The unspoken truth about attacks on Muslims? Men are targeting women and girls

When abuse against women and girls occurs because they are women and girls, Australia takes it seriously.

Not perfectly – data from Our Watch shows gender-based abuse in Australia remains widespread and shocking – but there is political and public recognition of the problem. The federal government has invested billions in funding, launched royal commissions, ad campaigns, and school programs.

Women and girls now make up the majority of reported Islamophobic incidents in Australia.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

We understand that gender-based abuse encompasses physical, verbal, sexual, psychological, and financial abuse. We rightly see targeting women because they are women as abhorrent. “We must act to ensure women are safe,” declared Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

How, then, to understand these reports from women?

“When I was walking into the train station, a man said to me ‘I’ll rip that scarf off your head and smash your head and rape you.’”

“I was walking with my children in Westfield when a man and his friend walked right up to me and spat on me. I asked him why he spat on me, and he said, ‘Because you are Muslim.’ I was terrified.”

“I was getting ready to take my children out for a walk. A man came towards me and attempted to lunge at me. He said, ‘You f---ing Muslims. You f---ing black Muslim refugee. You are all f---ing bad.’ I got scared and ran into the house and locked the door. He came to the door and banged on it. He had a wine bottle and some gas containers.”

“I was waiting for the bus. Suddenly, my hijab was pulled off from the back. I saw a man in his 30s walking away while looking back at me. After two minutes, a lady approached me asking whether I was OK. I cried straight away.”

At face value, these are episodes of the pernicious rise in Islamophobia, as documented in the latest Islamophobia in Australia report. The fifth annual report, released today, found that Islamophobic attacks in Australia are, by and large, attacks on women and girls.

Between the start of 2023 and the end of 2024, 675 reports were made in total, with Muslim women and girls the victims in 75 per cent of these reported Islamophobic incidents. This gendered element to victimisation is not a recent aberration; a decade’s worth of reporting shows that it is baked in. Muslim women and girls constitute 95 per cent of the victims of reported Islamophobic incidents on public transport, 74 per cent of incidents at shops, and 100 per cent of spitting incidents. They reported more than three times the number of incidents at workplaces than men, made up 79 per cent of verbal abuse victims, and 60 per cent of the victims of physical abuse.

Men and boys were reported to be the perpetrators of three-quarters of these attacks against Muslim women. Compared to general crime, where Australian males are nearly twice as likely as females to be physically assaulted by strangers, and more likely to be threatened by a stranger, it is significant that female Muslims are much more likely to be assaulted and threatened by strangers than Muslim men.

Overall crime statistics show both threats and assaults by strangers have decreased in Australia generally since 2008, helped in part by the campaign rebranding the “king hit” as the “coward’s punch” and tighter sentencing. This suggests well-resourced public campaigns to change community sentiment and tougher consequences can make a difference.

While the visibility of Muslim women (many of whom wear religious clothing) plays a role in their targeting, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Muslim men also reported Islamophobic abuse about their robes, prayer caps, and beards. Muslim women and girls, stereotyped in Western society as oppressed, submissive, and voiceless, are perhaps targeted because these stereotypes make them seem an easy, passive target. Ironically then, Islamophobic stereotypes may facilitate more attacks against Muslim women.

Our Watch states that gender stereotypes are a key driver of abuse against women. So, if stereotypical gendered attitudes about Muslim women contribute to their disproportionate targeting, this supports viewing Islamophobia as a type of gender-based abuse.

Saturday marks the UN International Day to Combat Islamophobia, created after the 2019 terrorist attacks on two New Zealand mosques by an Australian. Rates of Islamophobia in Australia are higher now than they were then.

As the prime minister said last year, “We must act to ensure women are safe.” Given the gendered nature of so much Islamophobia, can we extend that action to Muslim women, too?

Dr Susan Carland is a sociologist of religion at Monash University and a board member of the Islamophobia Register Australia.

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