Stereotypes Of Islamic Women Essay

With media vilification, Australian Muslim women are assumed to be uneducated and incompetent that provides a barrier for their daily lives. As a consequence of terrorist groups and events, the Australian media began admonishing the actions of people who prevent female education and present their opinions as the cultural norm (AMWHR, 2011). Thus, emulating a stereotype that Muslim women are deprived of educational rights ‘as declared’ by Islam. For example, Australian Liberal Senator, Eric Abetz believes that Muslim communities consider female education as a “crime” (Reynolds, 2016) and that they live “boring and restricted lives” (Panahi, 2015). However, Muslim women are encouraged to be educated as the hadith professes: “Seeking knowledge …show more content…
(Saeed, 2003, p. 176). According to Hena, an Australian Muslim engineer, “[her] religion certainly has not hindered [her] profession and career” (Saeed, 2003, p. 179). Rather, media stereotypes which perpetuate Islamophobia contribute to the workplace and school discriminations. Firstly, Australian Muslim women experience the highest unemployment rate of 12.%, despite acquiring the third highest university degrees of 23.9% compared to other major religions (Rodgers, 2015). Undeniably, Muslims are suffering from an ‘institutionalised discrimination’, in which they are criticised by the Australian labour market for being Muslims (Rodgers, 2015). They are also “spoken down to” (Saeed, 2003, p. 182), despite the fact that 40% of Muslims are Australian born (Krayem, 2010) as it is based on the stereotype that Muslims are inept migrants. Even in secular societies, gender inequality has existed as part of the Australian history and culture. Whereas early Islamic communities recognised the importance of women in the fields of medicine, teaching, literature and religion purely for the benefit of