MA Thesis New Media and Digital Culture

‘Muslim Women Talk Back’: Understanding Identity and Resistance in Online Spaces

Supervisor: Natalia Sánchez Querubín Second Reader: Marc Tuters

By: Maria Hayat Student No.: 11230525 [email protected] 26th June, 2017

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Abstract: Muslim women are often seen in mainstream culture as well as media as being ‘submissive’ or ‘oppressed’, or the other stereotypes deriving from Islamophobic ideas views them as potential threats. This thesis aims to show how Muslim women use the internet, and online spaces to resist such monolithic narratives, and utilize the ‘democratic space’ of the web for identity formation and self-representation, beyond limiting categories, and towards a more fluid conception of identity. To understand and reflect on the nature of this resistance and representation, it looks at Muslim women and their actions in various avenues, from mapping the potential of collective action in Muslim women ‘blogosphere’, to seeing fashion enable resistance on Instagram, to finally seeing athletics and sport opening up new avenues for reforming discourse. Keywords: Muslim women, Gendered Islamophobia, Resistance, Self-representation, blogosphere, fluid identities

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Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements: 4

Chapter 1.Introduction: 5 1.1: ‘US’ vs ‘Them’: Understanding binaries and stereotypes 6 1.2: Existing Research and Defining the Research Question 8 1.3: Framework 9 1.3.1.: Defining and problematizing ‘Islamophobia’: 9 1.3.2: Gendered Islamophobia and limiting portrayals of Muslim women: 10 1.4: Dominant Discourses and the production of resistance 11 1.5: Towards dynamic, Fluid identities 13

Chapter 2: Muslim Women and Mapping the Blogosphere 16 2. Introduction: 16 2.1: The Core Question 17 2.2: Methodology 18 2.2.1: Mapping the blogosphere as a network: 18 2.2.2: Collective action, Metalanguage and content centric analysis: 19 2.3: A cursory glance at Muslim women bloggers: 20 2.4: Muslim women bloggers and areas of interest 21 2.5: Individuals or Network? Mapping the Muslim women blogosphere 23 2.6: Issue Mapping: Collective resistance to Islamophobia? 29 2.7: The case of Asra Nomani 31 2.8: Analysis and Conclusion: 33

Chapter 3: Fashion as Resistance: Muslim Fashionistas on Instagram 36 3. Introduction and Research Question 36 3.1: Methodology 38 3.2: The Muslimah fashion blogger: An archetype? 39 3.3: A Translocal Phenomena? 40 3.4: Understanding Muslim Fashion on Instagram as a visual discourse 43 3.5: Hijab to head-wraps: Contesting the nature of modest-wear 46 3.6: Instagram and Social/religious norms 50 3.7: To veil or not to veil? Understanding Agency and representation 52 3.8: Resistance? Classism, Consumerism and Feminist Critique 54

Chapter 4: Veiling and Athletics: Viewing Muslim women in Sports 57 4. Introduction: 57 4.1: Research Question 58 4.2: Methodology 59 4.3: Muslim women in sports: A recent phenomena? 60 4.4: Covering Muslim women in Sports 61

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4.5: Muslim female athletes and Accessibility 64 4.6: The case of the Nike Pro Hijab: Increasing Inclusivity in Sports? 66 4.7: Shirzanan and Muslim female athletes representing themselves 68 4.8: Analysis and Conclusion 72

5: Conclusion 74

6. References 77

7. Appendix 84

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Acknowledgements:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family, for their constant support through this year, and throughout each of my endeavors. A special thanks to Noorya, for always being a mentor and confidante. My gratitude to my supervisor Natalia, for her valuable feedback and support throughout the course of this thesis, and to all the New Media faculty at the University of Amsterdam for having made this year an incredible learning experience. A special thankyou to Rhubini and Emillie for all their support through projects and work, and life. And lastly, a thankyou to Saad for always being an inspiration, and his unending confidence in me.

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Chapter 1.Introduction:

Addressing the Women’s March on January 21st 2017, Linda Sarsour, former Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York and co-organizer of the Women’s March stated the following: I stand here before you, unapologetically Muslim-American, unapologetically Palestinian American… The Muslim community has been suffering in silence for the past 15 years… I ask you to stand and continue to keep your voices loud for black women, for native women, for undocumented women… Justice for all. (Linda Sarsour, Critical Voices)

In today’s context, her statements came at an important juncture in the US, where the election of Donald Trump as President, led to rising waves of islamophobia, hate crime, anti-women, anti-muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment. Her speech and participation in the Women’s March met with strong backlash online, with sites like breitbart.com, the official forum of the “alt-right”, calling her a “fake feminist” and postulating that “her rise to liberal stardom following the March has occurred in spite of her support for anti-feminist views”. She also faced significant backlash by twitter trolls, accusing her of propounding “Shariah Law” and being anti- semitic, however the hashtag “#IMarchWithLinda” went viral in response to these Islamophobic attacks. An article on Huffington Post, celebrated her ‘Intersectional Feminism’ approach stating that “Linda Sarsour’s Intersectional Mantra Is One We Need To Live By”. In the same vein of public resistance and representation, on the 1st of February 2017, the first ‘Annual Hijab Day’ was celebrated “in recognition of millions of Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab and live a life of modesty”. Addressing the celebration City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito declared that Muslim women are ‘at the forefront of the resistance’ against President Donald Trump‘s Muslim travel ban and intolerance of others—and expressed her solidarity with the Muslim community. Resistance takes place in many forms; blog/website called muslimgirl.com with the slogan “Muslim Women Talk Back” aims to normalize “the word ‘Muslim’ for both Muslims and non- Muslims alike”. The site’s editor claims frustration at “the way the news coverage and media outlets kept skewing the image of Muslims into a nasty one; the mistrust, racism, and flat-out

6 hatred that the inaccuracies flamed; the muting of young Muslim voices from mainstream society”. To resist this ‘skewed media coverage’ the site aims to ‘take back the narrative’: We use our own voices to speak up for ourselves. We are raising the place of Muslim women in mainstream society. We are drawing awareness to the Qur’an’s message of gender equality and Islam’s principle of peace. We are paving the way towards a world in which every woman can raise her head without fear of being attacked for her gender or beliefs. (Amani Alkhat)

The Muslim girl blog isn’t the only one with similar aims. From Muslim women bloggers like ‘Alt-Muslimah’, to ‘Muslimah Media Watch’, to Muslim women designers, bloggers and fashionistas on Instagram (@rumastyles, @summeralbarcha, @hautehijab, @hijabhills etc.), to motivational speakers or activists on Twitter (Masarat Daud, The Salafi Feminist), to Muslim women in sports and blogs highlighting those (shirzanan.org, Muslimwomeninsport.blogspot.com), to advocacy organizations (Women in Islam, Sisters in Islam etc.) to theater collectives (Hijabi Monologues), to podcasts like #GoodMuslimBadMuslim and countless others; Muslim women employ online spaces in a diverse set of ways that help them explore their identity, contest limiting labels ascribed to them by the media and by society in general. In the ensuing sections the idea is to study some of these examples of platforms and networks in depth, in an attempt to illuminate how online spaces have transformed the nature of representation and resistance, and how Muslim women in particular navigate the terrain to their own advantage. However, before one can understand resistance to Islamophobia, it is important to understand the root cause of Islamophobia, and further go on to define how these terms are employed within the rest of this research:

1.1: ‘US’ vs ‘Them’: Understanding binaries and stereotypes

In his book on Islamophobia, Christopher Allen explains the nature of stereotypes, and how they attempt to create a “sense of order” by negating “broader or expansive understandings”, and thus, though the resulting understanding may be reductive, it enables an easier conception

7 than dealing with complex “issues relating to the difference and diversity of a subject matter” (Allen, 143). The stereotypes regarding Muslims and Islam are manifold, but the discourse tends to use a number of core labels or terms such as ‘the Islamic world’, ‘extremism’, ‘radicalism’, ‘fundamentalism’, ‘jihadists’, ‘moderates’ and ‘Islamic terrorism’” (Jackson, 401). The issue is that these labels are almost always used in binary oppositions, such as “the West versus the Islamic world, extremists versus moderates, violent versus peaceful, democratic versus totalitarian, religious versus secular” etc. (Jackson, 401). Moreover, much like other sweeping generalizations and stereotypes, the core contention or concern is that it is “profoundly misleading” to use any such terms not least because there is “too much variation within ‘Islam’ and Islamic movements for meaningful or illuminating generalizations” (Jackson, 413). These stereotypes and generalizations regarding Islam and Muslims occur widely, not just in the media, but in academia as well. In an article on ‘Media representation of Muslims and Islam’ Ahmed and Matthes point out that the existing body of literature around the topic usually revolves around a few basic themes: “Before and after 9/11, Terrorism, Muslim women, War, Migrants, Public opinion and Islamophobia, Mosques, Event-specific” (Ahmed & Matthes). Within this holistic study, they point out that “academic discourses run the risk of using preconstructed media categories when studying Muslims and Islam” (Ahmed & Matthes, 18). Hence they argue for “a need for scholars to go beyond the frequently used paradigms and research categories. More specifically…to include the range of rapidly shifting social, political, and religious contexts” (Ahmed & Matthes, 18). Christopher Allen propounds that even before one begins to define Islamophobia, the root of the issue needs to be tackled, and must therefore: be able to identify and accommodate ‘Muslims’ in such ways that they are neither essentialised nor reduced, nor made out to be a homogenous collective identified by indiscriminate or inappropriate markers or appellations. This would mean being able to accommodate the inherent diversity of ‘Muslims’, whether in their practice, race, ethnic heritage, or indeed any other marker of difference that might occur.... (Allen, 139)

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1.2: Existing Research and Defining the Research Question

Currently however, there is a “dearth of research on Muslim media and non-Western countries, as well as an apparent lack of comparative research, and a neglect of the minority perspective” (Ahmed & Matthes, 21). Also, while there is rising interest and scholarship on understanding the origins of Islamophobia, documenting its occurrence in various spaces, on ground and online, focusing on dominant narratives even if through critique; what is usually ignored is the agency of the Muslims it talks about and represents. What is also found lacking in existing literature is a critical perspective of the issue. For example, though there is more varied research concerning gendered Islamophobia, but much of it focuses on documenting its experiences (Zine; Perry). While some articles focus on interesting aspects such as resistance and agency (Bilge), till yet the literature that focuses on gendered resistance to Islamophobia is rare, and of understanding such resistance online is negligible. The challenge here then, is to conceptualize Muslims and Islam in a way that is neither stereotypical, essentialised or Islamophobic (at worst), and in a way that does not rob the subjects of agency. Within this thesis then, instead of using ‘pre-constructed media categories’, the aim is to deconstruct essentialist terms and Latour’s ideas on social research, by following the actions of the actors and use their language to describe phenomenon (Latour). This thesis then aims to focus on examining Islamophobia through a critical lens, with particular emphasis on its gendered manifestations; but aims to draw lacking attention towards how Muslim women are resisting Islamophobic narratives, and how online spaces enable this resistance, by granting them a voice to talk back to the dominant narrative and to represent themselves, beyond stereotypes and preconceived categories, to a fluid conception of identity that is able to do justice to the ‘inherent diversity’ amongst Muslim Women. By doing so, this thesis aims to call attention to the politics of representation, to understand who constructs identities within prevailing narratives, and how these conceptions are then solidified over time. Thus it aims to show how the discourse of Muslim women in media, academia lacks in roundedness and 'agency', and how looking at Muslim women through an intersectional perspective can give us unique insights into how these women employ online mediums and formats such as blogs, podcasts and hashtags to reclaim their identity.

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1.3: Framework

In the remaining part of this introduction then, the terms used will be expanded on, within the questions outlined above, to set the stage for the particular cases that are explored in more detail in the following chapters. Any illuminating discussion on Islamophobia for example, should ideally start with defining what an often politically loaded term actually means. It comes as no surprise however, that the meaning or usage of the term is highly contested.

1.3.1.: Defining and problematizing ‘Islamophobia’:

While Islamophobia emerged in contemporary discourse with the 1997 publication of the report "Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All" by the Runnymede Trust, the British race relations NGO; it has since then been regularly used in the media etc., particularly in Britain, France and the U.S. (Bleich 2012). While initially it was used as a concept by activists to understand ‘racism’ or hate directed particularly at Muslims and Islam, it’s now widespread in its usage not just in the media, but also in academia where the concept is used “to identify the history, presence, dimensions, intensity, causes and consequences of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim sentiments” (Bleich, 180). There is, however, an on-going contention about how the term ought to be defined and conceptualized, with some taking it as a “a social anxiety toward Islam and Muslim cultures” (Gottschalk and Greenberg, 5), others framing it as a “fear-laden discourse” where “Islam as the enemy, as the...monolithic bloc that is the natural subject of well-deserved hostility from Westerners" (Zúquete, 323). Semati (1) calls it "a single, unified and negative conception of an essentialised Islam, which is then deemed incompatible with Euro-Americaness." The issue with most of these definitions is that they are usually either too broad, too narrow or too vague in how they are defined. The conceptualization or usage of the term also has “weaknesses” because most studies using the term either look at “it’s deep historical roots”, others focus on documenting incidences of violence directed at Muslims in studies that are generally anecdotal in nature, while “a third type of research conflates Islamophobia with

10 attitudes toward overlapping ethnic, national-origin, or immigrant-status groups” (Bleich, 183). As an alternative, to understand the “multidimensional nature of Islamophobia”, Erik Bleich proposes that: “Islamophobia can best be understood as indiscriminate negative attitudes or emotions directed at Islam or Muslims” (Bleich, 182). He draws parallels with concepts such as homophobia or xenophobia, and explains that if Islamophobia is “viewed in this way, [it] is also analogous to terms like racism, sexism, or anti- Semitism” (Bleikh, 182).

