#UsToo: How antisemitism and Islamophobia make reporting sexual misconduct and abuse of power harder for Jewish and Muslim women
Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from film sets and office buildings to college campuses and religious communities.
- Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from film sets and office buildings to college campuses and religious communities.
- Many articles about #MeToo and religion focus on large churches, such as the Southern Baptist Convention – spaces that are mostly white and Christian.
- These women face added challenges when they break the silence around sexual misconduct and abuse of power, as I document in my book “#UsToo.” Many Jewish and Muslim women of color navigate three kinds of oppression simultaneously: sexism, racism and antisemitism or Islamophobia.
’Dirty laundry’
- This problem is not exclusive to Jewish or Muslim communities but rather a general problem for all subcultures.
- Publicly airing communal “dirty laundry” is seen as precarious, both for the individual and for the ethnoreligious group.
- Jewish and Muslim women in the United States are diverse, from different levels of religious observance to ethnic identity.
Risks of silence and interdependence
- The insularity, sense of connection and interdependence within some minority communities can be conducive to abuses of power.
- Word spread quickly in the Jewish community, and other women came out of the woodwork about his behavior.
- Sacred Spaces, incorporated in 2016, is another organization that brings Jewish values to its work addressing and preventing abuse.
Walking a tightrope
- Nevertheless, some Muslim women affected by sexual misconduct have been working for years to bring it out of the communal closet and into the public eye.
- Many of the women I interviewed live on a tightrope: calling out the patriarchy and sexual misconduct they experienced, while defending their community against anti-Muslim stereotypes.
- HEART, a sexual health and reproductive justice organization founded in 2009, offers education and resources to discuss sexual relationships and violence.
- Despite this progress, many Jewish and Muslim women are still apprehensive about reporting coreligionists, as are women in larger Christian communities.