Voicing Resistance, Sharing Struggle: Muslim Women Facing Canadian Gender, Race, and Ethnic Oppression

Abstract

This chapter proposes to identify the difficulties faced by Canadian women of Muslim culture in the job market and the effects of “ethnic” speech that they are subject to upon their inclusion in this environment.¹ Whether they were born in Canada or have come to it while they were young or during adulthood, Canadian women of Muslim culture are confronted more often with speeches that lock them into a single identity space to which they are supposed to belong without distinction. Beyond ethnic categories by which they are designated, as well as from other women (they or their families) of southern societies, Canadian Muslims are aware of being placed in a separate category; they are marked as being of a specific difference in the overall difference. This category takes shape in the social representation that is particularly given to them and that characterizes them collectively. They are also aware of the growing marginality to which these categorizations push them and of the symbolic boundary that separates them not only from the majority group but also from other minority groups ethnicized/racialized or not. The social representations and categorizations they are designated by constitute an additional obstacle for them and make them a target group that is particularly vulnerable to racism.