How Are Muslim Women Represented In The British Media Post ‘Islamophobia’
Post 9/11, the trend of targeting the Muslim population as “terrorists” and the sole reason behind the “War on Terror” is on the rise. Assaults, anti-Muslim intimidation, and hate crimes all rose considerably after the 7/7 London bombing and 9/11 attacks. “Anti-Muslim hatred has become more pervasive and entrenched in the UK, compared with 20 years ago” (Khan, 2017). “Published in 1997, Runnymede's report ‘Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All’ shed light on the considerable growth in anti-Muslim prejudice and the profound impact it had on the lives of British Muslims, identifying and catapulting the relatively unknown term and issue of ‘Islamophobia’ into public consciousness” (Khan, 2017).
With the media playing a prominent role in harnessing these feelings of intimidation and hate, British Muslims have been victims of prejudice and discrimination due the media’s image of Muslims in their objective to “amuse, entertain and inform” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988:1). These “popular stereotypes are reproduced so that other cultures are easily understood and digested regardless of the facts, and through the repetition of these stereotypes a power relationship is reinforced in which the viewer has control over ‘the Other’ (Hall, 1997)” (Boulton, 2012).
This paper shall examine the problems that Muslim women face in the media, as their voice is often linked to the attire they wear (burqa, niqab, hijab), their roles as mothers and wives, or as them being viewed as conspirators of their ‘terrorist’ husbands. The voice of Muslim women is also not heard enough in the media due to the perception of ‘oppression’ that they traditionally face as a community. The aim of this paper is to dissect the representation of Muslim women in the British media, and to see whether it passes the test of being inclusive and anti-racist. This paper will take an in-depth view of the common stereotypes Muslim women suffer through their portrayal in the media. This is necessary in order to prove that myths around ‘Islamic terrorism’ garner disproportionate coverage of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ in comparison to other fundamentalist groups. It is especially interesting as the stereotype and the media coverage around it has created “homogenized Islamic culture set in opposition to another invention – Western culture and, in the UK, ‘British culture’” (Khiabany and Williamson, 2012: 138).
Literature Review
Negative trajectories have often placed themselves around Muslim women in the media, especially around the hijab and niqab. “…the transformation of the veiled Muslim woman from ‘victim’ to ‘threat’ occurred by constructing and linking four themes. The veil was presented as (1) a refusal of ‘our way of life’; (2) a sign of ‘our’ excessive tolerance; (3) evidence that Britain is suffering from the tyranny of a ‘culture’ imposed by a minority, and; (4) linked to the threat of terrorism” (Williamson, 2014). “The west views the hijab or the veil as Islam’s symbol of barbarianism and Muslim women’s object of pity” (Khiabany & Williamson, 2010). However, it is reasonable to ask the question of where this hatred stems from, especially when people are not aware of the religion they are against. “…there is an implicit assumption that religious ideas have the power to cause the violence. In this sense, religion is viewed, under certain conditions, as a ‘root cause’ of contemporary terrorism” (Gunning and Jackson, 2011:373). Gunning and Jackson (2011) argue and question the link that is made between religion and terrorism.
They state that the division between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ life is deeply problematic and that it is difficult, therefore, to claim that certain types of violence are more religious than others. However, the central concern of the veil has been around the “issue that limits the visibility of women”. In a modern world, emancipation has been a major factor to women’s liberation. However, “…the dominant narrative of the veil, playing as it does to the notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘the West’ and ‘Islam’, modernity and tradition, ignores the complexity of the veil in various national and political contexts” (Khiabany and Williamson, 2010) In the media, there have been incidents where women were asked to remove their veil and headscarf as a sign of inclusivity with the rest of the community. “The pressure in Europe on Muslim women to unveil to ‘free’ themselves is grounded in colonial roots and amounts to telling a woman her body is not hers and needs external approval to be ‘accepted’ in public” (ENAR, 2017). “Islamic feminist and other scholars who are advocates of this discourse have associated veiling with personal choice, a tool of personal and cultural identity formation, a symbol of modesty, an adaptive strategy, a resistance against western hegemonic culture, personal piety and a bargaining strategy within patriarchal societies” (Alvi, 2013, Franks, 2000, Hirschmann, 1998, and Laborde, 2005).
