What do you think?
Rate this book
The Face Behind The Veil
Presents the lives and accomplishments of individual Muslim women living in the United States, discussing their roles as mothers, social workers, business executives, doctors, teachers, and human rights advocates.
299 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2006
20 people are currently reading
690 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 11, 2010
Where to begin? Let's start with the obvious: the cover design. Now, I realize authors generally have no control over the cover designs of their books, so I'm not criticizing Donna Gehrke-White, but I am criticizing her publisher. I was embarrassed to take this book out in public due to the borderline racist (or maybe not so borderline? Am I being too nice or too sensitive here?) cover design -- a woman, fully veiled save her heavily-lined eyes and gaudily bejeweled hand. If the publishers wanted to portray Gehrke-White's book as a serious piece of journalism, they have failed miserably. An exotic, sexual woman peering out at us from behind her veil with her heavily made up eyes and gaudy jewelry? Please. Is this the image of Muslim women in America? Is this what Americans think Muslim women look like? Ugh. Did the publisher read the book at all? If they had, they would have learned that most Muslim women in America do not wear this type of covering. In fact, many Muslim women in America don't wear any veil at all! Why not put something like that on the cover, Citadel Publishing?
I also have issues with the title The Face Behind the Veil: The Extraordinary Lives of Muslim Women in America. I'm curious as to how much control Gehrke-White had over the title, too, because the book isn't as sensationalist as the cover design and title would make you believe. Let's deconstruct the title. The face behind the veil. In this phrase, Muslim women in America are reduced to 1)the assumption that they all wear the veil, which is NOT true; and 2)a body part -- a face. Instead of being a whole person, a woman, a human, they are only faces. (Sure, I'm probably reading too much into this, but, hey, I was an English major.) It's frustrating that a book about Muslim women in America has to come down to the veil issue, as if the veil is what makes a Muslim woman or that it's the only issue of importance to Muslim women. In fact, many of the women in the book talk about how they wish everyone would just get over the veil issue because, as they say, there are more important issues that need to be discussed.
The extraordinary lives of Muslim women in America. I'm not going to argue that every life isn't extraordinary, but I felt as if part of the book's purpose was to show us that Muslim women in America are normal people. They're not all crazy religious or terrorists. They have lives, children, partners, jobs. They go to work, raise families, go to the grocery store, etc. They're normal people! Now I'm not trying to downplay many of these women's experiences or lives b/c many of them have been through some horrific conditions and it would be cruel to downplay their strengths or their stories. My point is that Muslim women in America are people and should be treated as such, not as exotic, abused, oppressed creatures.
Moving along, the actual book itself is pretty good. Gehrke-White shares the stories of a very wide span of Muslim women in America, ensuring the reader understands Muslim women in America aren't all the same, have many different experiences, are of all races/ethnicities, etc. It does get a little bit long simply because there are so many different women profiled, but, again, that's the point of the book -- there is no one definition of a Muslim woman.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, but I would encourage people to think critically about the cover design and title. I'd probably also encourage them to supplement their reading with other books about Muslim women in America, such as Living Out Loud.
I also have issues with the title The Face Behind the Veil: The Extraordinary Lives of Muslim Women in America. I'm curious as to how much control Gehrke-White had over the title, too, because the book isn't as sensationalist as the cover design and title would make you believe. Let's deconstruct the title. The face behind the veil. In this phrase, Muslim women in America are reduced to 1)the assumption that they all wear the veil, which is NOT true; and 2)a body part -- a face. Instead of being a whole person, a woman, a human, they are only faces. (Sure, I'm probably reading too much into this, but, hey, I was an English major.) It's frustrating that a book about Muslim women in America has to come down to the veil issue, as if the veil is what makes a Muslim woman or that it's the only issue of importance to Muslim women. In fact, many of the women in the book talk about how they wish everyone would just get over the veil issue because, as they say, there are more important issues that need to be discussed.
The extraordinary lives of Muslim women in America. I'm not going to argue that every life isn't extraordinary, but I felt as if part of the book's purpose was to show us that Muslim women in America are normal people. They're not all crazy religious or terrorists. They have lives, children, partners, jobs. They go to work, raise families, go to the grocery store, etc. They're normal people! Now I'm not trying to downplay many of these women's experiences or lives b/c many of them have been through some horrific conditions and it would be cruel to downplay their strengths or their stories. My point is that Muslim women in America are people and should be treated as such, not as exotic, abused, oppressed creatures.
Moving along, the actual book itself is pretty good. Gehrke-White shares the stories of a very wide span of Muslim women in America, ensuring the reader understands Muslim women in America aren't all the same, have many different experiences, are of all races/ethnicities, etc. It does get a little bit long simply because there are so many different women profiled, but, again, that's the point of the book -- there is no one definition of a Muslim woman.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, but I would encourage people to think critically about the cover design and title. I'd probably also encourage them to supplement their reading with other books about Muslim women in America, such as Living Out Loud.
