How Stereotypes Influence the Hiring of Muslim Women in the United States

How Stereotypes Influence the Hiring of Muslim Women in the United States PDF Author: Karima Hana-Meksem
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Although federal laws prohibit employment discrimination, potential discrimination against Muslim women wearing the hijab is possible. The purpose of this study was to describe how religious stereotypes and religious artifacts may influence hiring and what the origin of this phenomenon is. A phenomenological perspective was used in this research focusing on the participant's perceptions in comprehending the meaning of having a Muslim woman wearing the hijab in a job interview and how/why this meaning is constructed. The phenomenon studied was the nature and range of stereotypes that recruiters hold about Muslim women wearing the hijab. Qualitative interviews with nine participants were conducted in the states of Illinois and Missouri in 2010. These participants were in charge of hiring in the educational and healthcare sectors. Five main themes from the interviews data were identified: (a) fear of Muslims, (b) hijab appearance vs. hijab functionality, (c) impact of cultural and religious differences, (d) stereotypes, and (e) discrimination in the United States. The findings have offered an opportunity to investigate, illustrate and document stereotypes on Muslim women wearing the hijab that could intervene during a hiring process. They have provided a glimpse into the stereotypes that recruiters hold about Muslim women wearing the hijab and the Muslim community as well. In particular, this study confirmed that there is a need to educate people in charge of hiring on how stereotypes may shape their decisions. The most distinctive finding of this study is the aesthetic aspect of the hijab. All the participants explicitly acknowledged the beauty of the hijab. This finding showed how complex the research participants' perceptions were about the hijab. How the appearance of the hijab could be viewed so positively and how its function was perceived negatively by them.

How Stereotypes Influence the Hiring of Muslim Women in the United States

How Stereotypes Influence the Hiring of Muslim Women in the United States PDF Author: Karima Hana-Meksem
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
Although federal laws prohibit employment discrimination, potential discrimination against Muslim women wearing the hijab is possible. The purpose of this study was to describe how religious stereotypes and religious artifacts may influence hiring and what the origin of this phenomenon is. A phenomenological perspective was used in this research focusing on the participant's perceptions in comprehending the meaning of having a Muslim woman wearing the hijab in a job interview and how/why this meaning is constructed. The phenomenon studied was the nature and range of stereotypes that recruiters hold about Muslim women wearing the hijab. Qualitative interviews with nine participants were conducted in the states of Illinois and Missouri in 2010. These participants were in charge of hiring in the educational and healthcare sectors. Five main themes from the interviews data were identified: (a) fear of Muslims, (b) hijab appearance vs. hijab functionality, (c) impact of cultural and religious differences, (d) stereotypes, and (e) discrimination in the United States. The findings have offered an opportunity to investigate, illustrate and document stereotypes on Muslim women wearing the hijab that could intervene during a hiring process. They have provided a glimpse into the stereotypes that recruiters hold about Muslim women wearing the hijab and the Muslim community as well. In particular, this study confirmed that there is a need to educate people in charge of hiring on how stereotypes may shape their decisions. The most distinctive finding of this study is the aesthetic aspect of the hijab. All the participants explicitly acknowledged the beauty of the hijab. This finding showed how complex the research participants' perceptions were about the hijab. How the appearance of the hijab could be viewed so positively and how its function was perceived negatively by them.

Stereotypes of Muslim Women in the United States

Stereotypes of Muslim Women in the United States PDF Author: Alexis Tan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 179362836X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
This book brings into focus the perception of Muslim women in the United States, often overlooked in research literature and common media narratives, but at the same time facing increasing hate and aggression based on their religious and gendered identities. Guided by data from three original experiments and theories of priming and media effects, Alexis Tan and Anastasia Vishnevskaya discuss how stereotypes of Muslim women in the media influence public stereotypes, and how public stereotypes direct aggressions towards them. This book contributes to existing literature in the field by presenting evidence that both verbal and visual symbols in the media can activate implicit prejudices, and that activation can be controlled by people who self-identify as social liberals. Ultimately, Tan and Vishnevskaya suggest both media and intrapersonal interventions to mitigate harmful consequences of prejudice towards Muslim women in the United States. Scholars of media studies, communication, religious studies, gender studies, and cultural studies will find this book particularly useful.

Religious Stereotypes of Muslim Women Living in the United States

Religious Stereotypes of Muslim Women Living in the United States PDF Author: Naida Zukic
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Muslim women
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description


Muslim Women in America

Muslim Women in America PDF Author: Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199884331
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The treatment and role of women are among the most discussed and controversial aspects of Islam. The rights of Muslim women have become part of the Western political agenda, often perpetuating a stereotype of universal oppression. Muslim women living in America continue to be marginalized and misunderstood since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet their contributions are changing the face of Islam as it is seen both within Muslim communities in the West and by non-Muslims. In their public and private lives, Muslim women are actively negotiating what it means to be a woman and a Muslim in an American context. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Jane I. Smith, and Kathleen M. Moore offer a much-needed survey of the situation of Muslim American women, focusing on how Muslim views about and experiences of gender are changing in the Western diaspora. Centering on Muslims in America, the book investigates Muslim attempts to form a new "American" Islam. Such specific issues as dress, marriage, childrearing, conversion, and workplace discrimination are addressed. The authors also look at the ways in which American Muslim women have tried to create new paradigms of Islamic womanhood and are reinterpreting the traditions apart from the males who control the mosque institutions. A final chapter asks whether 9/11 will prove to have been a watershed moment for Muslim women in America. This groundbreaking work presents the diversity of Muslim American women and demonstrates the complexity of the issues. Impeccably researched and accessible, it broadens our understanding of Islam in the West and encourages further exploration into how Muslim women are shaping the future of American Islam.