The oppressed nature of Muslim women has its roots in the “the ‘uncivilized’ ignorant male whose masculinity relies on the mistreatment of women, primarily as sex slaves. In this manner images of Muslim women were used as a major building block for the construction of the orient's new imagery, an imagery which has been intrinsically linked to the hegemony of western imperialism, particularly that of France and Britain” (Said, 1978, 1993; Kabbani, 1986; Alloula, 1986).
There is also a very wide gap of knowledge of the acknowledgement of Muslim women activists who try to change the way the media looks at them compared to their other female peers. “This disregard, in a context where the ‘excesses’ of the Islamic regime towards women continues to make headlines, and where the subject of Muslim women and religious revivalism in the Muslim world continue to be matters of wide interest, is an indicator of the persistence of orientalist and colonial attitudes towards Muslim cultures” (Said, 1976, 1993). Even many feminists do not begin to understand the cause behind women and the veil as “the stereotypes of Muslim women are so deep-rooted and strong that even those who are very conscious and critical not only of blatant outright racism but also of its more subtle manifestations in everyday life, do not remain immune from it - to the western feminist eye the image of the veiled woman obscures all else” (Hoodfar, 1992).
The media also takes a lot of help from the government, who has very strong opinions of different cultures. “In 2016 Mariam Khan read that David Cameron had linked the radicalisation of Muslim men to the ‘traditional submissiveness’ of Muslim women; Cameron had announced plans for a £20m fund to help women from all migrant backgrounds to improve their English, but Muslim women quickly became the focus of the discussion…His idea of the kind of women - or girls - who joined Islamic State was shockingly distorted. The majority are British-born, English is their native tongue, and their connection to the country their parents or grandparents left is often tenuous” (Mohamed, 2019). Reading about this in the news would confirm in the minds of many a very common stereotype of Muslim women that they are uneducated. These shocking but true incidents bring about a feeling of alienation among British-Muslim women, who feel that labelling them with terms such as submissive, secretive, uneducated, and not visible is containing them even further.
Habermas (1989) argues that representation of Muslim women is indispensable to democracy and to democratic participation. Hence, their lack of representation is restrictive to their basic human rights. The media, however, has a different approach to Muslim women (as we will see in the articles below) where they are often portrayed in a stereotypical context.
Methodology
The methodology chosen for the research is discourse analysis, specifically analysing contemporary media texts (post-2010) that depict images or focus on Muslim women in the forefront of the articles. The media texts are newspapers, with a mix of tabloid and broadsheet newspaper articles. The language, visual elements and the contextual meaning behind the articles will be analysed. “The method explores power relations from a critical standpoint to make sense of the social world by providing new critical insights – a positive contribution to both theory and research” (Morgan, 2010). This sort of research is essential to examine the social standing of Muslim women as depicted in the media with a critical view. It is required to understand how the media represents Muslim women, answering questions such as: do their voices act as a narrative? are they still depicted with generic stereotypical tropes? has their image in the media worsened after Islamophobia? etc.
Since this research contains the social standing and representation of Muslim women – “discourse analysis involves the text’s ‘socio cultural practice’ of which the communicative event is part” (Fairclough, 1995a:57), events here being activities that Muslim women have been a part of or are involved in. The article’s language will be analysed in-depth especially as “language use is always active, it is always directed as doing something; and the way in which language achieves this activity is always related to the context in which it is used” (Richardson, 2009).
It is also important to note that the bias found in certain newspapers depends on the company or force behind the paper. We must keep in mind the news values of the publisher and their (often) singular objective. Different newspapers will be encoded with the same ideological message but will be written and depicted in various ways depending on the voice of the paper. This could also be a limitation of using discourse analysis - “our ‘meaning’ of the text is often affected by our judgement of who produced it” (Richardson, 2009).
Examples of critical discourse analysis include the subject of racism (van Dijk, 1993), and welfare reform (Fairclough, 2001). These subjects are complex and require critical discourse analysis to assess a situation that a majority of the country faces. A critique of this sort would provide accountability of these newspapers that are often responsible in creating an image in the eyes of their readers. “This model incorporates very specific concepts, and social conflict and ideology can be evidenced in evaluative accents, or judgements, which are conveyed by words” (Morgan, 2010).