1.3.2: Gendered Islamophobia and limiting portrayals of Muslim women:

This thesis, as mentioned, then aims to look at Islamophobia through a critical gendered perspective. Studying the gendered perspective becomes increasingly important given that in the aftermath of 9/11 and “the ongoing ‘war on terror’, narratives by and about Muslim women have been increasingly commodified, circulated and uncritically consumed, particularly in the West” (Zine, Taylor, and Davis, 272). Many authors in fact, point out that gendered Islamophobia has roots that are in fact “historically entrenched within Orientalist representations that cast colonial Muslim women as backward, oppressed victims of misogynist societies (Said). According to Sirma Bilge as well, the existing discourse argues that “the ‘core value clash’, ‘the primary cultural fault line’ between the West and Islam is not about democracy but gender equality and sexual liberalisation” (Bilge, 10). She argues that thus Muslims are constructed as essentially different from liberal western subjects and that their culture is seen as “inherently sexist and homophobic” (Bilge, 10). Such representations served to justify and rationalize imperial domination over colonized Muslims through the emancipatory effect that European hegemony was expected to garner for Muslim women” (Zine, 240). As a consequence, Muslim women are “paradoxically portrayed both as a victim (passive) of her oppressive patriarchal culture/religion and male kin, and as a threat (active) to Western modernity and culture of freedoms (Bilge, 10). Elsewhere the portrayal of Muslim women is identified in terms of three personas: The first is the ‘harem belly-dancer character,’ the mysterious and sexualized woman of

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the ‘Orient’; the second is ‘the oppressed Muslim woman,’ often represented as the hijab (headscarf) wearer or the woman who is unable to drive; and, finally, there is the ‘militant Muslim woman,’ often shown in hijab with a gun and military clothes”. (qtd in Perry, 81)

Barbara Perry posits that as a result of this second stereotype Muslim women are thus seen as “women in need of salvation” with veiled women particularly depicted as being devoid of agency and hence “making the veil a site of contention between different strands of feminism” (Bilge, 10). Also, though it may be argued that both men and women are victims of Islamophobia, an article on gendered Islamophobia calls to attention the special vulnerability of girls and women to anti-muslim hate crime (Perry). Driscoll (93) argues that “both men’s and women’s bodies are important sites of cultural and religious inscriptions; yet these markings have particularly devastating consequences for girls and women”. Rising waves of Islamophobia continue to make Muslim women into particularly vulnerable targets for not just stereotyping, harassment and online bullying but also hate crime. The issue seems to be the complexity of Muslim women and their identities, with “their gender status as women”, their cultural or ethnic identity, “their status as immigrants and minorities”, “their language barriers”, “their religious identity” and “their Islamic dress code” (Abu-Ras and Suarez). As a result, “unlike her male counterpart, the headscarved Muslim woman is caught at the intersection of discrimination against religion and discrimination against women’” (Aziz, 25).

1.4: Dominant Discourses and the production of resistance

The underlying issue is one that revolves around the politics of representation, which narratives are highlighted and brought to notice, which voices are ignored or overshadowed, which narratives dominate and who constructs and disseminates these? The issue with dominant discourses is that they: 1) Are “necessarily exclusionary and silencing of other modes of representation” 2) “de-legitimize alternative knowledge and practice” 3) “naturalize a particular political and social order”

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4) “construct and maintain a hegemonic regime of truth” 5) And they “render unreasonable more nuanced narratives about the often-contradictory identities and characteristics of the narratives’ central actors” (Jackson, 396)

Jackson then states that on the contrary, we need “an understanding of discourse as historically and culturally contingent, intertextual, open-ended, requiring continuous articulation and re- articulation and therefore, open to destabilization and counter-hegemonic struggle” and thus “open up critical space for the articulation of alternative and potentially emancipatory forms of knowledge and practice” (Jackson, 396). As mentioned in the beginning, one of the foremost issues with current research is that it ignores non-Western and Muslim media, and the hegemonic narrative regarding Muslim women for example, is created by and through ‘Western’ media. Moreover, the particular problem with discourses about Islam and Muslims is that they “have proved extremely resilient, perhaps because, as Said claims, they reflect deeper social-cultural fears, anxieties and stereotypes of the oriental ‘other’ that go back to the imperial age. For others, they are the necessary cultural corollary of contemporary forms of imperialism (Jackson). To combat against such stereotypes and produce alternative ‘forms of knowledge and practice’, Zine et al., suggest an “Anti-Orientalist resistance” that is “not only deconstructive” in that it critiques, “Imperialist stereotypes and assumptions about Western superiority”, but is also “constructive in offering alternative contemporary and ‘traditional’ representations of Muslim women which resist easy identifications and pat understandings of Islam” (Zine, Taylor, and Davis, 275). The need is thus, to create “an alternate space for the articulation of Muslim female identity that resists both patriarchal fundamentalism and secular Islamophobia” (Zine). As a result, “the audiences of these new cultural and scholarly productions are not monolithic but rather multiple and overlapping, dynamic and often emergent (Zine, Taylor, and Davis). While such identity construction then brings forward a form of resistance to the dominant discourse, it is important to note here that resistance can take other forms as well. For

13 example: “As an Islamic feminist construct, the veil represents a means of resisting and subverting dominant Euro-centric norms of femininity and the objectification of the female body and as a means of protection from the male gaze (Bullock; Read & Bartkowski). Speaking of the hijab then, Haleh Afshar points out that for many women it “provides both a personal anchor and a public form of resistance to subvert the daily experience of Islamaphobia. However, this is not merely done to counter the prevailing prejudices but also as a positive, liberating step” (Afshar, 6). It is also significant as a disclaimer here to point out that agency should not be reduced to just resistance, it “is only one of the many configurations that agency may take” and such a notion would expel “social action involving ‘’complicity with, accommodation to, or reinforcement of the status quo -sometimes all at the same time’” (Bilge, 19). There are thus also ‘non-resistant agencies’. Thus instead of translating actions of actors to our own terms and understandings, instead the Latourian notion to “follow the actors” is followed. Hence, “by centering the voices and struggle of these young Muslim women, we can begin to see them as actors who at times reinforce traditional norms and at other times act in ways that begin to redefine the terrain of gender, faith, and identity” (Zine, 250).

1.5: Towards dynamic, Fluid identities

It is important to note that though gender and religion are the most highlighted or visible identity markers for Muslim women, their identity goes beyond the terrain of gender and faith alone. There is hence no doubt that Muslim women particularly occupy a contested space, and a unique set of discrimination and disadvantage, based on gender and religion amongst others. To do justice to these unique conditions, the idea is to employ theories of ‘transnational’ and ‘intersectional’ feminism to understand the experiences of Muslim women, as well as convey how they represent themselves and resist hegemonic narratives. ...[C]ompeting imaginaries—Western imperialist, Orientalist, imperialist feminist as well as transnational feminist, anti-colonial and Islamic—form a contested terrain of knowledge production upon which the lives, histories and subjectivities of Muslim

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women are discursively constituted, debated, claimed and consumed through a variety of literary, academic and visual forms of representation. (Zine, Taylor, and Davis, 271)

While it is true that the lives of Muslim women are determined by all the structural forces mentioned above, “too often women are defined by ascribed identities that confine them to categories developed and used by others” (Afshar, 1). The issue is that though “identity can be ascribed rather than chosen” (Parekh 2009), “women have to negotiate and struggle to move beyond the stranglehold placed on them by such ascriptions” (Afshar, 1). However, Afshar postulates that: “Women recognize identities as dynamic and malleable and are able to use differing interpretations to move beyond the limitations imposed in the name of specific faiths, cultures, or socioeconomic norms” (Afshar, 1). In this context, a British-Muslim woman interviewed by Afshar stated: “... I see my Muslim identity now as a kind of opportunity to bridge cultures and communities, especially when there is so much conflict, confusion around perceptions of different civilizations and different identities. I see my Muslim identity as a fusion that cuts across any country, any community…” (Afshar, 98). Identity formation involves complex power dynamics, and are “never a matter of pure autonomy and independence versus lack of choice: They develop through complex and difficult mechanisms of compromise and bargaining in which individuals, even in constraining situations, always exercise their plural and fluid affiliations, transforming those same constraints into weapons of emancipation” (Afshar, 122). In this way, the activists interviewed by Afshar assert that their identities are “complex and variegated” and thus cannot be reduced to a “piece of fabric” or the hijab: “Their faith, although important, is one part of their life” (Afshar, 122). Haleh Afshar’s work then, in the context of this thesis is vital for she points out how: Whether the labelling stems from the government, Muslim communities, the media, or other women’s groups, the result seems the same: the women take the label ‘Muslim’, deconstruct it, and introduce alternative interpretations in order to transform an imposed category into an emancipative weapon. (Afshar, 120)

It is particularly interesting to look at how online mediums lend themselves in form, format and accessibility to such alternative interpretations that serve as a counter-narrative or ‘an emancipative weapon’ against such labelling by the media in particular. The ensuing chapters

15 take up three varied domains of counter-narratives, the first concerns Muslim women and the blogosphere, the second focuses on Instagram and the role of Muslim fashion bloggers, and the last takes on the representation of Muslim women in sport.

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Chapter 2: Muslim Women and Mapping the Blogosphere

2. Introduction:

In an interview with the Guardian, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, the founder of popular online blog or magazine MuslimGirl.com, talked about the power of online or social media: “It can be an exceptionally powerful tool if we challenge ourselves to use it in innovative ways. The beauty of it is that there are no borders, so our reach is potentially limitless”. She however was careful to point out that the internet is a double-edged sword, but that it has the potential of being an “equaliser of sorts”, “offering a level playing field to all sorts of competing opinions. That’s what allows MuslimGirl and our narratives to have a fighting chance” (Lamont). Muslim Girl as a platform though, has been widely covered in the news for its growing readership, and being one of the most visited sites by Muslim women in the US. Studies however show that “despite the exponential growth of bloggers in Muslim countries”, “there is very little research attempting to understand social, cultural and political roles of female bloggers and collectivity among female social groups” (Agarwal, Merlyna, and Wigand, 1). The Muslim Girl blog was set up by Al-Khatahtbeh in the aftermath of 9/11 to challenge stereotypes regarding Muslim women and to give them space to express themselves. With respect to the blogosphere though, studies have shown that there exists acute gender inequality, particularly when it comes to blogs talking about political issues, with the underlying belief that women either do not talk about politics or their blogs lack quality (Harp and Tremayne, 247). However, when it comes to Muslim women, the Muslim blogosphere appears to have a high concentration of women. Mitra, in a study on South Asian women points out to this” veritable paradox of power” in cyberspace where “the traditionally powerful… are competing

17 against those who have been conventionally powerless, but have begun to gain a sense of discursive power because they can now find a speaking space on the Internet” (Mitra in Harp and Tremayne, 249). One can wonder then, if there is something particular about the platform that is empowering to women, and that encourages them to speak up. A study on the empowerment potential of blogs talks about how “the constant activity of blogging itself serves to further boost one’s competence as a creator and as a distinct voice, most likely imbuing users with a deep sense of agency” (Carmen, 2782). In addition to granting a voice, and agency, “bloggers can—and often do—initiate a public dialogue, the likely outcome of this being a strong sense of community” (Carmen, 2782). Taking up this idea of a public dialogue and ‘strong sense of community’, this thesis sets out to understand Muslim women bloggers as a group, or rather as forming a blogosphere, with similar goals, given that the internet has “completely transformed the landscape of collective action” (Friedland & Rogerson).

2.1: The Core Question

According to Latour, groups and group formation is not static, it’s a dynamic process which has to be constantly performed (Latour). Whether a set of actors forms a group is dependent on how it delineates group membership and identity; boundaries are defined and set to differentiates the group from the ‘anti-group’, and members of a group tend to share a form of in-group language, and have similar matters of concern, and agendas (Latour).

In the context of this thesis then, the question asked here then is, can one even talk about the ‘Muslim women blogosphere’? Do they form a group in the Latourian sense? If so, who are their spokespeople, what are the issues that they are most concerned with, what type of language do they employ? Can one thread through common themes and similar agendas? The overarching question of course is whether and how Muslim women employ these blogs to represent themselves, and resist dominant hegemonic narratives, and whether the blogs run by

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Muslim women can be thought of as a network (even if it is geographically sparsed) organized towards collective action.

2.2: Methodology

As a starting point to the research in this chapter, a master list of blogs had to be compiled. The challenge with that is that other than the major renowned blogs, there aren’t many authentic compiled list of blogs run by Muslim women. As a starting point a list of compiled by ‘orbala.wordpress.com’ of Muslim Feminist blogs was collected, and to this list were added top search results on Google for phrases such as “Muslim women blogs”. This led to a list of 40 blogs (refer to Appendix) that are used throughout this chapter, however, this list isn’t representative since the collection technique is through a snowball. These blogs were then ordered into categories, ranging from parenting, to fashion to feminism, according to how they identify themselves or their blogs in the “About” sections. A detailed depiction, and discussion of this list follows in the ensuing section. As a next step, the main research question surrounding this chapter had to be answered: can one even talk about a Muslim women blogosphere, and as it coming together as a group? According to Agarwal et al, there are three approaches to understanding networks or ‘communities’ as they call them, which are either network centric where “structural properties” are used “to identify communities within a social network” (in Agarwal et al., 6); or content centric where members of a community tend to talk about similar topics. A third approach is a hybrid of both the aforementioned approaches. To answer the central question then, this chapter takes a two-pronged stance building upon Latour’s ideas of group formations (Latour), and the approaches mentioned above.

2.2.1: Mapping the blogosphere as a network:

In his book “Reassembling the Social” Latour challenges the dominant conception of group identities and group formation as static and given, and explains how group formation is always an ongoing process and that “groupings have constantly to be made, or remade, and during this

19 creation or recreation the group-makers leave behind many traces that can be used as data by the informer” (Latour, 34). While this data can be collected in many different forms, to locate an actor-network though, it is first important to understand that action is “borrowed, distributed, suggested, influenced, dominated, betrayed, translated” and should be “felt as a node, a knot, and a conglomerate of many surprising sets of agencies that have to be slowly disentangled” (Latour, 44). Since according to Latour the best kind of sociological account is one that traces a network, the first step in this chapter takes the ‘network centric’ approach, and attempts to map the blogosphere as a network, to see whether and how these blogs link to each other, by using an Inter-Actor analysis, using the Issue crawler tool, the network mapping software by the Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam. The Inter-Actor analysis is then looked at, where the Issue Crawler “crawls the specified starting points, captures the starting points' outlinks and shows inter-linking between the starting points”. A detailed depiction is included in the findings section of this chapter, including a discussion of what the results entail.

