DiehlClaudiaKoenigMatthiasRuckdeschelKerstin. 2009. Religiosity and gender equality: Comparing natives and Muslim migrants in Germany. Ethnic and Racial Studies32 (2): 278–301. doi:10.1080/01419870802298454.
28.
FanonFrantz. 1986. Black Skin White masks. London: Pluto Press.
29.
FishM. Steven. 2011. Are Muslims distinctive? A Look at the evidence. New York: Oxford University Press.
30.
FoucaultMichel. 1980. Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977. edited by C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books.
31.
GlasSaskia. 2021. How Muslims’ denomination shapes their integration: The effects of religious marginalization in origin countries on Muslim migrants’ national identifications and support for gender equality. Ethnic and Racial Studies44 (16): 83–105.
32.
GlasSaskia. 2022. Exclusionary contexts frustrate cultural integration: Migrant acculturation into support for gender equality in the labor market in Western Europe. International Migration Review56 (3): 941–75. doi:10.1177/01979183211059171.
33.
GlasSaskia. 2023. What gender values do Muslims resist? How religiosity and acculturation over time shape Muslims’ public-sphere equality, family role divisions, and sexual liberalization values differently. Social Forces101 (3): 1199–1229. doi:10.1093/sf/soac004.
34.
GlasSaskiaSpieringsNiels. 2019. Support for feminism among highly religious Muslim citizens in the Arab Region. European Journal of Politics and Gender2 (2): 283–310. doi:10.1332/251510819X15538590890492.
35.
GlasSaskiaSpieringsNiels. 2022. The impact of anti-Muslim hostilities on how Muslims connect their religiosity to support for gender equality in western Europe. Frontiers in Political Science4:909578. doi:10.3389/fpos.2022.909578.
36.
GohirShaista. 2015. The veil ban in Europe: Gender equality or gendered Islamophobia ?Georgetown Journal of International Affairs16 (1): 24–33.
37.
GrunowDanielaBegallKatiaBuchlerSandra. 2018. Gender ideologies in Europe: A multidimensional framework. Journal of Marriage and Family80 (1): 42–60. doi:10.1111/jomf.12453.
38.
GuhinJeffrey. 2021. Agents of God: Boundaries and Authority in Muslim and Christian Schools. New York: Oxford University Press.
39.
HeffernanTeresa. 2016. Veiled figures: Women, modernity, and the spectres of orientalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
40.
HirschkindCharlesMahmoodSaba. 2002. Feminism, the Taliban, and politics of counter-insurgency. Anthropological Quarterly75 (2): 339–54. doi:10.1353/anq.2002.0031.
41.
HoweJustine. 2018. Suburban Islam. New York: Oxford University Press.
42.
InglehartRonaldNorrisPippa. 2003. Rising tide: Gender equality and cultural change around the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
43.
KarimJamillah. 2008. American Muslim women: Negotiating race, class, and gender within the Ummah. New York: New York University Press.
44.
KaufmanSarah Beth. 2019. The criminalization of Muslims in the United States, 2016. Qualitative Sociology42 (4): 521–42. doi:10.1007/s11133-019-09435-x.
45.
KnightCarly R.BrintonMary C.2017. One egalitarianism or several? Two decades of gender-role attitude change in Europe. American Journal of Sociology122 (5): 1485–1532. doi:10.1086/689814.
46.
KotliarDan M.2020. Data orientalism: On the algorithmic construction of the non-western other. Theory and Society49 (5–6): 919–39. doi:10.1007/s11186-020-09404-2.
47.
LijphartArend. 1997. Unequal participation: Democracy’s unresolved dilemma. Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1996. American Political Science Review91 (1): 1–14. doi:10.2307/2952255.
48.
MahmoodSaba. 2004. Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
49.
MakleyCharlene E.2007. The violence of liberation: Gender and Tibetan Buddhist revival in Post-Mao China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
50.
MaliepaardMiekeAlbaRichard. 2016. Cultural integration in the Muslim second generation in the Netherlands: The case of gender ideology. International Migration Review50 (1): 70–94. doi:10.1111/imre.12118.
51.
ManningChristel. 1999. God gave us the right: Conservative Catholic, evangelical protestant, and orthodox Jewish women grapple with feminism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
52.
MassadJoseph Andoni. 2008. Desiring Arabs. Paperback ed. Chicago London: University of Chicago Press.
