are veiled and most unveiled women are Copts, it is
easy to single out Coptic women in the public
arena. While Coptic men dress similarly to their
Muslim counterparts and therefore blend in more
easily, Coptic women consistently complain of
daily harassment and discrimination, particularly
in densely populated urban centers such as Cairo,
Alexandria, and Asyut. As there are increasingly
fewer Muslim women going about unveiled, Coptic
women are harassed because they are perceived as
being “immodest” and because, as Christians, they
are acting against Islamic prescripts on gender
roles.
The second facet affecting Coptic women is
shaped by their role within the church. In general,
the day-to-day problems of Copts and Muslims in
Egypt are similar. In the face of economic hardships
and burdensome societal demands, both communi-
ties have turned to religion to find answers and
communal support. As a consequence of their
minority status and because society does not wholly
condone their public expression of Christianity,
women have found new roles in the confines of the
Coptic Church. Today, Coptic women are active as
Sunday school teachers, religious mentors, and vol-
unteers (khuddàm). However, the religious conser-
vatism that has affected the Muslim community at
large has similarly shaped the teachings of current
Coptic clerical leaders in ways that have hampered
the role of Coptic women. Within the church, a
plethora of books, pamphlets, articles, and ser-
mons address women on the codes for proper and
improper behavior within the community and offer
role models in the form of “virgin-saints” or ideal-
ized married women. For years, the Coptic Church
has tied the role of “wife-mother” to the advance-
ment and survival of the Coptic minority. Policing
young women and instructing them on how to raise
loyal members of the community has become a
central duty of Coptic priests. Some women have
rejected marriage and the perceived loss of their
independence, resorting instead to Coptic convents
where they serve as nuns. But there are groups of
women who have sought another alternative: these
women have realized, as one scholar writes, that
“education, access to paid work, and especially the
possibilities of being active in the church, constitute
alternatives for self realization” (Thorbjørnsrud
1997, 187). This situation has created a dilemma
for Coptic church leaders: while the church relies
upon the community service provided by unmar-
ried female khuddàm, it also sees itself as the insti-
tution that has the power to sustain the Coptic
minority’s reproductive future – a future increas-
ingly threatened by sectarian tensions – by influ-
the united states 721encing women in their marriage decisions and in
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≠A. Zaki, Al-mar±a fìal-kanìsa al-Mißriyya, Cairo 1995.Febe ArmaniosThe United StatesWomen from among the roughly six million
Muslims living in the United States represent
diverse sectarian, ethnic, cultural, educational and
class backgrounds. Thus it is difficult to generalize
about one gender structure in Islamic communities,
or what constitutes normative roles for women, in-
forming their self-image, religious beliefs and prac-
tices, and their relations with men. It is important
to distinguish among members of any of the branches
or sectarian groups of Islam between those who are
self consciously practicing Muslim women, either
in mosques or other institutions, and those who are
secular and generally non-practicing. Sometimes
secular Muslim women of diverse sectarian back-
grounds are actually more active and collaborative
in professional circles or groups as a way of net-
working than are those who are more religiously
observant. This entry highlights some sociological
and historical features pertaining mainly to reli-
giously observant women.
Under the rubric “Muslim” and “Islamic” lie
numerous diverse and at times antagonistic groups
and sects. Differences in religious consciousness