2.2.2: Collective action, Metalanguage and content centric analysis:

According to Latour, when studying groups and social formations, “analysts are allowed to possess only some infra-language whose role is simply to help them become attentive to the actors’ own fully developed metalanguage” (Latour, 49). In order to understand in more detail whether Muslim women’s blogs can be thought of as a group, the idea is to do a content centric analysis. The point is to see if the Muslim women blogs identified have similar stances and use similar language to react towards specific happenings or incidents. In an article on the ‘Power of Collective Action amongst Muslim Bloggers’, Agarwal et al. chose a particular campaign distinctive to the blogosphere within their study, so as to highlight “how individual cause diffuses within the cyber-network of interactions and shapes into cyber-collective cause as time progresses” (Agarwal et al., 4). Taking forward the same methodology, the aim was to select particular issues that may be rallying points for Muslim women blogs, identify certain “issue keywords”, use the Google

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Scraper or Lippmannian Device to understand whether the blogs listed address the issue, map out “issue clouds” accordingly, to see how they choose to speak about it, and whether there are any similarities across the blogs in how they do so. For the purposes of this research, keywords surrounding ‘Trump’ and the travel ban, implemented by President Trump, were taken, which is referred to as the ‘Muslim ban’ by those rallying against it (“Trump’s Executive Order”). More generalized keywords such as “islamophobia”, “hate speech” and “anti-muslim” were also observed to get an idea of how Muslim women blogs react or resist such ideologies. Lastly the specific case of ‘Asra Nomani’, who featured widely in the news for being a ‘Muslim, a woman and an immigrant’ and choosing to vote for Trump; was studied. This specific case was chosen since it was expected that it would elicit strong reactions from the ‘community of bloggers’ being studied.

2.3: A cursory glance at Muslim women bloggers: Before delving into the details of the list of Muslim women blogs and their themes, it would perhaps be interesting to get a general idea of Muslim women blogs, bloggers and their perception in the media. A preliminary search on google yielded the following results:

Fig 2.1: The top page search results for ‘Muslim women bloggers’ on Google. The results coded in purple correspond to the links that refer to fashion, either giving lists of Muslim fashion bloggers, fashionistas or ‘hijabistas’. The ones coded grey refer to all the other results

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The above results are interesting at the outset, for a number of reasons. First, fashion and beauty seems to be the common association drawn with Muslim women bloggers. There is however more diversity in search results when one searches for just Muslim women blogs, the topmost being the Muslim Girl blog/website mentioned in the introduction. So even though ‘Muslim Women Talk Back’ appears at the outset, one still sees the ‘Fashionable Muslim Women’ idea come across, within the top search results. In contrast however, if one searches for just ‘Women Bloggers’ the results are broader (refer to the Appendix), which is as expected, but the main themes change, with qualifications such as ‘successful’, ‘professional’ or ‘fearless’ used when referring to certain women bloggers.

2.4: Muslim women bloggers and areas of interest

This section seeks to understand how the list of blogs collected classify themselves, what themes they talk about, and other particular sub-spheres of interest that they refer to. A detailed look into the blogs for example revealed that the most common themes addressed by the blogs were as follows: Lifestyle, Parenting, Religion, Beauty/Fashion, and Feminism. It was also interesting to note that there were often overlaps in the major areas of concern outlined by these blogs, and the more popular ones often covered a variety of diverse topics, with the category ‘lifestyle’ encompassing a broad range of topics already, from food to culture etc. The results of this classification is shown in the figure below:

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Fig 2.2: A list of 40 Muslim women blogs categorized according to how they identify the core interest of their blog, and what broad topics they engage with

From the above figure a number of interesting insights can already be made. For example, it is intriguing to note that none of these blogs address religion on its own, which is to say none of these blogs can be considered as religious ‘Islamic blogs’ despite being owned and run by Muslim women that identify themselves as such. Whenever religion is mentioned though, it is mentioned in tandem with other general topics of interest related to lifestyle, and daily living. These range from instances about wearing the hijab, to cooking halal meals to preparing for the month of Ramadan. The graph reflects this by showing that the categories ‘Religion’ and ‘Lifestyle’ co-occur quite often.

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Within this list, it is still interesting to note that Fashion or Beauty do not come up as the main topics of interest. This is perhaps so because Muslim women fashion and beauty bloggers are instead found to be more active on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube (however for a detailed discussion on these refer to the next chapter). Moreover, the figure already begins to show that despite overlaps and variations in interest, there are certain ‘types’ of blogs: for example, the ones that focus on Parenting and Religion, like ‘Irum Irshad’ and ‘Muslimah Mommy’, those that span across almost all categories, like ‘Muslim Girl’ and ‘Alt Muslimah’, and those that focus on Feminism, and Resistance particularly, such as ‘Salafi Feminist’, ‘Fatal Feminist’ etc. Regarding the last example, the categories of Feminism and Representation/ Resistance occur in tandem most often. It is important to register here as a disclaimer that blogs are only classified in the ‘Representation/ Resistance’ category if they specifically mention that they use their blog to combat stereotypes regarding Muslims and Muslim women, and to provide a counter-narrative. For the purposes of this analysis then, the mere fact of existing as a Muslim woman blogger in a contested sphere is not taken as a fact of resistance, following Latour’s idea that the analyst should not superimpose categories and action, and instead let the actors speak ‘for themselves’ (Latour, 230).

2.5: Individuals or Network? Mapping the Muslim women blogosphere

As mentioned in the methodology section, the Issue Crawler tool by Govcom Foundation was used to input the blogs in this list, and see whether and how the actors linked to each other. The graph below shows the preliminary results:

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Fig 2.3: The above graph captures the starting points' outlinks and shows inter-linking between the starting points. The larger the node, the more links received. This map however does not show blogs to which there are no links. The nodes in blue depict ‘.com’ sites and the nodes in red depict ‘.org’ sites

At the outset again, a few interesting observations can be made. First, altmuslimah.com has been linked to the most by other actors, which fits in with the fact that it is one of the blogs in the list which receives the most traffic, and the fact that it covers a broad range of themes and topics. Similarly, ayeina.com, which primarily tackles themes related to religion and parenting, is also linked to often, which is another of the blogs with the most traffic. One can also notice how ‘happymuslimah.com’ which is also a parenting/ lifestyle blog links to a variety of other blogs. Digging deeper into this, one finds that the ‘happy muslimah’ blog in fact

25 hosts a lists of other blogs that the owner is interested in or reads. Hence, one of the ways that these blogs link to one another is by curating a list of related blogs that their readers may be interested in as well. Another central node seems to be the ‘muslimahbloggers.com’ site, which becomes highly interesting once the site is analyzed in more detail, and see that it identifies as “A community for Muslimah bloggers around the world”. Not only does this blog then have multiple contributors, hence reaching out to other blogs, it talks about Muslim women bloggers as a community, for which this particular site serves as a hub. Here telling signs of a ‘blogosphere’ can already be seen. Lastly one can also note that in the graph shown above, the only major beauty blogs in the list, ‘Muslimah Musings’ and ‘Hijab Trendz’ link to each other, but are at the periphery of the more connected network. The above figure depicts a basic graph of linkages, and does not depict particular landing pages. Here the interlinkages are looked at in more detail with the graph below:

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Fig 2.4: Directed graph showing links between actors within the list of Muslim women blogs. The clockwise curves represent directionality. The more the links, the larger the node. The links have been shortened for visual clarity

Both the graphs depicted above show the influencers within the network, however to find the more detailed pages and links, let us zoom in on the clusters depicted above:

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Fig 2.5: A snapshot of the cluster of links surrounding ayeina.com

A closer look at the cluster around ayeina.com, the Parenting/Religion blog shows that it interlinks to many of the blogs listed in the network, from ‘ummjohar.com’ the Lifestyle/Religion blog to ‘themuslimahmommy.com’, the Parenting/ Religion blog. Also many of these links are from the ‘muslimahbloggers.com’ site, which focuses on Lifestyle in general as well as Representation/Resistance, and is the one of the forums that seeks to connect bloggers.

On the other hand, the other central node is shown below:

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Fig 2.6: A snapshot of the cluster of links surrounding muslimahmisunderstood.com

Most of the links leading to the Muslimah Misunderstood, (the Representation/Resistance) blog however are from pages of the ayeina.com site as well. A further investigation to these links shows that most of them are related to the ‘Gratitude Caption Contest’, which relates to a campaign by ayeina.com to ask people what they are grateful for, to promote gratitude, using the hashtag ‘#AlhamdulillahFor…’ which is Arabic for being thankful or grateful to God.

Fig 2.7: A snapshot of the cluster of links surrounding the irum irshad and the muslimahmommy blogs

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Further towards the peripheries there is the Irum Irshad, the Lifestyle/Parenting/Religion blog, which is one of the major authors behind Muslimahbloggers.com. Her own blog however connects to Ummjohar.com (the Lifestyle/Religion) blog, which can be understood given the fact that both focus on lifestyle, and religion within their blogs.

It is interesting to note here that blogs that seem to be influencers or are major traffic drivers such as Muslimgirl.com or Altmuslimah.com do not form part of the central network and are instead found at the extreme peripheries, mostly without interlinkages. The Muslim girl blog does however link to Muslimah Media Watch and the Race.Gender.Faith blogs links to the AltMuslimah blog, and all of these blogs have Representation/ Resistance as one of their primary focus.

2.6: Issue Mapping: Collective resistance to Islamophobia?

As mentioned in the methodology section, the idea was to understand whether the Muslim women blogs under our study address similar issues, and respond to them in a similar manner. Thus a list of terms was collected, relating to Islamophobia and incidences affecting Muslims and Muslim women at large, and the blogs in our list were queried to see the resonance of these terms among them. Following are the preliminary findings:

Site Total Number of Results for "Trump" altmuslimah.com 2300 muslimgirl.com 1280 muslimahmediawatch.org 386 koonjblog.wordpress.com 54 thefatalfeminist.com 23 margariaziza.com 16 muslimreverie.wordpress.com 12

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Fig 1.9: Top sites, in descending order for the frequency of mentions for the word “Trump”

Total Number of Results for "Muslim Site Ban" altmuslimah.com 1290 muslimgirl.com 1130 koonjblog.wordpress.com 8 race-gender-faith.blogspot.com 2

Fig 2.0: Top sites, in descending order for the frequency of mentions for the word “Muslim Ban”

As the above tables show, the terms “Trump” and “Muslim ban” seem to elicit most responses from the ‘Alt Muslimah’, ‘Muslim Girl’, or ‘Muslimah Media Watch’ blogs, and the word “Trump” seems to have more widespread usage across blogs rather than “Muslim Ban”.

However, the most used amongst these terms in general across blogs is ‘Islamophobia’, though ‘Anti Muslim’, followed by ‘hate speech’ have some resonance as well (depicted in tables in the Appendix). What is more interesting to note is that across all these tables, some blogs feature more frequently than others, being more vocal about the related topic. Whereas, there are also a number of blogs that do not mention any of these terms (but are omitted from the tables shown above). As a next step, the idea was to understand in detail how each of these blogs address some of the terms shown above. A word frequency analysis of the title page results for each site, and the corresponding keyword was done.

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The above word frequency clouds related to Islamophobia show that words like ‘Trump’ are very often associated with ‘Islamophobia’ and that the sites particularly tackle the idea from a gendered perspective by speaking of feminism in general and ‘Muslim women’ in particular as victims of Islamophobia. Other issues of importance are minority rights, the hijab or niqab that features as a common interest, as well as solidarity and condolences for the terrorist attack in Paris.

2.7: The case of Asra Nomani

In the methodology section, as mentioned, the idea was to deal with a particular case study that would elicit strong responses and might become a rallying point for the Muslim women bloggers identified. So here the case of Asra Nomani is highlighted, a journalist, activist and writer who taught journalism at Georgetown University. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal correspondent and has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, The American Prospect,

32 and Time (“Asra Nomani”). Recently during the US elections, she became the subject of controversy when she described herself as a ‘silent Trump voter’ while identifying as a ‘Muslim- American woman’ (Nomani and Nomani). From just a glance, many of the blogs in our list had very specific comments and reactions regarding Asra Nomani and her stance. The following figure shows the word clouds surrounding Asra Nomani:

Fig 2.5: Word Clouds or “issue clouds” related to the ‘Asra Nomani’ and the top sites mentioning the term

While the above figure only shows the results for the topmost sites, it is indeed interesting to note the terms used in association or in response to her such as ‘Apartheid’, ‘Ludicrous’, and ‘Orientalism’. The corresponding article titles are also of interest, such as “What Won't She Sell Out? The Opportunism of Asra Nomani”, “Asra Nomani and the Mosque Crusade: Lofty or Ludicrous …”, “A Letter to Asra Nomani: You Do Not Speak on Behalf of Muslim …”, or “Stop Telling Muslim Women How to Dress”. These examples suggest that some of these blogs indeed have similar responses or reactions to Asra Nomani and her ideology, even though whether it is a concerted effort or collective actions remains a question.