May 29, 2013
Book #12 from the LFL: I really thought this would be an interesting, educational read. But, no. Imagine People Magazine doing vignettes on Muslim Women in America; you'll get very little depth, a superficial title and nothing that challenges your mind.
The author tells the story if a different Muslim woman each chapter. The only underlying theme is their religion, even if loosely practiced. After 120 pages and some 50 or so women, I didn't care. The stories were dull, not enlightening to someone who wanted to learn more about Islam and as if the author just selected every Muslim woman she could find, regardless if there was anything of interest there, and wrote about her.
The author tells the story if a different Muslim woman each chapter. The only underlying theme is their religion, even if loosely practiced. After 120 pages and some 50 or so women, I didn't care. The stories were dull, not enlightening to someone who wanted to learn more about Islam and as if the author just selected every Muslim woman she could find, regardless if there was anything of interest there, and wrote about her.
May 6, 2011
One of the better and less biased books I've read about Muslims. Great for anyone looking for an account about modern American Muslims.
Read
June 17, 2020The Face Behind the Veil, by Donna Gehrke-White, is a book about the different experiences of Muslim women living in America. Throughout the book there are multiple mini-biographies about different Muslim women who come from a variety of backgrounds including the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe, as well as women born in the United States and raised as Chrisitans that converted to Islam later on in life. Not only does it give stories about the origins of these women and how feel about their faith, it also addresses each woman's feelings about wearing the traditional hijab, or head scarf, on a day-to-day basis. Through reading the separate accounts, it is apparent that the women's opinions of the hijab are as varied as their backgrounds. The combination of background history and each woman's opinioin regarding Muslim tradition gives a well-rounded account of the female Muslim experience in America.
This book directly relates to my service in that I work with Muslim women every day at the WorkForce Center. Before reading this book, I had never really learned about Islam from a woman's perspective, and have always wondered their feelings related to wearing a hijab in public, especially in a country where women are not required to do so. In reading the different accounts of these women, I really learned a lot about what the hijab symbolizes to them, and how in many cases, the act of wearing it makes them feel closer to Allah. I had previously been under the extremely incorrect impression that wearing the hijab was more of a cultural practice and requirement as a Muslim woman as opposed to a spiritual practice and personal choice. It really opened my eyes and helped me understand the connection and importance of it to many Muslim womens' spirituality.
I learned a lot from reading this book, however it did feel a bit superficial and repetative at times. There were so many different women's stories in the book, that I felt as though the author could have chosen less women to write about, and instead gone deeper into each person's personal story, and it would have been more beneficial to me as a reader. I feel that there are probably other books out there that would have done a little bit better job making a connection between the reader and the personal stories, and so I would not necessarily recommend this specific book to other people (but I would recommend the topic--super interesting!).
This book directly relates to my service in that I work with Muslim women every day at the WorkForce Center. Before reading this book, I had never really learned about Islam from a woman's perspective, and have always wondered their feelings related to wearing a hijab in public, especially in a country where women are not required to do so. In reading the different accounts of these women, I really learned a lot about what the hijab symbolizes to them, and how in many cases, the act of wearing it makes them feel closer to Allah. I had previously been under the extremely incorrect impression that wearing the hijab was more of a cultural practice and requirement as a Muslim woman as opposed to a spiritual practice and personal choice. It really opened my eyes and helped me understand the connection and importance of it to many Muslim womens' spirituality.
I learned a lot from reading this book, however it did feel a bit superficial and repetative at times. There were so many different women's stories in the book, that I felt as though the author could have chosen less women to write about, and instead gone deeper into each person's personal story, and it would have been more beneficial to me as a reader. I feel that there are probably other books out there that would have done a little bit better job making a connection between the reader and the personal stories, and so I would not necessarily recommend this specific book to other people (but I would recommend the topic--super interesting!).
October 26, 2009
Definitely an interesting book, but not a particularly well-written one. A series of short biographies of American women and their relationship to Islam. Some women are American converts, others are immigrants, others are women who have left Islam for various reasons.
Each woman has a valuable and unique story that I enjoyed reading. Some women's stories are linked - mothers and daughters, friends, or members of the same community. Every perspective opens up another window to Islam in America, most of which I had never considered.
I found the women who are melding their previous culture to a new religion to be the most interesting. Latinas from a Catholic tradition, or a Japanese-American from the South are not women I would have considered as Muslims, nor is it a transition I expect was easy.
