Dr Akhtar is an expert in the field of minority communities and politics. Her research on Muslim communities in the UK spans two decades. She has authored and contributed to several books, academic articles, blogs, and media pieces on the lived experiences of Muslim women in the public and private spheres.
Dr. Jenichen is an expert in the field of gender and human rights. She has extensive expertise in conducting research on gender issues, human rights and governance and has published widely in these areas.
Together Akhtar and Jenichen have developed online learning modules for Amnesty International on gender and violence against women and girls, both online and offline. They have collaborated on and published research looking at intersectionality and Muslim women’s experiences of violence in the public, and specifically, political sphere.
This written submission is for the Women and Equalities Committee Inquiry into Gendered Islamophobia. Specifically, we focus on five questions:
Drawing on our collective research on Muslim communities in the public sphere as well as more broadly in British society, we argue that Muslim men and women experience Islamophobia in many similar ways but that there are also some substantive differences.
‘Visible Muslims’ – Women, who wear a headscarf, jilbab (full length robe), niqab (face covering) are more likely to experience ‘everyday’ acts of Islamophobia including name-calling, verbal abuse, being spat at, having their clothing (usually head covering) pulled. Often, this happens as they are going about their daily business in public spaces (buses, trains, in the shopping centre, on the street). Other examples include instances of being ignored in queues, being told by shopkeepers they do not understand their requests (even when English is the first language), being left to wait longer to be served.
Men who are visibly Muslim, for example, those who have a beard or wear traditional Muslim clothes may experience similar types of ‘everyday’ Islamophobia. There have been recorded instances of men who are not Muslim but appear to look Muslim being subjected to Islamophobic abuse. Whilst everyday Islamophobia impacts both men and women, the nature and type of abuse is often gendered. Muslim women experience more physical abuse and instances of being ignored, for example, while for men the abuse is more verbal.
It is also the case that Muslim women who are visibly Muslim are very often ‘centre stage’ of Islamophobia (Hammer, 2013) even more so than men who are visibly Muslim. Stereotypes attached to Muslim women that see them being ‘submissive’, ‘weaker’ or ‘non-confrontational’ (Van Es, 2016) are one reason that can lead to Muslim women being targeted more often and in different ways to men. Perpetrators believe there will be less retaliation from Muslim women and therefore no consequences for their behaviour.
Much of this type of Islamophobia goes under-reported and so it is difficult to quantify ‘everyday’ Islamophobia. There are multiple reasons for under-reporting. Often-times, such Islamophobic acts are written off as not being worth police time, women don’t feel like it is worth the hassle of reporting it. There may also not be an understanding of the process of reporting such abuse, what to do, who to go to, how to report it. Others may just want to put it behind them and get on with their lives not wanting to ‘make a big deal’ or give it any more attention. Those who have experienced Islamophobia may feel ashamed, traumatized, or simply lack faith in the authorities, police and legal system and so do not report the abuse.
A clear finding from our research is that ‘everyday’ acts of Islamophobia spike during moments of crisis – in the aftermath of a terror-related incident, or conflicts, from regional conflicts such as in the Middle East through to global ones, such as the War on Terror. This was especially true in the aftermath of the War on Terror, when some Muslim women were told by their families not to wear clothes that would identify them as visibly Muslim because they would draw unwelcome attention from people seeking retribution (Akhtar, 2013). When high profile terrorist attacks take place, either in the UK or across the world, Muslims often bear the brunt of those who seek revenge or retribution.
Beyond the everyday acts of violence and abuse, Islamophobia can be found at the institutional or structural level. In the education system (Ramarajan and Runell, 2007; Mirza and Meetoo, 2018), in the workplace (Sekerka and Yacobian, 2018), the NHS (Rashid, 2024), in sports (Kilvington and Price, 2013) and in the arts (Morey, Yaqin and Forte, 2019). Structural Islamophobia can affect men and women, for example, Muslim workers being over-looked for promotion, job applicants with Muslim names not shortlisted. Structural Islamophobia can also be gendered, manifesting itself in different (often lower) expectations of Muslim girls (and boys) at school or college, poorer service experiences especially in maternity wards in hospital. Muslim women running for political office, moreover, are faced by Islamophobic abuse, primarily online, ranging from microaggressions on social media, such as questioning their experience of discrimination or claiming they are not willing to represent groups other than their own, to direct threats by email and other digital means (Akhtar, Jenichen and Intezar, 2024; Kuperberg, 2021).
Beyond these, Islamophobia in the areas of the media and expressed by politicians are frequently the most concerning for Muslims and for good reason. The media is a powerful tool for preference-shaping and agenda setting (Lukes, 2005), often influencing the attitudes, views and opinion of readers/listeners/viewers. Islamophobic content in the media lends legitimacy to Islamophobic abuse. Leading up to the general election in 2024, for example, Darren Grimes, a television presenter on GB news, who has a large social media following, circulated an AI generated image of Kier Starmer wearing a hijab and an abaya, with the caption ‘What will Britain look like after 5 years of Sir Keir Starmer?’ The tweet received millions of views. The message was clear, a dystopic future where politicians included Muslim women.
Constantly negative portrayals of Muslims in the media, depicting Muslim men as terrorists, a fifth column or paedophiles exploiting young girls, have real consequences in reinforcing these Islamophobic stereotypes. Similarly for women, depictions of oppressed and downtrodden Muslim women following three feet behind their fathers, brothers, husbands reinforce these views amongst the wider public.