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2.8: Analysis and Conclusion:

As mentioned earlier, within Social Network Analysis, three approaches have been highlighted, from network analysis, to content centric analysis, to hybrid approaches. Within this chapter then a hybrid approach was taken, employing both the above mentioned techniques to understand whether the Muslim women bloggers studied can a) be thought of as a group c) be considered as a part of an interconnected ‘blogosphere and c) be thought of as working towards a common goal i.e. resistance to Islamophobia. According to Java et al. regarding the hybrid approach “the central tenet… is: a set of blogs that are highly linked and tend to share similar content, reflect tighter communities (qtd in Agarwal et al., 5). Given the detailed findings in the previous section, one can reflect whether this central tenet is applicable to this current research. With respect to the question of ‘tighter’ communities, or networks, while the results indicate that these blogs do connect to each other, many of them lie outside this network of interconnected nodes. However, as Agarwal et al. note, blogs are “blogs are extremely sparsely linked due to the casual environment that does not necessitate users to “cite” the sources that inspire them”. Moreover, there are “inherent differences between web pages and blogs (such as interactive and dynamic environment, highly likely topic and user drift, low barrier to publication leading to extremely noisy data)” (Agarwal, Merlyna, and Wigand, 5). Despite this, it is interesting to note that there are blogging forums like ‘Muslimahbloggers.com’ that serve as a hub of activity, connecting to various other blogs and refer to these as the ‘Muslimah blogging community’. In addition, this somewhat sparse linkage may also be due to the fact that the list of bloggers under study was not comprehensive in any sense, and perhaps may form part of other ‘sub- blogospheres’ that are less geographically distributed, and may connect to blogs in other niches, such as other parenting blogs. With regards to working towards a common goal, resisting Islamophobia in particular, there is significantly more substance to suggest that many of these blogs work towards a common goal. Specifically given the recent US elections, and Trump becoming the president, it becomes more than a local phenomenon, but a transnational issue. With Muslim women becoming the

34 collective victims of misogyny and islamophobia, there arises the need for collective action and debate. The question asked here is can “decentralized online individual actions” be “transformed into cyber-collective actions?” (Agarwal, Merlyna, and Wigand, 4). If, however, the findings are looked at through the lens of ‘connective action’ instead of collective action, the data might appear to make more sense. Bennett points out that the main difference is that at the core of the logic of connective action “is the recognition of digital media as organizing agents” and while “collective action” is “associated with high levels of organizational resources and the formation of collective identities...the less familiar logic of connective action [is] based on personalized content sharing across media networks” (Bennett and Segerberg, 739). Moreover, they point out that though there is the formation of a more ‘inter-personal’ network, “enabled by technology platforms of various designs...the resulting actions can resemble collective action, yet without the same role played by formal organizations or transforming social identifications” (Bennett and Segerberg, 752). They also point out that the people involved in this ‘connective action’ may be on different sides of the world, they do not “require a club, a party, or a shared ideological frame to make the connection” (Bennett and Segerberg, 753). While in the space of this chapter, it would be difficult to address the complete possibility of ‘cyber collective action’, though ‘connective action’ seems more viable, there is a trend forming within the content centric analysis undertaken. Certain influencers emerge, particularly with respect to resistance to Islamophobia, and these blogs or bloggers are significantly more vocal when it comes to either the broad issue of Trump, the Muslim ban, anti-muslim sentiment or Islamophobia. This fits in with Agarwal et al. and their analysis that blogospheres follow “a power law distribution with very few influential blog sites that form the short head of the distribution and a large number of non-influential sites that form the Long Tail” (Agarwal, Merlyna, and Wigand, 5). In this sense blogs such as ‘Muslim Girl’ and ‘Alt Muslimah’ for example lead the conversation and are the most vocal in terms of resistance, whereas the ‘long tail’ of other blogs often follow suit. Reaching back to our core question on how Muslim women use online spaces for self-

35 representation and resistance, the blogs studied in this chapter form an interesting case study. Many of the Muslim women bloggers that run these blogs ascribe to multiple identities, from ‘American Muslims’ to ‘Scottish Muslim’ to ‘Muslimah Mommy’ to feminists of all sorts. This diversity is reflected often in the range of topics covered in their blogs, but more importantly this shows that even with the confining label of ‘Muslim woman’ there are so many ways of being, and that identities are indeed fluid instead of static or fixed. There are also visible attempts to ‘take back the narrative’ or combat stereotypes, whether by the explicit slogan of “Muslim Women Talk Back” (muslimgirl.com), or by inverting the use of a commonly derogatory term for hijabis or niqabis: ‘Ninja’ to name a blog that’s about ‘Ninja Girl Power’ (ninjagirlpower.wordpress.com). In this vein it is also important to point out certain important sub-themes, that though might not become part of the core narrative, are nevertheless interesting to note. One such sub- theme is that of intersectional feminism; one blog for example talks about Race, Gender and Faith (race-gender-faith.blogspot.com). Another for instance is run by a ‘Queer, feminist, Muslim’ (5pillarsand6colours.wordpress.com). Thus even though there is no conclusive evidence that the Muslim women blogs studied in this chapter connect to each other, can be thought of as (a part of) a blogosphere, or work together to resist (gendered) Islamophobia, there is no doubt that these blogs serve as crucial hubs for resistance, and self-representation, even if the action is more individualized, representing a facet of ‘connective action’ more than ‘cyber collective action’.

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Chapter 3: Fashion as Resistance: Muslim Fashionistas on Instagram

3. Introduction and Research Question

One of the bloggers quoted in the previous chapter, Amani Al Khatahtbeh, conducts many of her public-speaking gigs by asking the audience to do an image search for “Muslim women” and see what shows up. As an exercise the same step was undertaken, searching the first hundred images in Google Images, and the following are the results:

Fig 3.1: The first 100 images, that turn up on Google Image search for the term “Muslim woman”, from the date range 3/6/2017 to 4/6/2017. The image URLS were extracted using the Google Image Scraper, by the Digital Methods Initiative, downloaded using ‘tabsave’ and compiled using an online photo collage tool, Photovisi

Discussing the image of Muslim women, Poole argues that “the heavy black hijab dominates the representations of Muslim women internationally” (qtd in Piela, 90). “The focus of these representations is on the garment...and its imprinted connotations, while the importance of the

37 person, the background and the context of the photograph is diminished” (Piela, 90). Though the image results are still varied, the results are indeed monolithic and represent Muslim women in a certainly passive stance and according to Al-Khatahtbeh fail “to capture the diversity of Muslim experiences” (Petronzio). To resolve this, Amani collaborated with Getty Images, the stock photo reserve to “launch a new series of creative images and stock photos showing a range of modern Muslim women being their true, authentic selves” (Petronzio). The image below shows a snapshot of the Getty Image results for “Muslim woman” now:

Fig 3.2: Snapshot of Getty Image results for “Muslim woman”

While stock photos are one way of combating pervasive stereotypes, many women have taken to social media to take back the narrative and represent themselves. While the nature and themes of such communication is varied, fashion has become one of the dominant ways Muslim women seek to express themselves, particularly on Instagram. In a talk with TedX on ‘Changing the Face of Fashion’, a Muslim fashion model and blogger, Maria Idrissi, spoke of the potential of fashion and its influence, to change the world (TEDx Talks).

In fact, Waninger notes that in the aftermath of 9/11, “a new praxis had to emerge that placed veiling and religious covering in a context that ripped away some of the hindering effect left by America’s “War on Terror” and instead replaced it with a kinship to ‘modernity’ that was more

38 accepting in the public eye” (Waninger, 19). She explains that Muslimah bloggers thus use the same “fashion-as-a-right” and fashion as freedom discourse to carve out an identity as “shoppers who relied on variety and taste just as much as any other woman” (Waninger, 28). This identity is cemented in the term ‘hijabista’ which refers to a Muslim woman chooses to dress stylishly while remaining within the confines of a modest dress code. The same term will be used to refer to the Muslim fashion bloggers from time to time through this chapter.

This process of identity construction or production of the self however cannot be separated from the platform on which it takes place. Instagram, as Waninger notes, “opens up new channels for identity-making, specifically among marginalized groups”. Thus not only is there a conscious construction of the self that takes place on Instagram, this “style is presented as natural and, therefore, ‘authentic.’” (Waninger, 53). Moreover, like other SNS (Social Networking Sites), this brand of the self can then be disseminated through mass-networking opportunities.

In this chapter then, Instagram is explored, to see how Muslim women use the platform, and particularly the idea of ‘modest fashion’ to express and empower themselves, and how in the broader picture this presents resistance to the monolithic narrative created by mainstream media. This chapter will also address questions pertaining to how fashion can serve as resistance, whether Muslim bloggers on Instagram are able to present a diverse narrative truly representative of the complex and fluid identity of Muslim women. Moreover, it looks at how these women mediate between faith and fashion, carving an identity, and dealing with conflict and controversy in the ways they choose to present themselves. The purpose is also to look at this case study with a critical lens, and see for example how feminist theory, and an intersectional feminist stance would view this.

3.1: Methodology

As a starting point to this research, a list of Muslim fashion bloggers on Instagram was

39 collected. The list was made by snowballing, collecting all the results that turned up in multiple Google searches, and combining various lists posted on different blogs and sites on Muslim fashion bloggers, making a list of around fifty Instagram accounts. Before continuing the rest of the research, a separate research account was set up on Instagram. There onwards to collect data in order to conduct the research and analysis, the most recent 20 images from every Instagram blogger/account were downloaded using a tool called the ‘4k stogram’. Moreover, details from each account, such as account description, number of followers, and number of posts were collected manually. In addition, further details like place of origin, and whether they connected to their own YouTube channels, were also collected. The ensuing analysis was done using in-depth analysis and coding the 20 images from all the Instagram bloggers. Factors such as how they choose to cover, whether choose to cover, wear a hijab, wear a wrap or experiment with headcovers was noted. Also, the same images were used to construct a list of the main themes articulated by the Muslim fashion bloggers.

3.2: The Muslimah fashion blogger: An archetype?

Muslim or modest fashion seems to be the new roaring trend. In economic terms, according to a report produced by Reuters, “Muslim consumer spending on clothing is expected to reach $368 billion by 2021, which would be a 51% increase from 2015” (Weinswig). The impact that this has had on the representation of Muslim women, in mainstream media cannot be easily overlooked. A far cry from the passive woman, in a black veil, or a ‘burka’-clad woman as a symbol of aggression or oppression, this new image of the fashionable Muslim woman, clad in the season’s latest trends, populate social media sites like Instagram or Pinterest. An article in The Guardian refers to these Muslim women as “Generation M”, by which they signify the ‘young Muslim women driving the modest fashion revolution (Khan). While this may indeed be revolutionary within the fashion industry, this research looks at whether this ‘revolution’ helps to tackle gendered Islamophobia, by presenting a ‘softer’, more diverse

40 image of Muslim women. In the same vein, in her talk with TedX, Mariah Idrissi, the Muslim woman model who came into the limelight after being the first hijabi female to feature in an advertisement for the brand ‘H&M’, said: "Just the fact that we are seeing hijab and abaya in mainstream fashion, in the media, it makes people understand that there is another side to Islam” (TEDx Talks).

Going forward then, the focus is on whether Fashion, particularly as portrayed by Muslim women on Instagram (and YouTube), indeed combats pervasive Islamophobia. Does the image of the ‘Hijabista’ (Hijab+fashionista) become synonymous to that of a Muslim woman? If so, is this effective in resisting mainstream stereotypes? More specifically, does the ‘Hijabista’ image on Instagram do justice to the views of feminism, and intersectional feminism? Is the visual narrative created, indeed diverse and representative of the fluid identities of Muslim females?

3.3: A Translocal Phenomena?

As a first entry point, the places of origin of Muslim fashion bloggers on Instagram were analyzed. Often within the account description of profiles, it was mentioned where the particular person was blogging from, to highlight an aspect of their identity, and perhaps to reach out to a geographically related audience. Some accounts however did not mention their place of origin, which may point out to the fact that in online spaces geographical affiliations cease to matter. The chart below shows some of these details:

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Fig 3.3: The regions most of the Instagram bloggers mentioned they were from, excluding those that did not mention a specific location. In the ‘Mixed’ section of the table, the current country of residence is mentioned first, followed by the country of origin

The above chart shows that a majority of these women hail from a western context, whether it’s the US, Canada, UK or wider Europe. What is perhaps more interesting to note is that some of these ‘Instagrammers’ choose to highlight their double identity, as a Moroccan or Somalese living in the UK, or as an Egyptian or Sudanese, living in the US. If one notices in further detail, in their account descriptions, the Instagrammers from the UK, US or even Kuwait for example, would only list their place of residence or their city as ‘London, England,’ or as ‘Houston, Texas’ or as ‘Kuwait’, whereas Instagrammers with a ‘mixed’ identity as listed, would sometimes actively describe themselves as such: “Tunisian hijabi born and raised in Sweden” (@mariammoufid) or “British Indian” (@amenaofficial). While the respective Instagrammers may list their account description as such to reach out to niche audiences, and specific diasporas, and hence be more ‘relatable’; it is significant more so because it adds to the complexity of identity at the outset. This is not however to take away from the complexity of identities regarding those bloggers that list one prime location alone.

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Take for example @asica_akf, who lists herself as a blogger from Kuwait. However, she also describes herself as ‘A hybrid’, pointing to the ‘Kuwaiti/American’ identity by which she and her husband represent themselves. Moreover, in analyzing geographical trends, there is the need to go beyond just the descriptions that the accounts give, and look at visual cues, especially given that Instagram is a ‘visual-first’ medium. The way women choose to style their hijab or headcover shows similar fashion and clothing trends,] that take inspiration from the dominant style in the region. The visual below for example shows the bloggers from Indonesia, and how their style choices coincide:

Fig 3.4: Two Indonesian bloggers, @indahnadapuspita (left) and @dianpelangi (right), with images from their respective Instagram accounts, showing similarities in the way they choose to wear the hijab

This is however not always the case, with Instagrammers across the US for example choosing a more diverse set of ways in how they choose to cover. So while geographical location and regional affinities are reflected within the Instagram

43 accounts looked at, it is more important to note that many of these women, particularly the influencers with the highest number of followers, usually have a transnational following, with @hudabeauty for example being famous across the world for her cosmetic brand, and @ascia_akf also being popular across Malaysia and Indonesia. It is for this reason that social platforms like Instagram then become all the more interesting to study, for it allows the potential for vast cross-cultural interaction. Thus not only does the platform “democratize the field of photography, giving visibility to the amateur artists and photographers who otherwise lack a platform to showcase their work”, but it also helps represent underrepresented communities, by “capturing local people and groups who rarely show up in mainstream media coverage” (Brooks). As argued, in this thesis, and particularly this chapter, (self-)representation is often the best form of resistance to stereotypical, hegemonic narratives.

