How Positionality Relative to Cultural Hegemony Shapes Anti-Violence Activism in Religious Communities

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Positionality relative to cultural hegemony impacts the definition of authority, and by extension, pathways to advocacy. Religious hegemony does not merely determine who can speak with authority; it fundamentally shapes what authority itself can mean. Christian advocates, operating within the hegemonic center, access institutional, transmitted, and state-recognized forms of authority unavailable to those outside this frame. Muslim advocates, positioned as a religious minority, must construct authority through alternative mechanisms: scholarly reputation, community performance, and the strategic “production of tradition” all while navigating the dual constraints of internal community legitimacy and external mainstream acceptability. Hegemony centers the default; advocacy can be individual without bearing the burden of representation, criticism can be internal without being trapped by the double bind, and authority is an established normal rather than something that must be fought for.

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Hegemony as Invisibility: The Unspoken Authority of the Default

Hegemony operates not through explicit domination but through naturalization: the process by which particular practices, institutions, and frameworks become invisible as “just the way things are.” Christianity’s hegemonic position in America means that Christian institutional forms, theological assumptions, and organizational structures function as the unmarked default against which all other religious expressions are measured; centering must inherently other everything else. Paul Kivel’s concept of “secular Christian dominance” captures this dynamic precisely: Christian practices appear neutral rather than religious. The Sunday sabbath structures the American work week without being recognized as Christian; “church/state separation” terminology assumes the church as the paradigm religious institution; holiday schedules center Christmas and Easter as cultural rather than sectarian observances. These are not conscious intrusions upon the cultural consciousness but naturalized assumptions that dominate the American way of life ¹.

Invisibility Becomes Authority

When hegemony renders itself invisible, it simultaneously renders itself unchallengeable. The unmarked default requires no justification; it simply is. This invisibility translates directly into authority within gender-based violence advocacy. When Rev. Marie Fortune, founder of FaithTrust Institute and graduate of Yale Divinity School, provides domestic violence training, her Christian theological background reads as professional qualification rather than sectarian perspective. When Muslim advocates offer Islamic perspectives on the same issues, religious identity becomes a marked exception requiring explanation and defense. Fortune’s organization received Department of Justice funding in 1979 because federal officials naturally recognized “churches as institutional bases for leadership” in rural communities ². No comparable pathway existed for Muslim organizations because Muslim institutional forms did not register as equivalent community infrastructure in the American mind.

This positioning shapes how religious voices enter conversations about gender-based violence. Christian anti-DV advocates operate at the center of discourse, setting terms of engagement, defining frameworks, and determining what counts as legitimate religious response to abuse. Juliane Hammer’s observation from the 2011 Interfaith Community Against Domestic Violence conference crystallizes this dynamic: the Peaceful Families Project, a Muslim organization, received the Community Partner Award in recognition of their work, but yet no Muslim speakers appeared on any panel throughout the entire conference ³. Muslim contributions were honored as exceptional additions to a conversation whose terms were already set by others. As Hammer notes, “Muslims were most often included on the other communities’ terms and there was and continues to be suspicion of Muslim organizations and a reluctance to engage” ⁴.

Centeredness = Freedom to Critique Internally

The centered position also grants Christian advocates freedom to critique their own traditions without external penalty. When evangelical women organized the #SilenceIsNotSpiritual campaign, gathering 3,000 signatures within 24 hours and forcing the ousting of Southern Baptist Convention leader Paige Patterson after recordings emerged of him advising abuse victims to “submit” and “pray,” they spoke as insiders reforming their own community ⁵. When Muslim advocates critique patriarchal practices within their communities, they risk reinforcing Islamophobic stereotypes that position Islam as uniquely misogynistic,adding fuel to external attacks on their community rather than being understood as internal reformers. Positionality outside of hegemony forces Muslim advocates to operate in the context of otheredness; instead of working internally within hegemony, consciousness of the double bind restricts the ways advocacy can be practiced for external audiences.

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Structural Embedding: How Hegemony Creates Concrete Authority

Institutional Infrastructure Creates Authority Storages

Christian hegemony has produced not just cultural dominance but accumulated institutional infrastructure that functions as stored authority within the gender-based violence movement. Denominational hierarchies: the Southern Baptist Convention, United Methodist General Conference, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Presbyterian General Assembly; provide recognized pathways for feminist reform. When more than 1,000 SBC women petitioned denominational leadership about abuse in 2018, there existed a body with authority to respond. Resolutions passed at General Assemblies cascade through regional structures to local congregations; clergy remain accountable to denominational processes that can discipline or remove them ⁶. Seminary systems produce credentialed clergy with standardized training, and domestic violence response has been increasingly integrated into this formation: six SBC seminaries committed to integrating abuse awareness into mandatory training; Fuller, Denver, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary offer pastoral care courses addressing abuse ⁷.

The Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) system exemplifies how hegemonic authority becomes professionalized. CPE certification, the foundation of chaplaincy credentialing, operates through predominantly Christian-oriented ACPE-accredited training sites. Board Certified Chaplain status requires CPE completion. These credentials function as portable authority, recognized across institutions, fundable by government and private sources, legible to secular professional structures. Muslim chaplaincy infrastructure is severely immature by comparison: less than 10 programs nationwide offer Islamic chaplaincy training, and the Association of Muslim Chaplains does not offer its own certification. Instead, members must obtain credentials through the Christian-normed Association of Professional Chaplains. Sr. Rabia Harris wrote a manual specifically to help CPE supervisors understand Muslim students, documenting how Muslims must navigate Christian-default institutional spaces to access professional standing ⁸.

Authority: Lightness of Transmission vs Burden of Construction

Authority within the hegemonic frame is concrete, documented, and transmissible in ways that matter profoundly for anti-violence advocacy. When the USCCB publishes “When I Call for Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence Against Women,” implementation guidance reaches every Catholic parish through established channels. The statement exists as a document that can be cited, taught, and enforced ⁹. Seminary degrees, denominational ordination, and professional certifications operate as recognized markers of legitimate expertise that transfer across contexts regardless of personal charisma or community standing. Christian advocates transmit tradition that already exists rather than having to construct it anew every single time; the authority of tradition flows through them rather than requiring them to generate it. Christian advocates, therefore, are freed from the burden of constructing authority, whereas Muslim advocates do not have the same pre-existing authority structures to channel and must instead assume the budern of constructing authority and tradition themselves.

Freedom: Surveillance

This structural embedding also grants freedom from constraints that burden minority religious advocates. Christian organizations do not face government monitoring programs comparable to Countering Violent Extremism. Federal funding does not arrive accompanied by suspicion of “terror ties.” The disparity in Department of Homeland Security security grants between 2008 and 2020 reveals the institutional dimension: Jewish organizations received $170.3 million, Christian groups $13.9 million, and Muslim organizations only $3 million ¹⁰. Christian advocates can accept state partnerships without facing community accusations of collaboration with hostile authorities, a freedom their Muslim counterparts do not enjoy.

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The Double Bind: Positionality Outside Hegemony Creates Othering

Muslim anti-DV advocates face a structural contradiction that Christian advocates do not encounter: they must simultaneously construct legitimacy in two directions that often require contradictory performances. Toward Muslim communities, advocates must demonstrate Islamic credentials and scholarly legitimacy, avoid accusations of “western feminism” or secular influence, work within recognizable Islamic frameworks, defer to male religious authority when necessary, and navigate community resistance to “airing dirty laundry.” Toward mainstream coalitions, the same advocates must distance themselves from perceived patriarchal aspects of Islam, demonstrate that Islam is “not the problem,” recode religious frameworks as “cultural competency” palatable to secular funders, and counter Islamophobic assumptions while still acknowledging community issues ¹¹.

The Onus of Representation Lies with the Individual

These demands are not just different but often directly contradictory. The strategies that build community legitimacy: emphasizing Islamic authority, working within patriarchal family models, avoiding feminist language; can undermine mainstream acceptability. The strategies that build mainstream credibility: critiquing patriarchal practices, adopting feminist frameworks, highlighting abuse prevalence; can destroy community access. Hammer captures this impossible position: “American Muslim communities are no exception (to having domestic violence), except that their targeting as not-American, as not belonging, through racist and exclusionary representations as uniquely misogynist and oppressive of women, makes their individual and communal efforts to raise awareness of and put an end to DV even more challenging” ¹².

The burden of representation compounds this difficulty. Every Muslim advocate is heard as speaking for “Islam” rather than from personal expertise. Advocates are simultaneously representative and exceptional: positioned as speaking for their community while being questioned as to whether they truly represent it, since their education and activism mark them as atypical. When Muslim advocates acknowledge domestic violence in their communities (necessary for any effective anti-violence work) they risk providing ammunition for Islamophobic narratives. Every honest assessment of community problems can be weaponized by external critics who seek to portray Islam as uniquely patriarchal ¹³.

