The elusive weight of gendered Islamophobia: “It’s actually really hard being a Muslim woman sometimes, it’s really mentally draining”

This study analyses how Muslim women in the north of England convey their experiences of subtle gendered Islamophobic microaggressions as an ‘elusive weight’. Employing a narrative thematic analysis of extended interviews with eight Muslim women, our analysis foregrounds the affective dimensions of these experiences by focusing on the metaphors and narrative strategies through which gendered Islamophobia is articulated as a simultaneously heavy and elusive force, acting as a weight or pressure on the subject and as a spatial obstacle that ‘draws lines’ and orders bodies. These narratives demonstrate that, despite their subtlety, Islamophobic microaggressions are as ‘weighty’ as overt discrimination, requiring significant mental and emotional energy to disentangle. External acknowledgement of harm and pain was key to resolving the paradox of elusive weight, enabling women to process their experiences as ‘real’ when they were recognised as such by others. This study highlights the importance of listening not only to what Muslim women say about gendered Islamophobia, but also how they say it, deepening our understanding of its impact and recognising the psychological and emotional burdens imposed by subtle forms of discrimination.