ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the literature on gender policing, gender-based violence, and hegemonic masculinity, and finds that the literature supports the proposition that Muslim women who cover their hair and bodies stand as affronts to hegemonic masculinity and femininity. The foundation of hegemonic masculinity is the taken-for-granted right to experience heterosexual desire, which is built upon binary notions of male–female difference and the complementary character of femininity and masculinity. Assaults on persons who defy these norms are considered acts of gender-based violence. Dominant Western feminist discourses have emerged from the position of white privilege and centered patriarchy as the primary obstacle to women’s freedom. Assaults and harassment of women in hijab are anti-Muslim acts, but they are also acts of hegemonic gender policing, and gender-based violence. Racism/racialization, hegemonic notions of femininity, white privilege, and empire are interrelated, and all reveal themselves in attacks on women in hijab.