Exceptionalization Only Others

This calculation has no Christian equivalent. A Presbyterian minister discussing abuse in Presbyterian families does not worry that her work will fuel anti-Christian violence or justify surveillance of Christian communities. She speaks as an individual; Muslim advocates speak under collective judgment. Hammer observes that at one interfaith domestic violence event, a Christian pastor stood and identified the “very dangerous” secret of domestic violence in Muslim communities, an exceptionalization/singling out of Muslims specifically which was validated by all participants in the workshop ¹⁴. The exceptionalization of DV in Muslim communities in this way further others their struggles from the general work of ending DV in society; an Orientalized, othered violence which in fact is the same struggle that mainstream DV advocacy aims to combat.

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Divergent Authority Structures: Inside Versus Outside Hegemony

The contrast between how authority operates within versus outside religious hegemony illuminates why pathways to anti-violence advocacy differ so fundamentally. Within the hegemonic frame, authority is institutional, transmitted, and concrete. Recognized institutional roles: seminary professors, denominational leaders, ordained clergy; all carry automatic legitimacy. Formal certifications transfer authority across contexts. Official statements carry binding weight. Established interpretive frameworks are transmitted through curricula and training programs. Authority flows downward through organizational structures from bishops to dioceses to parishes, from General Assembly to presbyteries to congregations ¹⁵. Institutional hierarchy establishes a clear pathway for authority to be channeled; changes can therefore cascade from top to bottom in a clearly defined path.

Practice Preceding Doctrine - Operating Outside Hegemony

Outside the hegemonic frame, authority must be constructed through practice rather than inherited through position. Hammer’s concept of the “ethic of non-abuse” captures how Muslim DV advocates develop their foundational commitments. Rather than deriving ethical positions from scriptural interpretation, advocates who witness or experience abuse instinctually recoil from it as morally wrong. Their activism emerges from this embodied ethical response, and only subsequently do they search for Islamic sources supporting their prior commitment. As Hammer documents: “Their own experiences and their affective responses to them lead to their activism. I eventually concluded that the activists possessed what I have come to call an ethic of non-abuse, which preceded their search for scriptural and thus divine support for their cause” ¹⁶.

This inversion matters because it reveals how authority functions differently for minority religious advocates. Christian advocates can start from established doctrine because denominational positions already exist on domestic violence. The theological work has been done institutionally; individual advocates transmit conclusions reached through collective processes. Muslim advocates must start from practice because no authoritative institutional position exists to transmit. They construct theological support for ethical commitments they already hold, building authority from the ground up in each community context.

Producing Tradition: Authority from the Ground Up

The “production of tradition” describes how this construction operates. Without institutional backing, Muslim advocates must present innovative interpretations as stable, preexisting Islamic doctrine rather than as contemporary reform proposals. Hammer explains: “The ‘Islamic tradition’ or ‘Islam’ is discursively constructed as relatively static and constant, which in turn renders Islam authoritative. Formulations such as ‘Islam says,’ ‘according to Islam,’ and ‘in Islam’ serve to powerfully and authoritatively present the central ethic of non-abuse as preexisting and thus not up for negotiation” ¹⁷. A Presbyterian minister citing a General Assembly resolution transmits an existing authoritative statement. A Muslim advocate saying “Islam forbids domestic violence” produces tradition as authoritative in the moment of speaking; constructing the unified Islamic position that she then invokes. Innovation must be disguised as continuity; authority must be performed rather than inherited.

Dimension	Christian (Hegemonic Position)	Muslim (Minority Position)
Authority Source	Institutional position, credentials	Must be constructed and performed
Reform Pathway	Top-down denominational channels	Mosque-by-mosque persuasion
Tradition	Transmitted through established structures	Produced through strategic discourse
Feminist Positioning	Can be explicit within reform movements	Often requires strategic avoidance
State Relationship	Funding partnerships, recognized legitimacy	Surveillance, funding restrictions
Advocacy Voice	Individual expertise	Representative of entire tradition

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Constructing Authority to Match Hegemonic Standards

Muslim DV advocates operate in an American context where hegemonic Christian institutionalism sets the standard for what legitimate religious anti-violence work looks like. FaithTrust Institute represents the model: 47 years of continuous operation, federal DOJ partnerships since 1979, established curricula deployed nationally, published resources for multiple faith traditions, professional staff, and sustainable funding ¹⁸. Peaceful Families Project, the leading Muslim anti-DV organization founded in 2000, operates with 24 years of history, no federal funding partnerships, workshop-based training rather than institutionalized curricula, volunteer dependence with high burnout rates, and persistent funding instability ¹⁹. The gap reflects not merely resources but institutional recognition: FaithTrust Institute is legible to government funders and professional certification bodies as a legitimate religious DV organization in ways Muslim organizations must continuously prove.

