Framing the Muslim Question in Belgium: (Gendered) Islamophobia in Political Discourse and Policy

This article provides an overview of the last ten years of the Muslim Question through a critical analysis of Islamophobic discourse and policies in the political landscape of Belgium, more specifically the Dutch-speaking regions of Flanders and Brussels. It takes a gender-centric approach, as Islamophobia in the Belgian landscape is almost always connected to perceptions of so-called gender equality. Women’s rights, but also gender rights in a broader sense, have become the proverbial stick with which Muslims are beaten in Belgian politics through femonationalist discourses. This same gendered stick has enabled several dress-code policies—such as bans on the headscarf ( hijab ), the covered swimsuit ( burkini ), and the face veil ( niqab )—which disproportionately affect Muslim women under the guise of neutrality. These Islamophobic policies and political discourses are not limited to the right-wing of the political spectrum. Liberal Islamophobia (Winter and Mondon, 2019; Easat-Daas 2024), particularly in reference to gender, has become an often under-recognized discourse, despite the fact that it relies on the same Orientalist stereotypes. Yet these discourses depart from the same secular–white superiority versus Muslim “Other” framework (Snijders 2025). Through discourse and/or policies, Muslims in Flanders, Belgium are subjected to a colonial governmentality (Sayyid 2014; Van Raemdonck 2024), which creates a climate in which Muslims are constantly met with suspicion, their religious praxis is monitored and securitized, and they are excluded from employment and education. This in turn pushes them into economic precarity and maintains a racialized and gendered social order (Abbas 2025). This political discourse is further amplified by the media, shaping the broader climate of Islamophobia present in Dutch-speaking Belgium.