3.4: Understanding Muslim Fashion on Instagram as a visual discourse

While most of the Instagram bloggers under study here operate on an individual basis, having their own fan base, their own sense of style and persona, which they often choose to emphasize as unique, the following section seeks to understand their communication on Instagram as a cumulative visual discourse. The following figures display the common themes displayed by the Instagram pictures collected:

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Fig 3.5: Main themes that most recent Instagram posts by the Muslim bloggers follow. The themes represented inside the hexagons (with representative images) correspond to major themes, whereas the text on the outside corresponds to other themes covered by some of the bloggers

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Fig 3.6: The major themes covered by Instagram posts, corresponding to the bloggers that cover them

At a glance already, one can see that there are certain common themes followed by these Instagrammers, particularly popular ones such as ‘OOTD’ or ‘Make-up selfies’. Nevertheless, as Fig 2.6 shows, the combinations of interests vary from one profile to another. While one profile may choose to emphasize their travel plans and goals, another will show ‘sneak peeks’ into their family life. Piela refers to these as various ‘identity narratives’: “powerful, direct, serious, but also funny, poetic, subversive, and intimate ones, thus contradicting the essentialist and

46 simplistic nature of labels stuck to Muslim women” (Piela). Even within outfits, what seems to be emphasized is difference, diversity, and unique style, rather than a particular dress-code. In fact, other than wearing a hijab (or headscarf or wrap) that identifies them as members of a certain religious group, many of these profiles would not hold a lot in common, given differences in age, location, ethnicity, audience, and fashion preferences. There are however, commonalities in format, given not just the affordances of Instagram as a platform, but the culture and practices of the global ‘fashion industry’ and fashion influencers on Instagram. Nevertheless, it is precisely this diversity (despite commonalities), that the visual narrative created here has the potential for resistance to mainstream monolithic ideas. In fact, Piela argues, the audience that these bloggers have “appreciate these visual narratives exactly because of their complex, multilayered and personal character” (Piela, 102).

3.5: Hijab to head-wraps: Contesting the nature of modest-wear

If the dominant narrative views Muslim women as a monolith, an effective way to challenge the narrative would be to display the inherent diversity, in a group that is varied in a myriad of different ways. The image below displays an amalgamation of some of the Instagram posts created by our list of bloggers/Instagrammers:

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Fig 3.7: A collage of images, made from using the recent 20 posts by the top 25 influencers in our list. The images were chosen to select only those that showcased the blogger herself alone, to enable easier comparison

The imagery here, is a far cry from the results obtained by a simple Google image search. As Piela puts it, these self-representations “are strikingly different from the ubiquitous paradigm of the de-contextualized, submissive women used as illustrations and metaphors in anti-Islamic discourses” (Piela, 102). If the images themselves are analyzed, one of the obvious differences is in the divergent colors represented in the image above, rather than the dominant black veil or hijab represented on Google Images. A quick glance would also reveal that some women choose not to cover, and that the way women wear the headcover, varies widely in style. Although it is difficult to code all these image or categorize them since they differ greatly sometimes from one to the other, there are trends in style, that are summarized in the figure below:

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Fig 3.8: The dominant types or styles of headcovers (or lack thereof), as depicted by some exemplary images posted by the bloggers. The type of headcover is followed by the list of Instagrammers that follow that particular type of headcover

Fig 3.11: Various ways of wearing the headwrap as depicted by Instagrammers, from more traditional Fig 3.9: Some of the ways to drape a hijab or ‘hoojab’ African to a more international modern take by @amenaofficial on Instagram

While the dominant type of headcover remains the traditional hijab, many women have sought

49 to change the way they cover their hair, from a more loosely tied hijab, to various types of head-wraps. There are also many variations in the way the hijab itself is worn, with different ways to tie it around, embellish it etc. Fig 2.7 for example was posted by @amenaofficial as a guide for her followers: The headwrap is also an interesting variation, and one could argue that the headwrap has its origins in women of African descent, but has been adapted by modern modest fashion to suit the purpose of covering, albeit in a different way (Fig 2.8). The purpose of this analysis is not just to show the variety of styles that Muslim women fashionistas have brought to Instagram, but to notice their own personal take on what it means to dress modestly. While the appropriate dress code for women in Islam, as outlined by the Quran, at the core means to dress modestly, and cover in a way to not draw attention to oneself (Quran, An-Nur, 24.31), how this is interpreted varies from one region or culture to the other. Although there is always controversy regarding what is considered as the “proper Hijab” or “the headscarf that, in some interpretations of Islam, women must wear whenever they are in the presence of men who are not close relatives” (Fatemi), often states and laws dictate the ‘appropriate’ dress code as well. Saudi Arabia for example, “is one of the only Muslim-majority countries that legally imposes a dress code (Iran is another)” (“Saudi Arabia’s Dress Code for Women”). Many of the women Instagrammers studied here however, reside in a Western context, where though liberal values entail complete freedom of expression, growing right-wing and Islamophobic sentiment has meant ongoing debates regarding how Muslim women cover in public spaces. While some legislation calls for the idea of no ‘overt religious symbols’ in public places, the controversy often revolves around Muslim women and their attire (case in point the ‘burkini’ ban and controversy in France (Dearden). What this means for the Muslim fashion instagrammers, is that their identity construction, closely linked in this case to their choice of attire; has to contest on two fronts. First by taking a modern, fashionable take on the ‘hijab’ for example, they often come under scrutiny for not observing hijab or modest dressing in the appropriate or ‘correct manner’, which means they often have to resist pressure from their own Muslim communities. On the other hand, just

50 observing the hijab or headscarf in a Western context is often difficult, as it becomes not just a clear marker of religious identity, but as a ‘different’ identity.

3.6: Instagram and Social/religious norms

Although, as outlined above, Muslim fashion bloggers on Instagram are indeed contesting the nature of modest wear, and pushing the boundaries, there is often a backlash as well. Whereas social media is often said to be a democratizing space that gives voice to the underrepresented, the nature of social media also means a two-way communication with audience and followers. To understand whether and how these Instagrammers face backlash, and the nature of it, the sample of 20 posts collected from all the bloggers were analyzed, to pick out the ones that could be regarded as potentially ‘controversial’, such as the nature of dressing and covering. The comments under these posts were then analyzed and the following are the salient findings:

Fig 3.12: @DinaTokio on one of the posts in her profile, followed by some of the positive comments made by the followers

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Fig 3.13: Some of the comments from @DinaTokio’s post shown above. The ones circled in red show the criticism levelled at her, whereas the comment circled in blue is an example of how followers often defend the stance taken by the blogger

1. Criticism or critique often involves a sort of ‘morality police’ where users usually point out that the dressing is not according to ‘Islamic customs’, usually in that their hair is showing, and sometimes the comments can be quite aggressive in reprimanding the blogger for not accurately representing Islam or Muslims 2. This criticism usually takes place on those posts or profiles where women are wearing a loose hijab or a loosely tied headwrap 3. The women bloggers who do not choose to cover do not seem to attract censure. This may be because they do not overtly identify as Muslim or that the logic behind most of the critique is: ‘if you wear the hijab, wear it properly’. This would explain that women who do not choose to wear the hijab face possibly less conflict 4. Whenever there is criticism or critique, there are often avid fans or followers who actively defend the women blogger for exercising her right to choice. In the examples observed though, there haven’t been instances of the Instagrammers responding to the negative comments themselves

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5. The vast majority of comments generally remain positive, admiring the style and fashion sense of the blogger, commenting on the outfit, or querying where any clothing item was obtained

These observations are in accordance to what the founder of a blog titled ‘Mohajababes’ says about reactions to hijabi fashionistas on social media, saying that criticisms include: “questioning whether the hijabi fashionista is wearing proper hijab or not, questioning her level of religiosity as a Muslim, accusing her of betraying her faith, and misrepresenting correct Islamic dress to both Muslims and non-Muslims” (Kamel, 20).

3.7: To veil or not to veil? Understanding Agency and representation

As exhibited above, regarding the hijab or the veil, the ‘hijabistas’ studied here make varied choices regarding their attire, but often are met with criticism about how they choose to cover, as they are the potential public faces of what it means to be Muslim. Even within academia there are divergent strands of thought regarding the hijab or veil. Whereas “Muslim feminists like Mernissi dispute the veil as part of Islamic custom because they argue that there is no consensus on women’s covering and as to how exactly this should be achieved”; “writers like Abu-Lughod (786) maintain that, ‘we need to work against the reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of women’s unfreedom, even if we object to state imposition of this form’, and that we should not be ‘reducing the diverse situations and attitudes of millions of Muslim women to a single item of clothing’” (qtd. In Ahmed, 272). While the position that Abu Lughod puts across, fits in well with the stance taken through this chapter, it cannot be denied however that the ‘single item of clothing’ often becomes the most dominant marker of identity. Noraine Ahmed thus notes that “this exact item of clothing… renders them stupendously hypervisible and simultaneously chastised for being “traditional and conservative”, and that the intersectional identities of Muslim women “whose clothes become a visual marker of their religion and religiosity...may be discriminated against for not just their

53 gender but also age and ability” (Ahmed, 265). These ideas, though deal with the impact of the veil, the stereotype of the hijab as a tool of oppression, and the discrimination that takes place as a result; but do not deal with why women may choose to veil. According to Wagner et al. though there are diverse reasons for why Muslim women in Western contexts choose to veil, which stretch from “religiously inspired arguments through to reasons of convenience, and to opposition against stereotypes and discrimination”, they iterate that “most minority women see the veil as a way of affirming their cultural identity” (Wagner et al.). They go on to argue “that religious minorities are forced into constructing their cultural identity in ways that exaggerate their group belonging and difference from broader society” (Wagner et al.). One could argue however, that to be identifiably Muslim, and identifiably a woman already makes these women hypervisible, without a need to ‘exaggerate group belonging’. What this means for the ‘hijabistas’ that studied in this chapter however, is that the choice to veil, especially in a public arena, means stepping into highly contested terrain. It also means opening up oneself to possible discrimination from non-Muslims, ‘haters’ and ‘spammers’, on the other hand they not only face critique on the choices that they make from the ‘Muslim community’ at times, they also have to shoulder the burden of representation. Noora Kamel for example, quoting Shabana Mir, notes that “Muslim American women who wear hijab often encounter the expectation that they will conform to certain perceived ideals of Islamic dress, comportment and personality. “A hijabi could never deviate from faithfully representing Islam, hijab, and Muslim women” (Mir, 109). Mariah Idrissi, a hijabi model similarly stated in a Ted Talk: “I'm not just a hijabi model, I have had this weight placed on me, as a spokeswoman for hijab, for modesty, for fashion, for Islam…” (TEDx Talks). Nevertheless, despite this pressure, the hypervisibility afforded by social media is used towards a positive end, given that “veiled women now have a ubiquitous and pseudo-regulated space to share their private lives and opinions in ways that were not typically captured and understood by the dominant gaze” (Ahmed). In fact, Ahmed argues that “social media uploads by Muslim women are a singular tour de force in the process of authoring and reclaiming the narratives on

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Muslim womanhood, beauty and modesty, empowering them to seek, define, and strengthen their identities” (Ahmed).

3.8: Resistance? Classism, Consumerism and Feminist Critique

The core question addressed here is whether the visual narrative created by Muslim Hijabistas on Instagram indeed resists the dominant monolithic stereotype used often to represent Muslim women. As explored in the sections above, the imagery that is created and curated on Instagram by Muslim women is indeed quite diverse, in terms of where the women come from, to what they choose to wear, and how they choose to style themselves. In fact, they “use fashion to deconstruct Orientalist stereotypes of themselves in mainstream Western culture as well as complicate understandings of Muslim women in the West”, and as argued earlier given their strategic position and online presence, are able to “reinterpret notions of acceptable Islamic modesty in dress within the Muslim community, thereby defining new boundaries for Islamic modesty in a Western context” (Kamel). However, this idea of resistance is not without its problems. First, the feminist critique highlights a phenomenon described as post-feminism which “works to commodify feminism via the figure of a woman as an empowered consumer. In postfeminism, a woman is granted a false sense of freedom to buy ever more products to reflect her body and social image” (Peterson in Lewis). Moreover, Peterson points out that this means that women's bodies are under constant scrutiny and surveillance, hence they are supposed to invest never-ending labor to appear attractive, and this labor must be depicted as “pampering” or “self-indulgence” (Peterson in Lewis). In fact, Mariah Idrissi, one of the instagrammers from our list, and a hijabi model and blogger addresses the same issue at length in her speech:

“From looking at things like Instagram, I can see with a lot of Muslim women wearing hijab, we feel that we are still conforming to trying to sexualize ourselves in a way to appeal to get somewhere in life. Like we feel its compulsory to do makeup and hijab

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tutorials and this is the way we have to beautify ourselves so much without people even knowing our inside, just to kind of get our message out.. to get people to acknowledge that we are successful. But this is untrue, we don't need the consent or the validation from social media to validate that we are doing something great” (TEDx Talks).

It is important to point out here though, that not all the women Instagrammers that studied ascribe to the same ideals. In fact, some actively use their profiles to portray a ‘less than perfect’ image of themselves and their lives, or at the very least show more variety in lifestyle than just ‘OOTD’s’ and selfies (@yazthespaz89, @nyearmstrong, @mariamsobh).

If the above critique is taken to be true however, one can wonder if the subject matter studied here is indeed resistance to mainstream narratives, or conformity to consumerist ideals in order to be accepted. The fact of the matter is, that either of those facts need not be mutually exclusive. Ahmed for example notes that the visual discourse by Muslim fashionistas created on Instagram, “perpetuates Western notions of consumerism while also creating new spaces of identity-making for Muslim women within the online fashion world” (Ahmed, 289). Peterson also points out that just because these women are interested in consumption, does not mean that their work ought to be dismissed or regarded it as inauthentic. Citing the work of ‘fashion gurus’ such as Amena and Dina on Instagram, Peterson emphasizes that: “These women are under constant pressure to visually present their lives in ways that contradict traditional Western visualities of the Muslim woman as hyper-sexualized or oppressed” and hence present themselves “as embodying a beautiful, impeccable form of femininity, constantly surveying their bodies and actions to maintain perfection, and consuming, and selling products to achieve success” (Peterson in Lewis). Looking at the overall visual discourse, created by these Instagram images, one “can see glimpses of the negotiation between the authenticity of Islam and the market demands to consume and brand oneself” (Peterson in Lewis). As a result, spaces like Instagram and the discourse they generate cannot be regarded as shallow; they are however ambivalent but ambivalences, as Banet-Weiser points out, have ‘potential generative power’, “for it is within

56 these spaces that hope and anxiety, pleasure and desire, fear and insecurity are nurtured and maintained” (Peterson in Lewis).