Voices of Muslim Women in America

Voices of Muslim Women in America PDF Author: Mariam Khalil
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hijab (Islamic clothing)
Languages : en
Pages : 75

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Book Description
This study covered several areas about Muslim women, including stereotypes of Muslim women in the media in the United States, how Muslim women are perceived, and the way Muslim women are understood or treated. This study aimed to explore Muslim women's experiences in America and how they are living their lives. It aimed to answer two research questions about Muslim women. The research questions focused on their identity, hijab, feminism and thoughts about Islamophobia. Islamophobia made them more aware of their surroundings. Stereotypes in the media can be hard to change, because the imagery shown of a Muslim woman wearing a burqa has been shown for a very long time. Interviews were completed with a total of nine participants, and several different themes that emerged: Muslim women submit to God for living life in any culture, Muslim women must negotiate their identities in a western context with or without the hijab, Muslim women must deal with misconceptions and stereotypes in the media about what it means to be a Muslim woman, Muslim women live in a climate of Islamophobia and Muslim women clearly distinguish between culture and Islam whether they are compatible or incompatible. Each of the themes gave insight into the lives of Muslim women in the United States.

Coercive Assimilationism

Coercive Assimilationism PDF Author: Sahar F. Aziz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Fifty years after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, unlawful discrimination continues to ail American workplaces. Despite the prevailing narrative that America is now "post-racial" after the election of the first African American president, equal opportunity still eludes many Americans. Their membership in racial, ethnic, or religious groups stigmatized as the "other" adversely affects their access to education, political empowerment, and equal opportunity in the workplace. At the time Title VII was passed, victims often experienced explicit bias against their protected group. The law's immediate effect was to ban overt prejudice causing disparate intergroup discrimination between men and women, blacks and whites, different ethnicities, and Christians and non-Christians.As a result, Title VII, along with other anti-discrimination laws, has been relatively successful in rooting out explicit bias in employment. Many employers now refrain from overtly treating employees disparately on account of an immutable characteristic. But, as the data show, the absence of discriminatory policies on paper does not always translate into a discrimination free workplace in practice. Rather, it pushes bias into more covert manifestations wherein facially neutral factors become proxies for unlawful discrimination. While Title VII prohibits covert bias; it is ill equipped to prevent two increasingly prevalent forms of discrimination: 1) implicit bias arising from negative stereotypes of protected classes; and 2) disparate treatment of subgroups of protected classes who do not conform to coercive assimilationist pressures.Because an employee alleging discrimination must show that a similarly situated worker outside the protected class does not receive the same adverse treatment or impact, an employer who treats a subgroup of a minority better than another subgroup of the same minority can evade liability. Of course, if the difference in treatment among the subgroups is based on performance and skills directly related to the work at issue, then no liability should attach. However, that is not always the case. Disparate treatment of members of the same protected class arises from negative racial, ethnic, or religious stereotypes that privileges those able and willing to perform their identity in accordance with assimilationist demands of the majority group. The effect is intragroup discrimination based on intergroup bias rooted in implicit negative stereotyping. Female employees who fall under multiple protected classes face an intersection of identity performance pressures as women, racial or ethnic minorities, and religious minorities.The dominant group's expectations of how women or members of minority groups should behave, dress, and communicate to be "professional" are often contradictory due to conflicting stereotypes. A Black woman, for example, who is assertive, ambitious, and exhibits leadership qualities associated as masculine characteristics, risks being stigmatized as aggressive, insubordinate, and threatening because of negative stereotypes of blacks. Meanwhile, her behavior contradicts gender conformity norms that women should be deferential, gentle, soft spoken, and pleasant. And if she is a Muslim, then her behavior triggers stereotypes of Muslims as terrorists, disloyal, foreign, and suspect. For workplace anti-discrimination laws to eradicate these multiple binds that disparately impact women of color, this Article argues that Title VII jurisprudence should take into account intergroup discrimination based on intragroup identity performance to assure all employees, not just a subset of a protected class, are covered by workplace antidiscrimination law. As such, a plaintiff's treatment should not be compared only with similarly situated employees outside the protected class but also with similarly situated employees within the protected class whose identity performance accommodates coercive assimilationism rooted in stereotypes. This Article applies social psychology and antidiscrimination theories to the case of Muslim women of color in the workplace, an under-researched area in legal scholarship. I examine in detail the identity performance challenges and contradictions faced by Muslim women of color as "intersectionals" facing stereotypes against 1) Muslims as terrorists, violent, and disloyal; 2) Muslim women as meek, oppressed, and lacking individual agency; 3) women as sexualized, terminally second best to men, and uncommitted to their careers; 4) immigrants as forever foreign and undeserving of equal treatment; and 5) ethnic minorities from the Middle East and South Asia as barbaric, misogynist, and anti-American. I conclude that Muslim women of color are at risk of falling between the cracks of Title VII jurisprudence due to courts' unwillingness to recognize the harms caused by coercive assimilationst pressures to conform one's identity to comport to high status group norms, irrespective of the relevance to work performance.