The analysis will go deeper than what meets the eye and challenge the media publication and the reason behind the story. The analysis’ aim is to understand how Muslim women are represented, and why are they are represented in that manner. As racial profiling is a big part of this conversation, “discourse analysis is a useful tool in explicating racism because it allows for a nuanced analysis of the socially and historically informed discourses that are available for negotiating racial positions” (Gee, 1999; van Dijk, 1993). For some of the articles, we will witness social reality of the subject by researching the consequences that followed post publishing these articles.
Findings and Discussion
The first media text that will be analyzed is The Sun’s front page in October 2014 with the headline – United against IS (Figure 1). The article’s visual aspect is the image of a Muslim woman wearing the British flag as a hijab or headscarf. The article was heavily criticized by readers and other media channels, as the headline was clearly a ploy to target Islam as a religion. The Sun, by using a picture of a Muslim woman to symbolize Islam, makes it seem like they were embracing the religion, and that British Muslims are also part of a unified front against terrorists (ISIS). The headline “United against IS” is contradictory to the image in the front page – The Sun’s byline was written in active language and was an urgent appeal to citizens to tackle extremist terrorist groups. However, by using a picture of a woman of Muslim faith, The Sun was blatantly targeting a specific religion, and moreover (through the language used in the article) making it obvious that British Muslims are Muslim first and British second. “Muslims have to prove their British credentials with a display of loyalty - that their Britishness is not taken for granted until they do so” (Malik, 2014). This adds to previous findings of the us vs. them stance that is taken against Muslims. As Richard Jackson states, “language is never neutral; words don’t just describe the world, they actually help to make it. As such, language can never be employed in a purely objective sense” (2005:1). This is evident as The Sun uses a hijab to demonstrate that the woman is Muslim - not keeping with the narrative that there are many British Muslims who do not wear the hijab. This image perpetuates the Westerner’s lack of understanding of the diversity of Islam.
The language of the blurb used in the front page, specifically: “As police swoop on first Islamic State terror cell in the UK”, highlights the fact that the paper is not talking about a group of people who happen to be Muslim, but Islam on a whole as a religion. The paper also notes “Brits of all faiths” but shows only a Muslim woman on the front of the page. Even though The Sun’s objective was for people to take notice and join the campaign against extremism in the UK, it fails in doing so by highlighting only a single faith in the article. “The paper does not ask Muslim specifically to apologise for IS. It does not even ask them specifically to condemn or stand against IS. It asks all people to take this stance…” (Ramzan, 2014). However, singling out Muslims through a visual representation of a Muslim woman was the way they eventually went with to get the message across. It must be noted that the story contains insight from a Muslim woman (Sara Khan), who claims 'IS says jihadi brides will be treated as equals. But the reality is they've given up the freedoms and women's rights that Britain offers”. As Dilly Hussain (2014) in his Huffpost blog counters: “Those much desired ‘women's rights’ and ‘freedoms’ obviously include the demonisation of women who wear the niqab, criminalises mothers for raising their children with an Islamic education, stops female students who want to sit separately to men at university ISOC events, asks mothers to spy on their children, and the freedom for women to be pornified for the gratification of men, which facilitates the most heinous sex crimes in society”.
While the campaign was for a good cause, its singular focus on Islam, and its attempt to question Muslim loyalty in the face of extremism, proved to be counterproductive. The representation of a Muslim woman in the foreground as a symbol of allegiance to the Union Jack proves that the prevalent British perception of its Muslim population being IS sympathisers/allies first and citizens second is still quite real.
The second article (Figure 2) is from The Times in 2015 regarding Muslims boycotting the country’s anti-radicalization programme. “Reporting of potential terrorist threats by the public is done via the police and the national anti-terror hotline, and many Muslims across the country have encouraged this initiative” (Muslim Council of Britain, 2015). This analysis refers to the original article, before it was changed due to heavy criticism on the use of the picture and the headline. The article depicts a Muslim woman in a hijab with her eyes looking sideways, almost as if she is keeping an important secret (one that could possibly be revealed to help the nation). The Times headline “Muslims ‘silent on terror’” perpetuates the previous notion of Muslim women being connected to the ‘war on terror’ in some way. The image with the niqab strongly suggests that Muslim women are covering up for their “terrorist husbands”. The picture against the headline brings about feelings of distress within the Muslim community, who are again linked to extremism and terrorism. The Times choice of picture is designed to reiterate common stereotypes of Muslim women being ‘watchers of the outside world’, ‘protecting secrets’ and being ‘mysterious’ and ‘unknown’. “…the ‘2,200 referrals’ are due to a change in the law, and they include data that has nothing to do with Islamic extremism…The article is statistically misleading and lacks any kind of meaningful qualitative interpretation” (Bartholomew, 2015).