As a consequence, the visual narrative created by Muslim fashion instagrammers, can be viewed as poignant resistance to hegemonic stereotypes that seek to view Muslim women as submissive and monolithic, and can view the women fashion Instagrammers as lying on a continuum, a spectrum of modesty that “Muslim women travel on from less ideal (read less covered) to more ideal” (Kamel, 22).

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Chapter 4: Veiling and Athletics: Viewing Muslim women in Sports

4. Introduction:

In the previous chapter the discussion revolved around how Muslim women use fashion as resistance to monolithic narratives, particularly using the online platform of Instagram. In this chapter, the focus is on the domain of sport, portrayal of Muslim women in sport, changing narratives, complex identities and self-representation through online mediums. First however, let us examine why studying Muslim women in sport is significant, and how it contributes to the wider objective of this research. There is no denying that men in sport are often glorified, especially elite athletes that become symbols of heroic endeavor, perseverance, and often even nationhood. Hargreaves et al. argue on the hyper-masculine nature of certain sports such as cricket, rugby and soccer, which coincides with “a long-established commonsense ideology that males, by their very natures, are more suited to take part in energetic and aggressive forms of physical activity than are females” (Hargreaves and Anderson). On the other hand, they highlight “a failure to systematically record the history of women’s participation in sport” (Hargreaves and Anderson). So while the media, particularly in relation to sport is already biased in its representation of women in sports, the problem exacerbates when it concerns Muslim women in sports or Muslim female athletes. Some argue that this is so because sport in its current form is inherently secular, and Islam as a religion is seen as antithetic to secular sport. Pfister for example argues that “the roots of modern sport are grounded within Western culture, and sport, in its current Western form, is not part of mainstream Islamic society (Pfister). The issue also seems to be that the “centrality of the body within both sport and Islam acts as a potential site for tensions” (Dagkas et al., 199). Speaking with the context of the 2012 Olympics,

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Samie and Sehlikoglu point out that the underrepresentation of Muslim women in sports is often understood “through a ‘clash of cultures’ rhetoric whereby the Olympics, with its emphasis on secular etiquettes, bodily movements and revealing attire, is seen to be at odds with the revered Islamic principles pertaining to the aesthetics of women’s public visibility and sexuality” (qtd. in Hargreaves et al.). Leila Sfeir however explains that at the core “Islamic religion in no way tries to depreciate, much less deny sport for women. On the contrary, it attributes great significance and function to physical strength and sport activities” (Sfeir, 300). According to her the issue is how certain religious elements “have been dominant factors in controlling general access to sport” (Sfeir, 300). There is no denying that there are in fact barriers Muslim women have to face to actively participate in sports, even in schools involving physical education, “mixed sex participation” and “public viewing” often means that Muslim girls cannot participate (Dagkas et al., 199). The problem however is that often these barriers to entry become the central focus to any coverage of Muslim women in sports. Dagkas et al. note that “accounts of ‘political, cultural and religious resistance’ as well as forced ‘exile and vilification’ of Muslim female Olympians (and of Olympic hopefuls) have strengthened claims about the impediments and perilous sporting experiences of those women who dare to compete” (Benn and Dagkas, 2). The result is that the stereotypical view of Muslim women and girls as ‘passive’ or ‘subordinate’ is intensified (Dagkas et al.) This stereotypical view leaks into mainstream media, and coverage of sports, whose depiction of Muslim female athletes regularly ends up being reductive at best and discriminatory at worst. This chapter then seeks to understand how the media describes Muslim women in sports, “unpack such...portrayals” and “decipher what was considered newsworthy in relation to Muslim sportswomen” (Samie and Sehlikoglu, 365).

4.1: Research Question

Within the space of this chapter, the aim is to focus attention on the traditionally ‘male-

59 dominated’ sphere of sports, and understand the various barriers Muslim women face in sports, highlighting how Muslim women in sports are presented in the media. Furthermore, the idea is to understand how there has been a recent upsurge in discussion around Muslim women in sports, how this has come about, and how Muslim women empower themselves through sports and how this narrative is accentuated through online mediums.

4.2: Methodology

As a first step, the portrayal Muslim women in the field of sports as dominantly presented in the media had to be analyzed, following with understanding whether there has been a recent change in how this is reported in the news. To do so, Google News was queried, for the past 4 years separately by setting a date limit, ranging from June 2013-June 2014, and so on till this year, i.e. 2017. The headlines and descriptions were then collected and compared (detailed results follow in the next section). In the next step, the aim was to understand more specifically and in more detail how the Muslim women in sports are presented or profiled in particularly news media. For this purpose, first a list of top News sites in the West were queried for the resonance of the term “Muslim women”; followed by top English news sites in the Middle East, which were queried for the same term. The results were compiled together, and then coded to understand the major topic and themes that were featured within them. The results for the two regions were then compared and a detailed discussion follows in the next section. Moreover, though News sites in general report News quite broadly, it was intriguing as a case study to look at purely Sports News related sites, which often are said to target a dominantly male audience; and observe whether and how they deal with Muslim women in sports. As a final step then, various websites and blogs were looked at, as well as accounts by Muslim women athletes, since the idea was to understand how Muslim women ‘take back’ the narrative.

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4.3: Muslim women in sports: A recent phenomenon?

Representation of women in sports has always been a contentious issue, with male oriented sports and teams almost always receiving more media attention and coverage. While some sportswomen (in tennis for example) have gained fame, the media coverage still remains widely unequal. Gender discrimination in sports is not the only contentious issue, racism and religious discrimination in major sports is unfortunately quite common. As a result, in the domain of sports as well, one can argue that Muslim women find themselves in adverse circumstances. Not only are there significant problems in representation, the narrative constructed when they are represented is narrow and reductive at best. Nevertheless, there seems to be a recent growth in the conversation regarding Muslim women in sports. The figure below attempts to understand this:

Fig 4.1: The top 10 Google News results for “Muslim women in sports” starting from June 2013-June 2014 and so forth. The results highlighted reflect the ones that are relevant, the ones highlighted in red are those that talk about barriers to women’s participation, the ones in green reflect positive developments, or steps taken by Muslim sportswomen

While the results depicted above may not be truly reflective, the trend displayed can be easily acknowledged. Whereas in 2013 and 2014 reporting on Muslim women in sports was scarce, it

61 significantly starts to increase in 2015, until June 2017. Moreover, how the topic is covered seems to change as well, with 2016-17 focusing more on opportunities and accessibility for Muslim women in sports, about surpassing barriers, and about more inclusive sportswear. The number of results may also be dependent on significant sporting events, for example, the Olympics took place in 2016, which could have led to the rise in interest over the topic. However, at a brief glance over news results from 2012-13, coinciding with the previous Olympics held in London, reveal that though coverage of Muslim women in sports increases over that year as well, much of it reflects barriers to entry, or obstacles being overcome, rather than achievement in sports. However, the latter is true for most of the coverage regarding Muslim sportswomen in mainstream media.

4.4: Covering Muslim women in Sports

The next step was to understand in more detail how the News talks about Muslim women in Sports and whether there are differences in trends. As mentioned above, results were extracted for relevant articles in Western, Middle Eastern, and Sports News sites. What was particularly interesting about the results was a hyper-focus on the hijab, headscarf or head- gear, whether the purpose was to talk about regulations regarding head-covering in sports, like a ‘hijab ban’, or even if a Muslim woman’s participation or achievement was recorded, it was mentioned in connection to the hijab, or the hijab was seen as an impediment to sporting success despite which the woman achieved success, for example: “Fencer will be first U.S. Olympian to compete while wearing a hijab …” (Wharton). To explore this phenomenon in comparison, the following graph was charted:

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Fig 4.2: The graph above depicts the number of results that show up in article titles about the Hijab in general, the Nike Pro hijab that was launched and the ‘Burkini’, in a list of top Western News Sites, Middle Eastern (English) News Sites, and Sports News sites. (The values taken for the graph are weighted averages, comparing the number of results surrounding the term mentioned, as a subset of the relevant results discussing Muslim women in sports obtained from the sites)

The graph above reveals a number of interesting points: a) The hijab certainly seems to be one of the primary focus in all articles b) While all news sites have nearly the same level of attention given to the hijab in sports, sports news sites in particular tend to mention it the most c) The Nike Pro hijab launched recently, for Muslim sportswomen, is covered more often by Western news sites, and sports sites, than others d) In all three categories, Middle Eastern top English news sites, though they tend to discuss the same terms, focus less on the hijab, the Nike case, or the burkini

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Moreover, when the data sets for each of those set of results were analyzed, there were some common themes and topics that cut across all sets. To understand these in more detail, the relevant results were parsed into these sub-topics, and how each set of sites addressed the particular topic was studied. Following are some of the salient findings:

wears hijab, competes in Olympics

held at US Customs

vows to be outspoken

asked to remove her hijab

confronting misconceptions as a Muslim Western News discusses race is Sports

wins bronze in team sabre

first U.S Olympian to wear hijab

fights stereotypes, breaks barriers

fencing mask hid her hijab Ibtihaj Muhammad- Fencing

Middle Eastern News first U.S Olympian to compete in hijab

First women to compete Olympics in hijab

speaks up for Muslim African-Americans

Fencing find its star

her impact will endure, despite defeat Sports News defies stereotypes, breaks barriers

fears Trump's regime

ready for Rio Olympics

recognized by Obama Fig 4.3: The sub-topic relating to Ibtihaj Muhammad, the U.S Olympian in fencing that won the 2016 bronze for the sport. The table shows the results from each set of news sites, and the most common ways the sites refer to the topic

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This first tables deal with how News sites discuss Ibtihaj Muhammad. As the results show, most News sites discuss Ibtihaj Muhammad, more in relation to her religious affiliations, even if it is to showcase how she defies stereotypes; than in relation to her winning the Olympic medal. In fact, even when they do discuss her sporting success, she is described as the first woman to compete in the hijab, that is to say the religious identity marker is stressed more often than the identity as a sportswoman. However, sports news sites do discuss the impact she made in the Olympics, describing her performance etc., however the political element still remains within the discussion.

4.5: Muslim female athletes and Accessibility

As mentioned before, female representation in sports is already a contentious issue, but even before the issue of representation is the issue of accessibility. In the previous chapter the discussion surrounded Muslim women in fashion and the hurdles they faced. One can argue however, that in a traditionally ‘feminine’ domain such as fashion, it is relatively easier for women to carve a space for themselves and be accepted. When it comes to sports however, Muslim women face barriers to entry, due to inner community pressures to comply to religious tenets, as well as the pressure to comply to sports norms. This comes across in the data collected and analyzed within this chapter as well.

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Fig 4.4: Some of the topics discussed in News related to Muslim women in sports, and the ways in which articles report on the given categories and topics

The table above depicts then, that whether the news is regarding female sports or athletics in a certain country or whether it is regarding Muslim female athletes in a certain sport, the discussion often revolves around hurdles that women have to face, either in the form of ‘fatwas against female football’ by clerics, not being allowed to play by spouses, or ‘hijab bans’ by sports authorities, or ‘racism, sexism and Islamophobia’. On the other hand, the focus is also on how women resist these restrictions in multiple ways, whether by holding a ‘secret marathon’ or defying danger and religious authorities to play sports. A third aspect, and a positive development at that is the drive to increase inclusivity in sports, in educational institutions by taking into account and tackling barriers that Muslim girls face in playing sports, such as no gender segregation and proper clothing. Here one can see the potential for change, from going beyond the hyper-focus on the hijab or headscarf in sports, and banning it, to not only allowing for diversity but actively introducing measures to increase inclusivity.

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4.6: The case of the Nike Pro Hijab: Increasing Inclusivity in Sports?

The previous section addresses barriers to accessibility for Muslim women in sports, and how media attention primarily focuses on those hindrances. If the issue is barriers to inclusivity, then to increase inclusivity the idea would be to introduce measures that enable women to participate more actively, and freely. Recently, as is covered extensively by the News, Nike became the first large sportswear brand to launch a ‘performance hijab’ for female athletes (“Nike Launches Hijab for Female Muslim Athletes”). Nike’s website itself launches the new product, stating the following: “Athlete insight combines with Trademark Nike innovation to shape Groundbreaking Garment”. They go on to explain the research process behind the design, and its features, further stating that: “By providing Muslim athletes with the most groundbreaking products, like the Nike Pro Hijab, Nike aims to serve today’s pioneers as well as inspire even more women and girls in the region who still face barriers and limited access to sport” (“Nike Pro Hijab”). To understand in more detail, the perceptions regarding the Nike Pro Hijab from the various parties involved, the same list of newspapers from the US and UK, Sports News sites, and this time including the list of Muslim women blogs used in the first chapter, were queried for their take on the Nike Pro sports hijab. Following are the results, depicted briefly:

Nike Unveils Pro Hijab for Muslim female athletes

Pro Hijab to make sports more inclusive

Muslim weightlifter defends Nike's sports hijab

Nike becomes first major brand to launch hijab for women Western News Nike Pro design now being used by select Muslim women Hijab uses lightweight fabric, single layer pull-on design

Nike sees cultural shift in more women embracing sports

Nike addressing an underserved market

Middle Eastern News Nike launches Pro-Hijab, female Muslim athletes get global

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representation

Nike releases new active wear product for Muslim women

Nike taps into growing Muslim market with new sports hijab

Nike Pro Hijab gives important validation to Muslim women athletes

Sports News Nike becomes even more inclusive by creating a sport hijab Malaysia's Athletes Will Love The Nike Hijab

Olympic Weightlifter Defends Nike's Sport Hijab

Muslim companies created sports hijabs before Nike

Nike to launch Pro Hijab in 2018

Muslim women blogs Nike's problematic relationship with the hijab

The Nike Sports hijab- What Muslim women want?