Strategies for Construction

Strategic efforts to construct authority that can function in hegemonic contexts have taken several forms. Women advocates who develop innovative frameworks often seek male imam endorsement for community traction. As Hammer documents, “Several women advocates told me explicitly that they had developed their own frameworks and ideas but recognized that they would not find traction in Muslim communities without the support of male religious leader figures” ²⁰. The imam training sessions Hammer observed became sites where women professional trainers with counseling credentials established expertise on domestic violence dynamics while deferring to male imams on religious interpretation; a negotiated division of authority reflecting structural constraints.

Protective patriarchy emerges as a strategic tool within these constraints. Hammer identifies this framework throughout Muslim DV work: a hierarchical gender and family model acceptable if men fulfill their guardianship obligations without abuse. Framing anti-DV work as men’s Islamic duty to protect rather than as feminist challenge to hierarchy makes reform legible within conservative community frameworks. “I recognize protective patriarchy as both a reaction to feminist critiques of power hierarchies and the inherent potential for their abuse and as a potent tool in the fight against domestic violence,” Hammer writes ²¹. Advocates who personally hold feminist views may strategically invoke protective patriarchy to maintain community access; a bargain that Christian feminists, operating within institutional channels that can mandate egalitarian reform, do not ever need to make.

Constructed Authority Has Limits

Even so, constructed authority cannot fully replicate hegemonic institutional authority. No enforcement mechanisms exist: imam proclamations have no binding force because mosques are decentralized and autonomous with no hierarchy to implement directives. No sustainable funding streams match the accumulated donor bases and government relationships sustaining Christian institutions. No credentialing monopoly controls who can claim imam status. Each new audience, each new community, each new context requires authority to be reconstructed from the ground up. There is no stored authority that automatically transfers across settings. Without hegemony, authority must be carried and constructed by each practitioner and advocate; operating within hegemony affords Christian advocates a lightness that Muslim advocates cannot buy into.

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Implications: What Hegemony Means for Anti-Violence Advocacy

Comparisons between Christian and Muslim anti-GBV advocacy reveals that religious hegemony shapes not merely who has authority but what authority itself can mean for those working to end gender-based violence. For advocates within hegemony, authority is institutional, transmitted, and concrete: it exists independently of individual advocates, transfers across contexts through recognized credentials, and can be stored in documents, curricula, and organizational structures. For advocates outside hegemony, authority must be constructed, performed, and continuously renewed: it depends on individual reputation and community recognition, must be rebuilt in each new context, and operates through persuasion rather than enforcement.

Divergent Pathways: Waterfalls Versus Raindrops

These different authority structures create fundamentally different pathways to advocacy. Christian advocates identify denominational structures, advocate through established channels, achieve official policy change, and watch implementation cascade through hierarchy with clergy accountability enforced through denominational processes. The #ChurchToo movement, #SilenceIsNotSpiritual campaign, and SBC protests all followed this pathway: working within institutional channels to force leadership changes ²². Muslim advocates develop personal ethical commitments, construct Islamic frameworks supporting those commitments, build individual scholarly or professional credibility, seek male religious authority endorsement, and persuade autonomous communities one by one; repeating indefinitely with no accumulating institutional gain ²³.

Structural Asymmetries

The double bind facing Muslim advocates is not a temporary difficulty but a structural feature of minority religious positioning within anti-violence work. It cannot be solved through better strategy or greater effort. It follows necessarily from external othering that makes every Muslim statement a “Muslim statement,” internal diversity that makes unified representation contested, absence of institutional structures that could authorize particular positions, and surveillance conditions that penalize both community engagement and mainstream participation.

Understanding these structural asymmetries matters for anyone committed to ending gender-based violence across religious communities. Effective interfaith coalition work requires recognizing that Muslim partners face constraints invisible to those operating within hegemony: constraints that shape what strategies are available, what language is possible, and what forms of authority can be claimed. Creating genuine space for Muslim leadership means more than including Muslims on Christian-centered terms; it requires rethinking fundamental assumptions about what religious authority looks like and how religious voices can legitimately enter public discourse on violence against women.

Authority is a Function of Hegemony

Ultimately, what counts as authority is itself a product of power. Those positioned within hegemony can take for granted forms of authority that those outside must laboriously construct time after time. This does not make constructed authority less valid; rather, Muslim advocates have built effective community-based initiatives, developed sophisticated theological frameworks, and sustained decades of advocacy work. But it does make that authority more precarious, more demanding, and more easily dismissed by those who have never had to build authority from scratch while simultaneously defending their community’s right to exist. Advocacy is less burdensome when not fighting on two fronts.