Muslim Women Challenges

Challenges and Obstacles Faced by Muslim Women

Throughout the years, various academics have already written about the several manifestations of challenges which are being faced by Muslim women in the Western world. The same can be said in the case of Muslim women within the Muslim world. Although it can be seen that there is already some great progress which has been made in order to raise women-related issues in both contexts, these challenges and obstacles are still very relevant in the current context of society because of the impact that they give to Muslim women. In both Western and Muslim world contexts, Muslim women inevitably experience various obstacles and challenges that shape the course of their lives. However, regardless of the

Some people might have a tendency to think that Muslim women have a greater tendency to become repressed because they chose Islam as a religion. Nevertheless, a full understanding of Islam would entail the process of understanding that it actually propagates positive ideas such as equality. Al-Hibri asserts that “some customs that conflicted with Islamic tenets increasingly found their way into the laws of various Muslim countries. Even today, many countries that claim to be following Islamic law often use religion to justify repugnant laws that are really based on custom (41).” The mere fact that the religion is mistaken as a source of their oppression is already another challenge faced by Muslim women in the current context because they are more susceptible to discrimination and prejudice.

Aside from the issue of marriage, divorce, and religion within Muslim societies, another evident challenge faced by Muslim women include limited opportunities. Some Muslim women are being locked inside their houses mainly because they are perceived as individuals who should focus on child-bearing instead of pursuing their target careers for establishing a better future for themselves. However, some Muslim women also try to break away from this chain by pursuing higher education in order to assert their own personal

This problem can be seen even with Muslim women's clothing choices. In her article regarding the experiences of Muslim-American women in the United States, Seeren Karasu mentions that “Muslim-American women’s tendencies to internalize expectations associated with wearing the Hijab or not cause different conflicts, both internally and throughout their communities. Muslim-American women struggle with what it means to be Muslim enough within their own communities in relation to overt markers of their religious identities (1).” In other words, Muslim women are constantly being subjected into a problematic position regardless of their personal choices regarding their clothes. For instance, when a Muslim woman chooses to wear traditional clothes such as the Hijab, it might be viewed as a representation of true Islamic identity by some although other people have the tendency to believe that this woman is being oppressed by her religion because she was not given the choice to choose what she wears. On the other hand, when a Muslim woman chooses not to wear Hijab, other people might applaud her for being liberated from Muslim standards although some people might frown upon this choice because she no longer represents a traditional Muslim woman. However, what most people fail to recognize about this issue is the personal choice of