Family, Work, Sisterhood

Abstract

In this chapter I resume the discussion about the women’s various experiences of relationships and how they negotiate their Muslim identity externally and the impact it has on their self-understanding. I begin with a discussion about some of the strategies used by the women to offset widespread assumptions about the “Muslim woman.” With particular focus on three significant contexts, that of the interactions with family, employers, and other women and Muslim sisters, this chapter continues to demonstrate the tension between the convert’s self-understanding and how she is perceived by others, and between the desire to be recognized as the same and as changed simultaneously. These encounters illustrate the converts as “moving targets,” setting in motion looping effects of what it means to be a Muslim woman.