Muslims are the most persecuted all over the world. The most forbidden and the most killed are again Muslims. But everywhere, the most feared and feared Muslims are again. What is the reason?
- Muslim women suffer from the same inequalities as other women (access to employment, gender pay gap, domestic, verbal and physical violence, etc.) but additional factors such as perceived religion or ethnicity worsen the situation;
- Media and public opinion often express stereotypical views of Muslim women, often depicted through a binary representation – oppressed or dangerous -, and do not consider Muslim women as active agents. News stories either refer to violations of women’s rights or use their image, especially when wearing religious clothing, to illustrate views framing Islam as a problem;
- Some political discourses feed into these stereotypical views, in order to argue the lack of compatibility between some expressions of Islam with European values. These stereotypes contribute to create a fertile ground for discriminatory practices and violence on the ground;
- In the labour market, Muslim women are subject to three types of penalties: gender penalties, ethnic penalties and religious penalties. Discrimination is often related to perceptions of their Muslimness, and especially their clothing;
- In most countries, Muslim women are the main targets of Islamophobic hate crime and speech, and violence, especially if they wear a headscarf. For instance, in the Netherlands and France, respectively over 90% and 80% of the victims of islamophobic incidents reported in 2015 and 2014 were Muslim women, most of them wearing a visible religious symbol.
link: Forgetten Women
