Young Arab Muslim Women’s Agency Challenging Western Feminism

Abstract

In a phenomenological study with 16 American and French Arab Muslim women attending college in the United States and France, all self-declared as religious and half of them wearing the hijab, participants express strong arguments against stereotypes of oppression and submission. They affirm agency and personal choice with respect to veiling, in a context of ambient skepticism that is often endorsed by Western feminism. Attention to intersectional experiences of Muslim women and reference to feminist models centered on non-Western women may help understand how second-generation Arab Muslim women experience and express agency.