Sports Hijab industry wins- Or does it Fig 4.5: The results relating to Nike Sports Hijab, from the categories of sites shown in the left-most column. The right-most column shows the corresponding articles titles, to showcase their particular take on the topic (The article titles have been summarized and edited for the purpose of brevity and clarity)

From the above table, some of the following observations can be made: a) Western and Middle Eastern news talk about the launching of the product, about Nike as a company serving a potential market, and about inclusion in sports and cultural shifts b) Sports News are even more direct in their support of the Pro hijab, citing it as making sports more inclusive, giving validation to Muslim female athletes, and how Muslim female athletes themselves support or defend the product c) Muslim women blogs on the other hand are more critical of the move, attempting to understand if this is what Muslim women want, and highlighting that Nike was in fact not the first company to think of such a product. One blog for example notes that: Although the inclusion and diversity displayed by Nike is appreciated, they are about 13

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years late to the sport hijab rights” (Abraham).

A blog called Alt-Muslimah notes that while “a major brand embracing the hijab as a source of empowerment and paving the way for Muslim women’s integration is laudable”, but if these companies want to truly embrace diversity and inclusion “they should create spaces for young innovators who know their customers to better market their products. Partnership, not co- optation, would go a long way” (Uddin). Another article notes that on the one hand, people think that “Nike are enabling those who force women to cover their heads and that they are simply trying to make money”, however on the other hand “the product has been welcomed by sportswomen who have previously struggled when wearing the hijab for sport and fitness” (Ghanem). The issue here again is the fact that there is a hyper-focus on clothing that Muslim women choose to adorn. Rowida, a Muslim female athlete addresses this: ““Seeing these ‘new hijab friendly’ uniforms all over the internet is definitely interesting to see, but in my opinion, it’s not what is going to make or break an athlete, your skill will” (“Sports Hijab Industry Wins – Or Does It?”). Nevertheless, though there are various and differing views on Nike launching the Pro Hijab, one is inclined to see it as a step in the right direction: “While hijab in sport remains very much a contentious issue, as we see hijab styles and different sports-related products becoming more popular, it will certainly create a sense of normalcy among the public and sports communities” (“Sports Hijab Industry Wins – Or Does It?”).

4.7: Shirzanan and Muslim female athletes representing themselves

In the previous chapters the discussion revolves around how Muslim women choose to represent themselves through various channels and in various fields. In the field of sports for example, though until recently discrimination meant that any news on the Muslim female athletes was about how difficult it was for them to enter the field, and the obstacles they had to overcome, or the primary focus on their hijab. The issue however remains that it seems

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Muslim female athletes or sports-women are always talked about, their narrative, their self- identity rarely comes across in many of the news articles reported. There are however some advocacy organizations that seek to remedy the issue of representation, for example ‘Shirzanan’ describes itself as “a media and advocacy organization for Muslim females in sport”, and their website ‘shirzanan.org’ lists as it main endeavors to become: “a media platform with international reach that strengthens the representation, advocacy skills and will of Muslim females in sport to battle discrimination and advocate for gender equality” (“About Us – Shirzanan”). In fact, regarding the work that Shirzanan is doing, the director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch stated “If Shirzanan ceased to do its vital work supporting Muslim women athletes, I cannot see any group that could step into the void it would leave” (“Iranian Journalist Launched An Online Magazine...”) Another major organization is the MWSF or the Muslim Women Sports Foundation, which states its “overarching aim to increase the involvement of Muslim women and girls in sport without compromising their religious or cultural values through catering to and raising awareness of their specific needs” stating that they “exist to proactively promote diversity and inclusion within sport” (“Muslim Women’s Sports Foundation | MWSF”). Other blogs like ‘muslimwomeninsports.blogspot.com have similar aims, and this particular blog for example notes that “over half of those news say how Muslim women/girls kick/beat/tackle/lift/break stereotypes & boundaries” and “urges the sports journalists for more creative titles” (“Muslim Women in SPORTS”). Although the number of such organizations, and their work in online media remains limited, it is still vital and necessary. To showcase this, the following figure shows a collection of top Muslim women in sports and their images, obtained from Google Images:

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Fig 4.6: Selected images ranging from June 2016-17, obtained by Google Images, using the Google Image Scraper by Digital Methods Initiative

The visual narrative constructed by images such as the ones above are vital, because instead of the passive Muslim woman portrayed often by mainstream media, they showcase the active Muslim athlete. It is also important to note that though many of the sources of the images obtained were from Pinterest etc., 25 percent of the images obtained were from the blog mentioned above, ‘Muslim women in Sports’ (muslimwomeninsports.blogspot.com), which highlights the pivotal role these forums play in constructing a counter-narrative. In fact, “In an independent media research by Traackr, MWIS was listed as the 7th most consulted resource discussing the topic of the 2012 Olympics and Muslim Women” (Samie and Sehlikoglu).

However, most of the images obtained, and some of those depicted above show the Muslim athlete almost always in the hijab, so even though there is diversity and inclusion, as Muslimah Media Watch notes, “there seems to be a bias from media and incessant focus on hijab-wearing athletes” (“Hijab in Sport and Unhelpful Media Biases”). Therefore, to look at self-representations of Muslim female athletes, a list of Muslim female

71 athletes was taken from the Shirzanan website, and their online presence in terms of blogs, Facebook pages, twitter pages, and Instagram profiles were collected. The results showed that more often than not the mediums of choice are Twitter or Instagram, hence some recent images were extracted from their Instagram feeds, and the results are shown below:

Fig 4.7: Selected images from profiles of Muslim female athletes on Instagram, extracted using 4K stogram, and compiled using online tool ‘Photovisi’

The images depicted above, and the others not shown here highlight a number of important factors: a) that not all Muslim female athletes choose to cover their heads, which should not make their efforts any less valid b) when it’s self-representation, the hyper-focus on the hijab is replaced with more diversity c) the visual narrative constructed here is more holistic, presenting the person as a rounded individual with sports being a crucial aspect of their lives, but not the only definition.

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Thus, although Muslim female athletes have limited self-representation, and when they do it is in the form of social media profiles; however, the self that is presented here then reflects a more fluid identity, rather than more common rigid classifications.

4.8: Analysis and Conclusion

With the most recent Olympics seeing a surge in Muslim women participating, Ibtihaj Muhammad the U.S fencer competing for the first time in the history of the country in the hijab, and Nike moving to launch its first sports hijab, there has been an increase in the coverage and attention given to Muslim women in sports. However, Sehlikoglu “maintains that the mere idea of Muslim women playing sport continues to fascinate, startle and perplex a non/western gaze” (Samie and Sehlikoglu, 364). There seems to be an ‘Orientalist fascination’ and focus on veiling. An article by Muslimah Media Watch highlights however that “Normalizing and including athletes who wear a headscarf, is important in the realm of sport, most of which has been dominated by athletes from privileged, Western countries”, however questions if it propels “society’s obsession with hijab and Muslims women’s clothing” (“Hijab in Sport and Unhelpful Media Biases ‹ Muslimah Media Watch”). Such biases in reporting however, are harmful and discriminatory against female athletes who are indeed Muslim, but do not choose to cover. One such athlete describes how athletes are reduced to their outfits and how the end goal is to excel in the sport, and any differentiation based on whether a Muslimah athlete chooses to cover or not, would be “disingenuous” and “a forced separation induced by media” (“Hijab in Sport and Unhelpful Media Biases ‹ Muslimah Media Watch”). But how then can both inclusivity in sports be appreciated, and biases in the media curtailed? As to the former, Dagkas et al. suggest that “Improving participation in sports-related activities for Muslim girls and women depends on increasing understanding amongst policy-makers and practitioners about the power of faith in the lives of some people” (Dagkas et al., 204). With respect to media biases, as has been shown in this chapter, when women represent themselves, the narrative created is much more nuanced, and perhaps even more ‘authentic’.

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While there does not seem to be a widespread concerted effort in this regard to increase representation of Muslim female athletes in online spaces; even the existing forums, though scattered, create a veritable impact in forming a counter-narrative. As for representation in media and reporting, a Muslim sportswoman and blogger argues: If you’re going to stand with us, represent us in mainstream media, report our stories – then report on all of us. Not on the ones of a glossy, ready for production move that perhaps can be translated into “a Muslim woman being ‘free’ to compete,” despite hijab, oppressive and patriarchal-background story-line or a sexualization of our identities. (“Hijab in Sport and Unhelpful Media Biases ‹ Muslimah Media Watch”)

So while it is important to report on barriers to participation, and normalize the visuality of hijab in sports, it is important to move away from such limiting representations, and to instead “focus on women’s athleticism” (Ahmed).

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5: Conclusion

This thesis aimed to not only document instances of ‘Islamophobia’, as is often done by mainstream media sources; but understand how New Media and digital technologies enable women to resist Islamophobia in a productive way. Through the four chapters of this thesis, the intention was to document how Muslim women use varied online spaces, in varied domains, to enact their identities in ways that cut beyond limited ascribed labels, where the spaces allow for more ‘free’ expression to reflect the fluidity of their identities. The first case study looked at Muslim women bloggers, and attempted to understand whether they connected to each other, and whether one could see traces of a blogosphere, that worked together collectively to form a holistic narrative, to combat Islamophobia and discrimination, and more specifically to represent themselves. What was seen was that while blogs and bloggers retain their individual identities, and often do not directly ‘connect’ to one another, the Trump administration, and rising xenophobia meant that the ‘community’ galvanized with often similar ideologies, to tackle misrepresentation of Muslims, misconceptions regarding Islam, and generally ‘talking back’ rather than being the silent audience. This research however could be expanded to include a wider, more exhaustive list of blogs, leading to more concrete conclusions that could be derived. Other possible avenues of research here would be looking into sentiment analysis, or co-word analysis to understand more fully how each of the blogs tackles various issues, and hence be able to document if the communication and tone changes over time, before and after Trump. The second case study looked at Muslim women on Instagram, and how they use fashion as an avenue to empower themselves. Through this chapter, the diversity of Muslim women fashionistas is explored, from the various themes they choose to explore, and more significantly to the diverse range of ways they choose to represent themselves, while staying within the confines of modesty. It also shows how the resistance here includes not only self- representation as resistance, but contesting ‘modesty’ as well. Hence it shows the struggles Muslim women face in Western contexts especially, to on the one hand the pressure to conform to Western norms of ‘beauty’ and ‘sexuality’ as a woman, and on the other hand as a

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Muslim woman combat the stereotype of the ‘submissive Muslim woman’, while dealing with internal patriarchy and pressure to comply to religious norms of modesty and clothing. It thus shows how Muslim women fashionistas on Instagram are able to map ‘Modesty’ out as a spectrum, as a journey from less to more, and hence seen in a more fluid fashion. While as mentioned, there have been many studies done with this particular subject matter, this research was informed by the specific lens of ‘resistance’ and ‘self-representation’. Further avenues of research could take many paths, but a potential idea would be to use more visual analysis tools, new tools such as Google Vision API’s to analyze more data, to get a wider sense of patterns within them. The final case study looks at Muslim women in sports. At the outset, women participating in sport is often an act of resistance, given that the field remains largely male-centric and male dominated. This particular case is largely exploratory, seeking to understand how Muslim women athletes are viewed by mainstream news media sources, and how this narrative differs when Muslim athletes represent themselves. This chapter then goes on to show that regarding Muslim female athletes, there often exists a hyper-focus in the media, on the hijab or headcover, as well as the drawbacks these women face to participation in sport; rather than on their athletic achievements. It also shows that though the counter-narrative constructed by advocacy organizations and blogs is fragmented at best, their efforts, added to the self- representation by Muslim female athletes on social media, lead to a more nuanced view of Muslim female athletes, that depict their identity as more complex than the labels of ‘Muslim’, ‘female’ and ‘athlete’ alone. Muslim women in sport is an under-researched topic, which means that the existing data and information available is limited. Nevertheless, as the case of the Nike Pro Hijab has shown, it has become a topic of rising interest, and hence the potential for fruitful further research exists. Given the limited nature of this chapter, an exhaustive list of News sources could not be used for example. Further research would look into using LexisNexis to draw out more detailed data. These case studies combined show that even within a small subset of fields (of which Sport and fashion function as just two elucidatory examples), Muslim women, despite occupying a vulnerable position in current times, due to religious and gendered discrimination; take up the

76 reins to combat reductive simplifications regarding their identity, and choose to express themselves and their identity in a myriad of different ways, reflective of their complex, fluid identities. This endeavor, it is argued however, would not be possible without the enabling and arguably democratizing space offered by digital mediums, and social networks. So though the efforts of Muslim women in varied Internet spaces are part of a large struggle to create counter-narratives Islamophobia, this thesis shows that in individualized, as well as collective ways, in traditionally feminine, to traditionally masculine spheres, from blogs to Instagram, Muslim women carve their own identities that move beyond associations to gender and faith alone.