The Times also shies away from making any substantial claims by putting the headline in quotation marks, as if they themselves are uncertain of Muslims being silent. This use of strategic quotations (also known as ‘scare quotes’), was made to indicate contentious nature. Due to the bad press the paper received, the picture was taken down, and the headline was changed to Muslims ‘stay silent’ on the extremism tip-off scheme. It must be noted that the two headlines mean completely different things. The Times first objective was to make the article eye-catching and controversial to create buzz around the topic. However, this plan backfired, as misuse of stats within the article, the picture and the headline all came across as targeting Muslim women and Islam. The paper shows a considerable amount of prejudice towards the community, and the headline blatantly blamed Muslims as one of the primary reasons for the increase of terrorism within the country. There is no quote from a Muslim woman in the article (highlighting the lack of voice a Muslim woman has in the media), even though a wrongfully portrayed image of her is used to target a religion. This level of Islamophobia dehumanizes Muslim women and denies their agency.
After the story came out, the Muslim Council of Britain issued a short letter to The Times: “The headline of your front page ‘Muslims ‘silent on terror’’ (26 December 2015) is wrong, misleading and above all incendiary. It has no bearing on the rest of the article which speaks of the very real concerns Muslims and people of other faiths have on the government’s Prevent programme. To translate this as silence on terrorism on the part of Muslim communities is completely misleading and untrue”.
This article exacerbates the misconceptions British media have of the community, especially of Muslim women who they believe as being perpetrators of terrorist acts.
The article from the Daily Mirror (Figure 3) of February 20, 2019, highlights the plight of Shamima Begum, the Muslim woman requesting return to the UK after fleeing to Syria to join ISIS. The Mirror article is arguably stating facts through its headline (as Shamima Begum was indeed stripped of her citizenship by the Home Secretary). However, the tone and language of the front page, and the accompanying picture serve to reinforce everything that is wrong with representation of Muslim women in Britain today. For starters, the by-line ‘Battle over Terror Widow’ reinforces the trope of Muslim women being represented as terrorist mothers and wives. The article, using terms like terror and widow, succinctly tells its readers that Begum has lost her husband and is currently linked to IS. The front page, also in bold text, calls her “ISIS bride” instead of using her real name to reinforce the point that she is linked to a terrorist organisation. However, no context is provided about her being a minor when she fled to Syria, and that she could have been brainwashed/forced into marriage. To paraphrase Azadeh Moaveni in her critique in The Guardian, the word “bride” is resonant and feminine. Its inclusion in the headline is therefore an antiquated depiction of the much-maligned view that women could be forgiven for being “just wives”. “Quite evidently other tabloid newspapers around this time described her as a ‘Jihadi bride’ as well” (eg - Daily Star, Metro - February 2019). “She assumed this status as a minor, and the use of the term ‘jihadi bride’ by journalists and commentators to describe her is appalling, a heaping of further trauma on a groomed child” (Moaveni, 2019).
Begum embodies this exact victim-terrorist paradox that is propagated by British media, where Muslim women are traditionally oppressed and perceived to be groomed for terrorist activities. Interest in her story has gained momentum, as this one-dimensional stereotype of Muslim women is actively and repeatedly shown in the media. The stereotype is extremely resistant to change and reinforcing these tropes in the media can cause worse consequences to other British Muslims. After the article (and many others that used the same framework to describe Begum) were released, “…It emerged that a shooting range in Merseyside has been using images of Begum as target practice. Children as young as six are welcomed at this range, and presumably even they will be allowed to fire bullets at a target of Begum’s face” (Janmohamed, 2019). This attack and targeting of Muslim women would inevitably lead to racial profiling, bullying, and provide a bigger impetus to people with racist mentalities to prey on Muslim women. The use of the image in the headline of her looking unapologetic, is also a ploy to encourage the demographic to not consider her point of view. The paper also exploits the “matronly image” of Muslim women with its by-line which says, “Home secretary acts to block new mum’s attempt to return from Syria to UK”.