Shattering the Stereotypes

Shattering the Stereotypes PDF Author: Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Publisher: Olive Branch Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
In the wake of September 11th. Muslim women in the West found themselves more marginalized than ever by a panicked discourse that did little to promote a true understanding of Islam or the Islamic world. Here. in this ambitious volume that includes essays. poetry, fiction, memoir, plays, and artwork, Muslim women speak for themselves, revealing a complexity of experience and thought that escapes most Western portrayals. Islam is, as editor Fawzia Afzal-Khan puts it only "one spoke in the wheel of our lives." In Shattering the Stereotypes. essays by such writers as Ayesha Jalal, the Pakistani-American historian, poems by award-winning poets including Sucheir Hammad and Nathalie Handal, and a selection of short fiction and plays that are not just ethnically but attitudinally diverse, together make a more rounded portrait of what it is to be a Muslim woman in the 21st century.

Demystifying Shariah

Demystifying Shariah PDF Author: Sumbul Ali-Karamali
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807038016
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A direct counterpoint to fear mongering headlines about shariah law—a Muslim American legal expert tells the real story, eliminating stereotypes and assumptions with compassion, irony, and humor Through scare tactics and deliberate misinformation campaigns, anti-Muslim propagandists insist wrongly that shariah is a draconian and oppressive Islamic law that all Muslims must abide by. They circulate horror stories, encouraging Americans to fear the “takeover of shariah” law in America and even mounting “anti-shariah protests” . . . . with zero evidence that shariah has taken over any part of our country. (That’s because it hasn’t.) It would be almost funny if it weren’t so terrifyingly wrong—as puzzling as if Americans suddenly began protesting the Martian occupation of Earth. Demystifying Shariah explains that shariah is not one set of punitive rules or even law the way we think of law—rigid and enforceable—but religious rules and recommendations that provide Muslims with guidance in various aspects of life. Sumbul Ali-Karamali draws on scholarship and her degree in Islamic law to explain shariah in an accessible, engaging narrative style—its various meanings, how it developed, and how the shariah-based legal system operated for over a thousand years. She explains what shariah means not only in the abstract but in the daily lives of Muslims. She discusses modern calls for shariah, what they mean, and whether shariah is the law of the land anywhere in the world. She also describes the key lies and misunderstandings about shariah circulating in our public discourse, and why so many of them are nonsensical. This engaging guide is intended to introduce you to the basic principles, goals, and general development of shariah and to answer questions like: How do Muslims engage with shariah? What does shariah have to do with our Constitution? What does shariah have to do with the way the world looks like today? And why do we all—Muslims or not—need to care?

I Speak for Myself

I Speak for Myself PDF Author: Maria M. Ebrahimji
Publisher: I Speak for Myself
ISBN: 9781935952008
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Forty women under the age of 40, born and raised in the United States, dismantle stereotypes of what it means to be a Muslim woman in America.

Islamophobia and Racism in America

Islamophobia and Racism in America PDF Author: Erik Love
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 147986482X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Choice Top Book of 2017 Confronting and combating Islamophobia in America. Islamophobia has long been a part of the problem of racism in the United States, and it has only gotten worse in the wake of shocking terror attacks, the ongoing refugee crisis, and calls from public figures like Donald Trump for drastic action. As a result, the number of hate crimes committed against Middle Eastern Americans of all origins and religions have increased, and civil rights advocates struggle to confront this striking reality. In Islamophobia and Racism in America, Erik Love draws on in-depth interviews with Middle Eastern American advocates. He shows that, rather than using a well-worn civil rights strategy to advance reforms to protect a community affected by racism, many advocates are choosing to bolster universal civil liberties in the United States more generally, believing that these universal protections are reliable and strong enough to deal with social prejudice. In reality, Love reveals, civil rights protections are surprisingly weak, and do not offer enough avenues for justice, change, and community reassurance in the wake of hate crimes, discrimination, and social exclusion. A unique and timely study, Islamophobia and Racism in America wrestles with the disturbing implications of these findings for the persistence of racism—including Islamophobia—in the twenty-first century. As America becomes a “majority-minority” nation, this strategic shift in American civil rights advocacy signifies challenges in the decades ahead, making Love’s findings essential for anyone interested in the future of universal civil rights in the United States.