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7. Appendix

From Chapter 2: Muslim women and Mapping the blogosphere

Master List of Muslim women bloggers: Category URL Traffic Lifestyle/ General http://muslimgirl.com/ 236.90K Lifestyle/ General http://www.altmuslimah.com/ 31.40K Feminism http://thefatalfeminist.com/ <5000 Feminism http://thesalafifeminist.blogspot.com <5000 Representation/ Resistance/ Feminism http://www.muslimahmediawatch.org/ <5000 Religion/ Parenting http://gildeddunya.com/ 17.50K Journal http://muslim-dreamer.blogspot.com/ <5000 Representation/ Resistance http://meandmyhijaab.wordpress.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/General http://caffeinatedmuslim.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ Parenting http://www.happymuslimah.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ Representation http://www.muslimahbloggers.com/ <5000 Religion/ Lifestyle http://themuslimahblogg.wordpress.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ General http://habibilifestyle.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ General/ Religion http://www.ummjohar.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ General/ Religion http://memuslima.com/ <5000 Beauty http://muslimahsmusings.blogspot.com <5000 Representation/ Resistance http://scottishmuslimah.com/ <5000 Representation/ Resistance http://www.muslimahmisunderstood.com/ <5000 Representation/ Resistance/ Feminism http://sobersecondlook.wordpress.com/ <5000 Feminism http://lifeofamuslimfeminist.wordpress.com/ <5000 Representation/ Resistance/ Feminism http://margariaziza.com/ <5000 Feminism http://musfem.wordpress.com/ <5000 Representation/ Resistance/ Feminism http://muslimreverie.wordpress.com/ <5000 Feminism http://ninjagirlpower.wordpress.com/ <5000

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Feminism/ Religion http://koonjblog.wordpress.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ Parenting/ Religion http://irumirshad.wordpress.com/ <5000 Religion/ Parenting http://www.themuslimahmommy.com/ <5000 Religion/ Parenting http://ayeina.com/ 11.10K Lifestyle/ Parenting/ Religion http://raisingyoungbelievers.wordpress.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ General http://themuslimahnetwork.com/ <5000 Lifestyle/ Fashion/ Beauty http://www.hijabtrendz.com/ 24.30K Lifestyle/ General http://www.sisters-magazine.com/ 68.50K Representation/ Resistance/ Religion http://www.igotitcovered.org/ <5000 Religion/ Lifestyle/ General http://www.habibihalaqas.org/ <5000 Beauty/ Fashion/ Lifestyle/ Religion http://www.dailyhijabi.com/ <5000 Intersectional Feminism/ Representation/ Resistance http://race-gender-faith.blogspot.com <5000 Representation/ Resistance http://muslim-women-exposed.blogspot.com <5000 Representation/ Resistance/ Lifestyle http://www.queenmehreen.com/ <5000 Representation/ Resistance/ Feminism http://biryaniforone.blogspot.com/ <5000 Representation/ Resistance/ Feminism http://5pillarsand6colours.wordpress.com/ <5000

Fig: Top sites, in descending order for the frequency of mentions for the word “Islamophobia”

Total Number of Results for Site "Islamophobia" muslimgirl.com 1300 altmuslimah.com 947 muslimreverie.wordpress.com 432 thefatalfeminist.com 431 muslimahmediawatch.org 370 margariaziza.com 34 koonjblog.wordpress.com 28 themuslimahnetwork.com 14

86 scottishmuslimah.com 12

5pillarsand6colours.wordpress.com 12 www.happymuslimah.com 11

Top sites, in descending order for the frequency of mentions for the word “Anti Muslim”

Site Total Number of Results for "Anti Muslim" altmuslimah.com 1400 muslimahmediawatch.org 99 muslimgirl.com 85 muslimreverie.wordpress.com 75 margariaziza.com 31 koonjblog.wordpress.com 23 caffeinatedmuslim.com 8 race-gender-faith.blogspot.com 6

Top sites, in descending order for the frequency of mentions for the word “Hate Speech”

Total Number of Results for "Hate Site Speech" muslimreverie.wordpress.com 59 themuslimahmommy.com 18 muslimahmediawatch.org 16 altmuslimah.com 15 muslimgirl.com 14

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From Chapter 3: Fashion as Resistance: Muslim Fashionistas on Instagram

Master List of Muslim fashion instagrammers Place of Handle Account Description Followers Posts Origin Covered? MUA & Blogger Turned Business Woman Top Beauty Influencer on Instagram LOVE to support artists Turn on Notifications   SNAPCHATREALHUDABEAUTY Not @hudabeauty www.hudabeauty.com 20,300,000 11,076 Dubai covered Creative Director of @dianpelangicom ••••••••••••• Brand Ambassador of @wardahbeauty @hijup @kopimantapABC Covered: @dianpelangi @les_georgettes_ind 4,800,000 4,111 Indonesia Hijab Promotion and business inquiries ↩ Not •[email protected] mentione Covered: @hijabfashion .com/submit 2,900,000 3,304 d Hijab GLOBAL BEAUTY EDUCATOR & new mommy! LA @dyfacademy TUTORIALS: ✨DressYourFaceLIVE.com✨ SNAP: Not @dressyourfa DYF-Tamanna For bookings & to shop mentione Not ce my products AllThingsDYF.com 2,600,000 3,086 d covered

Covered: @dalalid Fashion & Beauty, Kuwait 2,100,000 3,307 Kuwait Hijab A hybrid / • A blogger Ahmad's wife • Adam & Noah's mama : AsciaAKF : [email protected] : Covered:s Kuwait Ramadan Daily Vlog up now emi @ascia_akf youtu.be/eSd9SpMKkvc 2,100,000 3,378 Kuwait headwrap Modest Fashion Icon  Business & Collaborations  Covered:s [email protected] emi @dinatokio www.dinatorkia.co.uk 1,200,000 3,023 UK headwrap 23y/o- The Netherlands - Blogger - Snapchat : rubazai - Blog : Netherlan Covered: @hijabhills www.rubazai.com - Latest video  1,000,000 488 ds Hijab

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youtu.be/uiZQWCchiVY

HABIBA DA SILVA  Beauty, travel, lifestyle & fashion blogger My brand: @habibadasilva habibadasilva PR Covered: @lifelongperc [email protected] Loose ussion youtu.be/_tUfHaENMXE 692,000 2,299 UK Hijab British Indian Beauty & Fashion Founder of Pearl Daisy Cofounder Ardere Cosmetics My Scarf: pearl- @amenaoffici daisy.com  [email protected] Covered: al YouTuberwww.pearl-daisy.com 557,000 2,339 UK Hijab

@indahnadap discendo discimus Covered: uspita [email protected] 487,000 2,077 Indonesia Hijab Fashion and Lifestyle Blogger Newly Wed  | L&D RN | Texas SnapChat, YouTube: Withloveleena Email: @withloveleen [email protected]/Z Covered: a YhIHf 456,000 1,078 Texas Hijab Author Of Blogging Made Easy ❥ YouTube: Rumena Begum ❥ Snapchat: @Rumena_101 ❥ My App: Rumena Begum ❥ @rumena_10 [email protected] Not 1 www.rumenabegum.com/youtube 423,000 468 UK covered Fashion + Beauty Blogger | London, England | [email protected] ♥️| Founder of ⇣ Covered: @basma_k www.basmakcollection.com 396,000 919 UK Hijab/wrap I  layering. |  | USA  Founder & editor of SA.com  - updated weekly  : [email protected] NEW: @summeralba Evening Wear Round-Up✨ Covered: rcha summeralbarcha.com/style-tips 391,000 2,178 US Hijab New York, NY //Content creator & Covered:s social media maven// ➞ mariaalia emi @mariaalia ➞[email protected] ⠀ 355,000 1,097 Alabama headwrap

@hijabstylewo Hijabinspiration based in Germany  Covered: rld Business & Collaboration 308,000 213 Germany Hijab @sabinahann [email protected] Not Covered: an Snapchat: sabinahannan Youtube: 302,000 480 mentione Hijab/wrap

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sabinahannan d

Cuban/Turkish living in FL  Wife & Mother  Blogger, Hijab Stylist, Makeup Artist, Host, Modest Model @yazthespaz www.YazTheSpaz.com Turkey/ Covered: 89 youtu.be/lpLJ09-8aQQ 248,000 1856 US Hijab Influencer •Tunisian hijabi born and raised in Sweden• snap: hijabmuslim @mariammouf •YouTube: mariammoufid Tunisia/ Covered: id www.nouw.com/mariammoufid 242,000 523 Sweden Hijab Capturing modesty through the fashion @sincerelyma lens!  ✨Scarf Line ~ Houston, Covered: ryam www.cover33.com ✨Hijab Tutorial 228,000 710 Texas Hijab/wrap Founder of Chinutay&Co. YouTuber/Makeup/Lifestyle/Girl Boss Canada / U.K SHOP, Get Inspired www.chinutayco.com m.youtube.com/watch?v=VpC2SWSFi Canada/ Covered: @chinutay wY 194,000 890 UK Hijab/wrap Arab-American fashion/lifestyle blogger Muslim•Married   hebajay New York [email protected] Covered: @heba_jay youtu.be/KLCZqYwW9QE 163,000 1,046 US Hijab Leading US Hijab Brand New Hijabs Every Tuesday  hautehijabNYC Tag #HHSpottedClub in your HH Be you, beautiful  Shop Covered: @hautehijab Nowwww.hautehijab.com 158,000 1,506 US Hijab Stockholm / Moroccan / 23 / Modest Minimalist PR: [email protected] Latest @fashionwithf youtube video Morrocco Covered: aith youtu.be/3m9mrDf3zr0 141,000 1,010 / UK Hijab Nuha Egyptian-American Fashion • Lifestyle • YouTuber Proud owner of @devotedtots: [email protected] : @devotedlyyo devotedlyyours VA/DC  Last Egypt/ Covered: urs Videoyoutu.be/NvsiNP9BOf0 123,000 1,237 US Hijab Toronto SC: osobbeauty Inquiries: [email protected] Covered: @osobbeauty m 109,000 243 Toronto Hijab

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MUAD(M)V Bookings/PR Contact via email/DM Not #UMD20Snapchat:simone143ym mentione Covered: @_enimsay m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6n2FnsIq30 98,200 693 d headwrap Leading lady of my own life. The most fashionable Relationship Writer & Comic around. Looking for my @expirednfab MashAllahX10 Smooth sails, God Not ulous speed 76,000 891 US covered young sudanese gal who loves avocados & makes videos on the internet mgmt: [email protected] m.youtube.com/channel/UC- Sudan/ Covered: @shahdbatal 8xdGqE5wBME-VU5eOMyaQ 70,600 94 US headwrap Model (Select) | Public Speaker - contact: [email protected] @mariahidriss (UK) [email protected] (UAE) Covered: i youtu.be/1CJThRWoXt4 55,300 584 UK Hijab/wrap

collect beautiful New Covered: @sanias moments.simplycovered.blogspot.com 54,300 628 Jersey Hijab New Sobi Masood "Speak the truth even if York/ Covered: your voice shakes" New Loose @sobi1canobi [email protected] NYC/NJ 49,000 600 Jersey Hijab Video for #itemsMoMA --> https://vimeo.com/168028473www.han Covered: @hntaj atajima.com 40,800 283 UK headwrap Not mentione Covered: @rumastyles None 39,700 281 d Hijab/wrap Not [email protected] mentione Not @annieswift thestylemenu.com 31,800 591 d covered 20 | Blogger/YouTuber  Advertising & PR graduate  London  makeupbyhanss  PR & BOOKINGS: @makeupbyh [email protected]  Covered: anss SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL  23,500 197 UK Hijab Public Speaker | Fashion Influencer | Boutique Boss  Aesthètic Authority  @hassanah_p VA  DC LA  Hassanah19 PhD Los Covered: fh Student 18,600 991 Angeles Hijab

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[email protected] // Style + @Zahra_Sand Beauty + Life // California girl in California Not berg Chicago 13,900 2,100 / Chicago covered Shenanigans are my specialty. Made in America. Live with peace and love! ☪O E ✡ I S ✝ Be glad I'm not allowed to use magic outside @nyearmstron Hogwarts.www.youtube.com/user/Andi Covered: g runDesigns 11,900 760 US Hijab Political fashion blogger & organizer + Author & photographer, Tehran Streetstyle + Chicago-based angry Covered: Loose فارسیم افتضاح است daughter of immigrants @hodakatebi www.joojooazad.com 9,879 854 Iran Hijab San Diego // Los Angeles --cop it & @aboutthatwr rock it. #ATW snappy snap- Covered: ap reem.motaweh 7,768 790 California headwrap SnapChat thatgirlamira Yoga InstructorPersonal Trainer Louisville | Dubai |  Boston Not www.bethanybyogalifestyle.com/beaut mentione Not @thatgirlamira yandbliss 7,613 920 d covered

Canada's first Hijabi TV reality star  @rania.quresh Watch me on SAY YES TO THE Covered: i DRESS 7,241 319 Canada Hijab Egyptian|| Plym Uni A&F'18|| Troubled mind of an artist sc: Covered: @j.celandine joharamerjaycelandine.com 5,476 310 Egypt Hijab/wrap **New video every Thursday** SAG- AFTRA Actress/VO Artist Agent: Lily's Award winning journalist Pioneer hijab fashion bloggerwww.facebook.com/mariamsob Covered: @mariamsobh hfans/videos/1331085020306277 1,029 266 US Hijab

Somalia/ Covered: @sagaleeyaa London  www.sagaleeyaa.com 401 158k UK Hijab/wrap

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From Chapter 4: Veiling and Athletics: Viewing Muslim women in Sport

List of Western newspapers: nyt.com washingtonpost.com usatoday.com wsj.com latimes.com nydailynews.com nypost.com boston.com sfgate.co chicagotribune.com mail.co.uk msnbc.com cnn.com foxnews.com cbsnews.com bbc.co.uk

List of Middle Eastern newspapers: http://Alarabiya.net http://Aljazeera.com http://Memri.org http://Meed.com http://Ahlanlive.com http://Merip.org http://I-cias.com http://Aljadid.com http://Alhewar.com http://Middleeast.org http://English.globalarabnetwork.com http://Middleeastevents.com http://Menewsline.com http://Arabies.com http://Gulfinthemedia.com http://Arabnewsblog.net http://Bitterlemons.net

93 http://Meria.idc.ac.il http://Middleeastmediaguide.com http://Mideastdilemma.com http://Surf-as.org

List of Sports News sites: Espn.com Espncricinfo.com Cricbuzz.com Goal.com Nba.com Sports.yahoo.com Livescore.com Bbc.com/sport Strava.com Skysports.com Cbssports.com Nhl.com Bbc.com/sport/football Nbcsports.com Skysports.com/football Sbnation.com Si.com Foxsports.com Soccerway.com Fifa.com Eurosport.com Motorsport.com Football365.com Filgoal.com Rivals.com Tsn.ca Atpworldtour.com Givemesport.com