Event Details:

Eman Abdelhadi, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago

Impossible Futures explains why Muslim communities are losing women and retaining men. Using a large sample of life history interviews with Muslim adults who  grew up in the U.S., I argue that the community places its anxieties about cultural assimilation onto women’s shoulders, creating unintended pressures that drive them out. I avoid the trap of either orientalizing Muslim cultures by assuming that gender inequality is inherent in Islam or overcorrecting by ignoring signs of gender inequality among Muslims. Instead, I argue that gender inequality emerges from the structural and cultural tensions between migrant generations.

b) I could lecture based on quantitative work about Muslim women in the labor market in the US. This would be a combination of findings from a couple of different articles (attached). One has suggestive evidence that Muslim women wearing the hijab face discrimination in finding employment. Another finds that there's no relationship between religiosity and Muslim women's exit from the labor market, as many other scholars suggest. 

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