Muslim European Women: Challenges
and Opportunities
Framing Comments
Dr. Andrea L. Stanton began by welcoming the audience to the discussion of this important and highly relevant topic. She thanked the Swedish Consulate for partnering with the NYU Center for Dialogues in hosting this event and noted that its staff had been a joy to work with. By way of introduction to the speakers, she offered a set of comments to help frame the panel as well as the floor discussion.
Titles can be extremely important signposts, and the Center thought carefully about the event’s title. Stanton and Tlili chose “Muslim” over “Islam” in order to put the focus on the human, and to recognize that believers of all religions live their faith in a rich variety of ways. They chose “European” over “in Europe” after a statement that Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary–General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, made during a panel discussion that the NYU Center for Dialogues organized on “Europe and Islam” in September 2008. In his remarks, Secretary–General Ihsanoglu stated that it is time for us all to acknowledge that Europe is not merely a “host,” but a home for millions of Muslims. Finally, they chose to focus on women because it is Muslim European women who seem to inspire the greatest flights of rhetoric on all sides: from government bureaucrats, religious figures, community leaders, academics, and social activists alike.
Stanton expressed her hope that the event would present a more nuanced portrait of the on–the–ground experiences of Muslim European women’s lives — a portrait that would replace rhetoric with reality. The several “case studies” presented by the speakers suggest that the challenges Muslim European women face and the opportunities they enjoy are more textured than newspaper headlines acknowledge. She recommended that audience members looking for further reading consult the report, “Europe’s Muslim Women: Potential, Aspirations, and Challenges,” by Sara Silvestri of the City University of London, based on interviews with Muslim women in Belgium, Great Britain, and Italy 1 . Silvestri found that while Europe’s millions of Muslim women lead diverse lifestyles, they share a common sense that their identities as Muslims and as Europeans reinforce and strengthen one another. Their frustrations stem as much from the cultural expectations of first–generation immigrants from their own ethnic communities as from the discrimination they feel in their broader national communities, but they remain optimistic about the power of education to both improve their own lives and to bridge misunderstandings with their non–Muslim fellow citizens.
Stanton suggested that one of the strongest stereotypes about Muslim women, in Europe and elsewhere, is that they are passive — that they are at best bystanders in their own lives, and at worst victims. Yet when real–life experiences are inserted into rhetorically–driven debates about ‘Islam and women’ or ‘the veil and women,’ it is easy to recognize that Muslim European women are active contributors in multiple spheres: in workplaces, schools, universities, religious and charitable institutions, and increasingly in the political sphere as well as in their homes. She does not wish to minimize the constraints these women face, whether from within their own ethnic or religious communities, or from their fellow nationals. But she does believe in the need to assess these constraints realistically, rather than through an ideological lens, just as she believes in the need to balance them with the recognition that Muslim European women are actively managing the challenge of these constraints, while they pursuing opportunities in public and private life, and thereby bringing a new vitality to today’s Europe.
On behalf of the NYU Center for Dialogues, Stanton expressed the hope that the audience would find the discussion stimulating and engaging, noting that it featured an exceptional set of speakers. She introduced both panelists: Habiba Boumlik, Guest Professor of French at Sarah Lawrence College and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at SUNY Purchase; and Ambassador Ann Dismorr, Head of the International Department of the Swedish Parliament, former Swedish Ambassador to Turkey, Lebanon, and Azerbaijan, and author of the recent Turkey Decoded (Saqi Press, 2008).
1The study was carried out under the auspices of the King Baudoin Foundation and can be downloaded from its website here >
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