Does accommodating Islam violate women's rights? This book breaks from scholarship that focuses upon whether accommodation of culture and religion harms women. Instead, it claims that this debate ignores the realities of the women at its heart. The book contrasts debates in France over the headscarf and in Canada over religious arbitration with lived experience. The challenges the women eloquently describe first-hand in this book demonstrate that the fray over accommodating culture and religion neglects other needs.ã Yet it also takes a step further to argue that a large part of the reason this occurs is that democratic participation is restricted: in these countries, 'Muslim women' are constructed as silent victims. Rather than a crisis of protection or accommodation, this book identifies a crisis of voice and representation. Its central message is a plea to consider women in all their complexity first and foremost as active participants in democratic life.