Here’s a newspaper article (in Swedish) about Swedish women converting to Islam, partly translated below by the ubiquitous Fjordman: DN - Mer ur DN - Islam attraherar kvinnor.

They convert to protest against the fixation with looks in our modern society. The tougher living conditions for women, who are supposed to both have a career and do the housekeeping, play a part, too. Many of the women feel that their lives lack a sense of purpose, but Christianity does not seem like a relevant alternative to them.

Then they experience some special moment and meet an angel, or some equivalent religious vision, and they realize that they have actually been Muslims all their lives. After a while they do experience that somebody tries to lure them away from the true religion, and abandon Islam. This could be mom or Satan.

The attraction of the Islamic family life seems to be a common feature among women converts. Several of them state that in Islam, the man is more rational and logical, while the woman is more emotional and caring. This means that the woman should be the one to take care of the children and do the housekeeping, while the man should be the one to work and provide for the family.

Fjordman also points out this abstract of a thesis on which the article is based, from Sweden’s Uppsala University: Theses from Uppsala University : 6790 - ‘Vi blev muslimer’ Svenska kvinnor berättar.

The material of the thesis consists of interviews of Swedish women who have converted to Islam, with the aim of gaining knowledge as to how the informants create meaning around their religiosity. Questions have been asked about how the women understand their conversion and their religious involvement as well as what it means to live as a convert in a secularised western society.

In the informants’ interpretations of their conversion and their new religious belonging, descriptions of conversion as a process have a central place. This process is analysed from the following three themes: Meeting with Islam, comparison between “the old” and “the new” context, and conversion. The main part of the thesis consists of a description and interpretation of the informants’ understanding of this process in relation to questions of interest in Sociology of Religion.

In the interpretation and description of their religious engagement, the informants’ conceptions about Muslim family life is closely linked to their understanding of what the religious belonging means. The informants particularly stress that Islam represents equality between people in general and between men and women in particular, that Islam represents the good patriarchal family life and that women should obey their husbands. A part of the thesis is devoted to an analysis of the informants’ understanding of the Muslim family life, the influence that women have, and antagonism between the sexes.

The theoretical context of the thesis is within Sociology of Religion and Gender Theory. The interview material is related to five contexts: religion as meaning system, conversion narratives, gender as a social construction, modern and late modern societies, and religion in modern and late modern societies.

The informants’ narratives contain both more open and reflexive interpretations of what Muslim engagement involves and a fundamental striving towards the “right” answers, a determination of what sex, family, society and religion “are”. There is, in addition a tension between being a part of what is understood to be “correct” Muslim tradition and religious involvement understood as a gender equality project. In addition there is a tension between being a part of “correct” Muslim tradition and the establishment of a religiosity on “womanly” premises.