The last article (Figure 4) is another article on Shamima Begum, this time from The Independent. This story came out in February 2019, when news of Begum’s escape from Syria unfolded in British media. The Independent starts off with context on what led her to escape to Syria and join ISIS. It also provides a timeline of the ISIS Caliphate through pictures. The article does its best to be objective and unbiased with facts about the attack in Syria, and the gruesome details of her dead children.
By using phrases like “has endured and witnessed”, the publication readies a sympathetic platform for the woman who had gone through rough times. As the article progresses, Begum’s own voice is heard, and her controversial statements from her interview with The Times are highlighted. Phrases like “not fazed at all”, “bombing and stuff” when reacting to the atrocities she had witnessed in Syria, demonstrate a certain level of apathy and lack of remorse. The article also shows a picture of Begum in traditional Muslim garb, but there is no actual emphasis on what she wears. Much of the article is completely from her point of view, with the publication taking a non-judgmental stance.
The Independent attempts to balance both sides of the story - opinions from experts and officials who are related to the case (retired senior police chief, head of the Scotland Yard terrorism command, Security Minister) are presented as well as that of Shamima. The Independent appears more toned down in its use of language in comparison to tabloid newspapers. For example, a similar article in The Sun headlined Sympathy, you must be kidding. While emphasis was made on her being a Muslim first and a mother second, The Independent’s lack of use of sensational language, and in not blatantly channelizing Shamima Begum into a stereotypical Muslim woman trope, made for a more neutral bias.
Conclusion
Although Islam is a religion and not a cultural identity, “the twin concepts of Islam and Muslims as individuals are inextricably intermingled in the media” (Johnson, 2014). This instills feelings of us vs. them between the Western world and Muslims, which contributes to negative attitudes towards people practicing the religion. “People who see Muslims as culturally distinctive are more likely to hold negative attitudes toward them” (Ciftci 2012, 303).
With Islamophobia and hate crimes increasing in Britain every day, The British press has effectively framed Muslims as ‘othered’ and subsequently subordinated, marginalised and often excluded. The media’s framing of Muslims in a particular way has forced Muslim families to live in a hostile environment. An example of this hostility is that of a Muslim family who had to move from Port Talbot and start a new life in Cardiff due to racial bullying. Welsh police had received 63 complaints of hate crimes against Muslims in 2018 (Spencer, 2019). It must also be noted that 43% of victims do not report hate crimes due to a lack of confidence in the police (Sahar Al-Faifi, 2019).
As evidenced from the majority of the above articles, Muslim women are still discriminated in the media and made a convenient scapegoat in their attempt to target Islam as a religion. In the Sun article, the use of the woman wearing the headscarf identified her as a Muslim first and a British citizen second. The Times retracted their statement and picture that showed Muslim women as ones who hide their husbands’ secrets and remain quiet about ‘terrorist and extremist’ activities. The articles also perpetuated many inaccuracies and misconceptions of Muslim men and women. The Daily Mirror article caught Shamima Begum in yet another sensationalist headline with language and pictures that supported negative stereotypes of Muslim women. The Independent article took a softer approach to describe the teenager’s escape to join ISIS and is the only one of the four that presented her first-person account instead of making assumptions of her intentions like most tabloid papers did at the time.
Through discourse analysis, it has been established that much attention has been given in British media regarding what Muslim women wear, and how their conservative attire is linked to terrorist activities. Common tropes related to their secretive demeanour, their alleged connection to terrorism and their lack of ‘visibility’ all appear in the media. The media is a powerful medium and can cause strong affirmations in the mind of their viewers/readers of what is right, wrong and who is behind certain events. Without the continuous vigilantism of media corporations, British Muslim women will continue to succumb to terrifying threats such as #PunishaMuslimDay, bullying in schools, and racial profiling at airports.
“While the majority of Britons do not regard Muslims as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, the proportion leaning towards this position has doubled since 7/7” (Ansari, 2013). As Poole (2002) suggests, the media is ever changing, and as a result so is its view towards Muslims and Islam.
We cannot only blame the media for Islamophobia and hate crimes towards Muslims, but at the same time we as citizens must make a conscious effort of being more empathetic to Muslims and steer away from making quick conclusions based on the British media’s stereotypical depiction of Islam.
