Islamophobia Beyond Borders Workshop - Panel 3: Gendered Islamophobia

Join us for the Islamophobia Beyond Borders Workshop, in The Sir Duncan Rice Library, to discuss the international context, repercussions, and consequences of modern Islamophobia. Hosted by Professor Nadia Kiwan of the University of Aberdeen and Dr Jim Wolfreys of King's College London, inviting a host of prominent academics and civil society stakeholders to discuss and share.

Amina Easat-Daas, De Montfort University, UK: ‘Islamophobia, Gender and the Left in the UK and France’

In the wake of the recent elections both in France and across the UK this paper examines the evolving role of the intersections of gender, Islamophobia and the left in the UK and France. Typically, the left has been seen to rely on ethnic minority voters to secure seats, particularly in constituencies where ethnic minorities, including Muslims, are numerous and thus carry the potential to swing seats and change overall political outcomes. This reliance or assumption of ethnic minority support at the polls has a longstanding presence in both the UK and France.

However, growing and globalising Islamophobia increasingly disrupts the links between the left and Muslim voters. Arguably, this unsettling has been borne out in the recent elections, with the UK Labour party losing former strongholds to independent candidates, the rise of Reform UK and the continual growth of Rassemblment National.

This disruption can be loosely categorised along the fault lines of gender, presumed ideological and cultural differences, securitisation and foreign policy in both the UK and France. Drawing on my previous published work around laïcité and its centrality to gendered Islamophobia in France alongside the apparent feminist paradoxes therein, my contribution will explore this in relation to current and ongoing political developments vis-à-vis Muslim voters and the left in both France and the UK. The paper will also bring into focus and problematise the politicisation of Islamo-gauchisme and evocations of Critical Race Theory in The Commons, along with consideration of voter alienation brought about by current left-wing positions in terms of securitisation and foreign policy with a final view to question the implications of these on UK and French politics in future years.

Hanane Karimi, University of Strasbourg, France: ‘Gendered islamophobia as an indicator of the French hegemonic order’

The policy of the new secularism (la nouvelle laïcité) encompasses the introduction of laws, bills and regulations aimed at excluding the Muslim ‘enemy’ and Muslim women who wear headscarves, from the public arena, while consolidating the notion of a ‘Muslim public problem’. This policy has been in existence since the passing of the law banning the wearing of religious symbols and clothing in public schools on 15 March 2004. It identifies Muslim women who wear headscarves as rebels against the Republican order and enemies of Republican values. The 2015 attacks in France led to increased securitisation and criminalisation of Muslims, and the 2021 law consolidating the principles of the Republic illustrates well this suspicion-based politics. An analysis of the politics of the new secularism and the arguments justifying the discrimination and exclusion of women who wear headscarves reveals the hegemony of the categories at work. Designated as heretics to the hegemonic order, Muslim women expose a Republican order built on racialised hierarchies, based on belonging and appearance; and a gender-based hierarchy of femininities. This explains why they are excluded from universalist feminist struggles and alienated from hegemonic femininity. The confrontation between two representations of femininity assigns Muslim women who wear the headscarf to a paradoxical femininity in which the terms of femonationalism are explicit. This categorisation is revelatory of the sexist and racist foundations at work in a Republican order that acts as a white, neoliberal and capitalist hegemony.

Assadiallo Doucou, Sarah Zouak, and Assma Lbaze, Lallab: ‘Lallab: a history of feminist and anti-racist resistance and political organization by Muslim women in France’

Lallab is a feminist and anti-racist organization in France created in 2015 that defends women’s rights by empowering Muslim women to become active stakeholders in the improvement of their political and social power. As a group founded and led by Muslim women, Lallab understands the importance of building individual and collective power. The organization works to understand the various and diverse histories and social, political, and cultural contexts impacting Muslim women in France in order to share and create knowledge, foster resilience, and build cross-movement support. Lallab's structured work enables the organization to reclaim ownership of its own narratives, influence the way institutions address discriminations against its members and other marginalized groups, and mobilize its members and allies to work together to demand and obtain systemic change in the name of a more just society for all. Their struggle is a political and collective response to the patriarchal, racist, colonial, and capitalist system, rooted in the history and legacies of feminist and Muslim women who have fought for emancipation and liberation, thereby making significant contributions to the development of feminist thought worldwide.

Nadia Kiwan, University of Aberdeen, UK: 'Paris 2024: Femonationalism comes home to the Paris Olympic Games' 

In this paper, I will critically examine how femonationalism has led to the exclusion of French athletes who wear the hijab from competing the national Olympic team. Beyond their removal from the French national sporting community, the hijab ban on French Muslim athletes has also removed the opportunity to be part of a transnational community within the Olympic village, where female athletes from other countries are allowed to wear hijab. The ban on hijabs for Muslim sportswomen has led to international outcry, with condemnation from organisations such as the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and is the latest and high-profile illustration of the ways in which French Muslim sportswomen are marginalised in both elite and amateur level sports across a range of disciplines from basketball, badminton, volleyball, judo and football. In this paper, I will therefore reflect on the French government’s discriminatory practices in the name of gender equality but will also consider spaces of resistance to such patterns of exclusion, via a case-study of the group known as Les Hijabeuses, a social movement of female football players who wear the hijab and who have been campaigning for the right to compete in official French Federation matches. The Hijabeuses have not only set up their own parallel games - Les Jeux des Hijabeuses - but have been able to mobilise support transnationally, including from global sports brands, thus challenging femonationalist Islamophobia from both within the nation and beyond it. 

Venue

The Sir Duncan Rice Library, Lower Ground Floor Seminar Room

Contact

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