When those who hold elected office and walk in the corridors of power refer to Muslim women who wear the face veil as ‘bank robbers’ and ‘letterboxes’ as in the case of former UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson (Johnson, 2018) this gives weight to the perpetrators of Islamophobia from the highest level. In the week following Johnson’s comments, reports of Islamophobic instances increased 375% and 58% were directed at Muslim women who wore the niqab, or face veil (Guardian, 02.09.19). Islamophobic abuse towards Muslims and especially women are given respectability, the logic being ‘if a respected politician can say the things we think, then surely we can say the things we think also’. If politicians can be Islamophobic, why can’t the ordinary man and woman on the street?
Our work has focused on the kinds of abuse Muslim women, specifically those in the public sphere, receive – whether it is primarily sexist, directed towards them as women, or is it predominantly racist, especially Islamophobic, directed at them as Muslims, or rather intersectional directed at them specifically as Muslim women?
We found that whilst online abuse against Muslim women in the public realm is primarily Islamophobic and mostly informed by far right and nationalist attitudes, the overall picture is more complicated. Indeed, a large proportion of the offline abuse faced by female Muslim political candidates came from within the Muslim community targeting the intersectional identity of candidates as Muslim and as women (Akhtar, Jenichen and Intezar, 2024). Our research also suggests that class and Islamic head covering are important contributors to harassment against Muslim women in politics, being that in the UK (Ibid.) or in Germany (Jenichen, 2018, 2020).
As a one-off, ‘everyday’ instances of Islamophobia may be deemed as insignificant (to report to authorities) but they can be devastating for individuals. Across time, the impact of cumulatively ‘everyday’ acts of islamophobia can have significant impacts for individuals, communities and wider society.
As women and girls share stories of ‘everyday’ instances of Islamophobia with other Muslim women and girls, they share experiences of abuse and can form tighter inter-community bonds. This can be positive in helping to process and deal with their experiences and share the burden of abuse. However, it could also prevent them from forming friendships across communities, if they fear that they will experience Islamophobia. This has the potential to have far reaching consequences for cross-cultural friendships and bonds.
Everyday experiences of islamophobia can result in women modifying their behaviour, so for example, changing the way they travel to school, college, work. Women feel much safer in their own cars than on public transport and therefore would always opt for this option if it is available to them (Najib and Hopkins, 2019).
Normalisation of Islamophobic abuse: Acts of Islamophobia – from the park to the airport, the bus to the shopping mall, on the front pages of newspapers and in the opinion pieces of elected politicians – normalise Islamophobia. Consequently, stereotypes are all pervasive and Muslim women (and men) come to expect everyday Islamophobic acts as well as Islamophobia in the structures of institutions.
Online, Islamophobia, combined with sexism, can have a silencing effect on Muslim women, whose representation in politics and society, however, is important to counter Islamophobic and intersectional discrimination.
Islamophobic abuse in the UK context is largely perpetrated by white males (Hopkins, 2016). Nevertheless, our research on Muslim women in the political sphere points to a more complex picture of Muslim women also being subjected to Islamophobic abuse as Muslim women by Muslim men (Akhtar, Jenichen and Intezar 2024). We found that while online abuse directed at female Muslim politicians is primarily Islamophobic and mostly informed by far right and nationalist attitudes, a large proportion of the offline abuse faced by female Muslim politicians came from within the Muslim community targeting the intersectional identity of candidates, not as women or as Muslim alone, but as Muslim women specifically. Our research includes examples such as fabricated pictures showing a Muslim woman candidate in attire deemed inappropriate. These attacks were levelled against her identity as a Muslim woman, characterizing her as having loose morals and questionable character. Although such pictures would have no significance in wider British society, they were meant to send specific cultural signals to a socially conservative Muslim community that the candidate was not a “good Muslim woman” to weaken support for her in her predominantly Muslim constituency. Another example is when a Muslim woman candidate’s religious authenticity was questioned because she did not wear the hijab. In campaign meetings and hustings, she was identified as a “bad Muslim” for not wearing a headscarf while another Muslim woman candidate was branded a “good Muslim” for wearing one. This “hijab-shaming” in this specific case was an appeal to the mainly Muslim electorate. While in some instances, Muslim women candidates become a symbol of ‘Muslimness’ for the wider public, then often criticised and attacked as such online; simultaneously, they are often not ‘Muslim enough’ for some in their own communities.
Recommendations
A clear and robust definition of Islamophobia would provide legal protection to Muslims. This is not our areas of expertise, but we contend that a clear definition and the legal protection this would entail is a step in the right direction.
We recommend a programme of education and empowerment which can form a toolkit against Islamophobia and misogyny to be rolled out nationally in schools, sports clubs and other community groups, trade unions, places of worship and workplaces to help tackle Islamophobia and to support Muslim women and girls. This is our area of expertise, and we have successfully developed two online courses on Violence against Women and Girls (online and offline) with modules on toolkits to actively combat this type of violence, which could easily be adapted to the specific group of Muslim women and girls.
We also recommend developing an awareness-raising campaign about Muslim women active in public life to provide role models to Muslim women and girls and to debunk stereotypes about Muslim women both from outside of the Muslim community but also and importantly from within the community. Stereotypes wherever they come from can have material consequences, limiting horizons and narrowing the realm of the possible and, ultimately, have the potential to become self-fulfilling.
April 2025
Bibliography
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