53.
McFarlandMichael J.WrightBradley R. E.WeakliemDavid L.2011. Educational attainment and religiosity: Exploring variations by religious tradition. Sociology of Religion72 (2): 166–88. doi:10.1093/socrel/srq065.
54.
MirShabana. 2009. Not too “college-like,” not too normal: American Muslim undergraduate women’s gendered discourses. Anthropology & Education Quarterly40 (3): 237–56. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1492.2009.01043.x.
55.
MirShabana. 2014. Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
MohantyChandra. 1984. Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review30 (1): 61–88. doi:10.1057/fr.1988.42.
58.
MossAaron J.BlodornAlisonVan CampAmanda R.O’BrienLaurie T.2019. Gender equality, value violations, and prejudice toward Muslims. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations22 (2): 288–301. doi:10.1177/1368430217716751.
59.
MoussawiGhassan. 2013. Queering Beirut, the ‘Paris of the Middle East’: Fractal orientalism and essentialized masculinities in contemporary gay travelogues. Gender, Place & Culture20 (7): 858–75. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2012.753586.
60.
MoussawiGhassan. 2020. Disruptive situations: Fractal orientalism and queer strategies in Beirut. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
61.
NaberNadine. 2005. Muslim first, Arab second: A strategic politics of race and gender. The Muslim World95 (4): 479–95. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2005.00107.x.
62.
NgaiMae M.2000. American orientalism. Reviews in American History28 (3): 408–15. doi:10.1353/rah.2000.0059.
63.
NorrisPippaInglehartRonald F.2012. Muslim integration into western cultures: Between origins and destinations. Political Studies60 (2): 228–51. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00951.x.
64.
PeekLori. 2005. Becoming Muslim: The development of a religious identity. Sociology of Religion66 (3): 215–42. doi:10.2307/4153097.
65.
PrickettPamela J.2021. Believing in South Central: Everyday Islam in the city of angels. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
66.
PsacharopoulosGeorgeAnthony PatrinosHarry. 2018. Returns to investment in education: A decennial review of the global literature. Education Economics26 (5): 445–58. doi:10.1080/09645292.2018.1484426.
67.
RöderAntje. 2014. Explaining religious differences in immigrants’ gender role attitudes: The changing impact of origin country and individual religiosity. Ethnic and Racial Studies37 (14): 2615–35. doi:10.1080/01419870.2013.854919.
68.
RöderAntjeSpieringsNiels. 2022. What shapes attitudes toward homosexuality among European Muslims? The role of religiosity and destination hostility. International Migration Review56 (2): 533–61. doi:10.1177/01979183211041288.
69.
SaidEdward W.1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
70.
SavcıEvren. 2021. Queer in translation: Sexual politics under neoliberal Islam. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
71.
SchwadelPhilip. 2015. Explaining cross-national variation in the effect of higher education on religiosity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion54 (2): 402–18. doi:10.1111/jssr.12187.
72.
SelodSaher. 2018. Forever suspect: Racialized surveillance of Muslim Americans in the war on terror. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
73.
SelodSaher. 2019. Gendered racialization: Muslim American men and women’s encounters with racialized surveillance. Ethnic and Racial Studies42 (4): 552–69. doi:10.1080/01419870.2018.1445870.
74.
ShahrokniNazanin. 2020. Women in place: The politics of gender segregation in Iran. Oakland: University of California press.
75.
SkenderovicDamirSpätiChristina. 2019. From orientalism to Islamophobia: Reflections, confirmations, and reservations. Reorient4 (2): 130–43. doi:10.13169/reorient.4.2.0130.
76.
SpivakGayatri Chakravorty. 2003. Can the subaltern speak?Die Philosophin14 (27): 42–58. doi:10.5840/philosophin200314275.
77.
SweetPaige L.2020. Who knows? Reflexivity in feminist standpoint theory and Bourdieu. Gender & Society34 (6): 922–50. doi:10.1177/0891243220966600.
78.
ToorSaadia. 2011. Gender, sexuality, and Islam under the shadow of empire. The Scholar and Feminist9 (3): 1–17.
79.
Van KlingerenMarijnSpieringsNiels. 2020. Acculturation, decoupling, or both? Migration’s impact on the linkage between religiosity and gender equality attitudes. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies46 (15): 3079–3100.
