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Arab Americans and Gender: Gendered Ethnic Identity

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Biopsychosocial Perspectives on Arab Americans

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Abstract

This chapter explores categories that significantly shape Arab American gender identity and gender experiences: immigration, ethnicity and race, family and kinship structures, religion, and politics of sexuality. The discussion of sexuality includes heteronormative gender expectations of Arab American women’s sexuality defined using concepts of virginity, reputation, and family honor. The discussion of sexual minority identity further illustrates the challenges of ethnic/racial identities to sexual identity, as well as the invisibility of the LGBTQ+ Arab American community within the larger Arab American population and mainstream LGBTQ+ US community. The chapter then presents data from the US Census Bureau on Arab American socioeconomic characteristics, family structures, and education and employment and explores the paradox of Arab American women’s engagement in the public sphere through the inverse association between educational attainment and labor force participation. The chapter further presents a discussion of how the effects of discrimination and identification of race and ethnicity have serious implications for the physical and mental health of Arab Americans, including women and LGBTQ+ individuals. The chapter concludes with suggestions for health practitioners when working with the Arab American population, including women and LGBTQ+ Arab Americans.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    To access 2015 ACS 5-year data tables B01001, B13002, B01002, and B15002 and to access 2019 ACS 1-year data Selected Profile Table (S0201), visit https://data.census.gov/cedsci/advanced, and look for tables by number for code 504 – Arab (All groups). For subgroups, look up the group by name.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Irvine, Redlands, CA, USA

    Nicole Khoury

  2. Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Rita Stephan

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  1. Nicole Khoury
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  2. Rita Stephan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ELPHD Department Counseling & Counselor Education, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Sylvia C. Nassar

  2. Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, USA

    Kristine J. Ajrouch

  3. School of Health Sciences, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Florence J. Dallo

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada

    Julie Hakim-Larson

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Khoury, N., Stephan, R. (2023). Arab Americans and Gender: Gendered Ethnic Identity. In: Nassar, S.C., Ajrouch, K.J., Dallo, F.J., Hakim-Larson, J. (eds) Biopsychosocial Perspectives on Arab Americans. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28360-4_4

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