During her scholarly career miriam cooke has explored a number of themes pertaining to Arab and Muslim women, among them the importance of complicating what she calls “the war story” (cooke 1997), by including the gender-specific experiences of women in war and conflict in the Middle East. I apply cooke’s insights in this and other works to the distinctive positioning and experiences of Muslim women in the current US culture war against Islam and its compatibility with citizenship and belonging. On this battlefront Muslim women carry a different burden than Muslim men do. Muslim women who consider themselves Islamic feminists carry an even heavier burden.
We know the challenges faced by hijab-wearing Muslim women in the United States. They are lightning rods for anti-Muslim sentiment. While many Americans consider Muslim men violent, fanatical, and misogynist, many also fear them, and this fear engenders a grudging respect. Muslim women who...