With such interesting women, it seems that the author struggled to get everything in. Each woman's story is so short that they start to sound a little repetitive. It's like a Who's Who of Muslim women and the book suffers for it. Rather than pulling the stories together and reflecting on the power of these experiences, the author takes the easy way out by piling short essays one after another. The reader is left to do the comparison, but without the breadth of knowledge of these women that the author has.
The book shares unique perspectives, but there are other books about women in Islam that I've found much more interesting. This is the first book I've read about American women, but it was not so compelling that I'd recommend it over other better books that reflect similar circumstances. Without a decent knowledge of some of these issues (veiling, women's rights) in other contexts and countries, I'm not sure this book would have had much value.
Each woman has a valuable and unique story that I enjoyed reading. Some women's stories are linked - mothers and daughters, friends, or members of the same community. Every perspective opens up another window to Islam in America, most of which I had never considered.
I found the women who are melding their previous culture to a new religion to be the most interesting. Latinas from a Catholic tradition, or a Japanese-American from the South are not women I would have considered as Muslims, nor is it a transition I expect was easy.
With such interesting women, it seems that the author struggled to get everything in. Each woman's story is so short that they start to sound a little repetitive. It's like a Who's Who of Muslim women and the book suffers for it. Rather than pulling the stories together and reflecting on the power of these experiences, the author takes the easy way out by piling short essays one after another. The reader is left to do the comparison, but without the breadth of knowledge of these women that the author has.
The book shares unique perspectives, but there are other books about women in Islam that I've found much more interesting. This is the first book I've read about American women, but it was not so compelling that I'd recommend it over other better books that reflect similar circumstances. Without a decent knowledge of some of these issues (veiling, women's rights) in other contexts and countries, I'm not sure this book would have had much value.
April 23, 2011
A complete chore to finish, don't know what I expected, but I felt like I was getting a 'la di da' facebook page for each of these women. Another reviewer mentioned that it may have been better if the author stuck to one biography per category, and was able to get a little more depth...that may have helped. We would get these broad statements such as that "Islam supports education for women", but where is that taught? how? We are given no supporting text. But what we see in Islamist countries is the exact opposite.
The worst example, for me, was the chapter about Laila...and the paragraph about how the Zionist Organization of America protested her appointment to the State Dept's Commission on International Religious Freedom. The book never told us what Laila actually said, only that she 'wanted to introduce a sense of balance'....soooo...what did she say? What were her words that the group objected to?
All I can say, in the end, this is a further example of how great a country the United States is. Where these women can live as their own conscious dictates.
The worst example, for me, was the chapter about Laila...and the paragraph about how the Zionist Organization of America protested her appointment to the State Dept's Commission on International Religious Freedom. The book never told us what Laila actually said, only that she 'wanted to introduce a sense of balance'....soooo...what did she say? What were her words that the group objected to?
All I can say, in the end, this is a further example of how great a country the United States is. Where these women can live as their own conscious dictates.
July 3, 2008
Although Gehrke-White did a good job presenting a very unbiased portrait of Muslim women in America, with every chapter telling the separate life story of a Muslim woman, they tend to get really repetitive. I honestly think I would have liked this book a lot more if she had picked maybe five or six "typical" stories and gone into more depth with them.
April 28, 2011
i just finished reading this book and i have to do a project about it in my English class
as Muslim girl
i loved this book its my top 10 books that i have read and i love how she compared the women girl was Michaela Corning who is fashion designer... i have love book that's all i can say... love it love it!! :)
as Muslim girl
i loved this book its my top 10 books that i have read and i love how she compared the women girl was Michaela Corning who is fashion designer... i have love book that's all i can say... love it love it!! :)
January 25, 2010
The cover doesn't do justice to this book. It was fascinating reading about contemporary Muslim American women and their lives. The author did a fair job in representing Muslim women as multi-dimensional. There were only 2 stories I found issues with but overall a good read.
Read
June 1, 2011Great read on American Musalimahs. Amazing bios on Muslim women from all walks of life by a highly qualified journalist who is also a very fluid and engaging author.
I read some of the stories all the way through, and many I skimmed.
I read some of the stories all the way through, and many I skimmed.
February 5, 2012
Some very interesting women are discussed. Though, I found, that the author spent too little time on the uneducated class of Muslim women, and more on the educated that had come from families where education was able to be afforded.
March 2, 2014
A very inspiring journey of American Moslem women. This book will show us how women really struggle to be a good agent of change in the country that is so biased toward Islam. Education is always the center of their struggle !
April 25, 2008
Good collections of short memoirs.
Eye-opening.
Eye-opening.
June 26, 2008
It is a very easy read which made me long for more depth. I felt it was repetitive as well. I learned a bit.
Read
November 6, 2012loved it
March 6, 2013
Interesting and enlightening. An excellent opportunity to learn the truth about muslim women.
Read
May 4, 2019awesome
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews