Challenging Stereotypes
Binish Maryam
MUSLIM WOMEN SPEAK: OF DREAMS AND SHACKLES by Ghazala Jamil Sage Publications, 2018, 216 pp., 625
September 2018, volume 42, No 9

The status of women in Muslim societies is a topic of active debate in recent times. The stereotypical impression of women in such societies is that of the oppressed and the subjugated. This oversimplified impression betrays an ignorance of reality. The variation in the status of women belonging to different societies and within a society has received little attention.

Based on extensive field-work from 23 urban and semi urban centers located in 12 States of India, Jamil explores the everyday realities and challenges of Muslim women’s life. The idea is to discover the ways these women who are identified as Muslims construct themselves in their personal narratives. The life stories of young Muslim women, their aspirations, their fears, and their point of view need critical exploration. The interactions in the book highlight that the Muslim women are victims of multiple layers of the patriarchal structure, first at the family level, second at the community level and finally in relation with the state. The objective is to understand what kind of action will improve Muslim women’s lives and why their own voices need to become the centre of inquiry. The methodology adopted by the author in the book gives a new perspective to the question of Muslim women in India. This work emphasizes the importance of the narrative approach as most of the empirical work done on Muslim women has been quantitative in nature where the minority women are reduced to statistics and numbers in the tables to analyse the growth of the community. Marginalization felt by young Muslim women often remains unarticulated. Jamil rightly points out that the much discussed lack of voice among Muslim women in research is only the lack of will to listen among researchers. The idea here is to challenge the silence and invisibility of Muslim women from the existing discourses. Therefore she advocates the need for an alternative approach to research which would make an attempt to let Muslim women register their voice. In-depth interviews, group discussions and observational narratives are used by the researcher to understand the lived realities of the Muslim women. The aim is to provide an opportunity to thousands of Muslim women to be heard and not just be counted.

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