Contextualising Muslim women's assertiveness: cross-cultural perspectives on faith, gender and citizenship in British society

Far-right and Western feminist movements alike have joined the anti-Islam chorus, calling for State intervention in the lives of Muslim women, who must be liberated from an allegedly oppressive religion and barbaric Muslim men, while denying these same women a voice or vilifying them for expressing different views. The religion, then presented as "deeply opposed to the ethos of democracy and gender equality", is framed in terms of Huntington's Clash of Civilisations, whereby supposedly irreconcilable differences between Muslim and non-Muslim worlds are final evidence of the impossibility of different value systems to co-exist in society (Farris, 2017; Fekete, 2006; Modood 2010a:1660). Guided by the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1968), this study acknowledges the intersectional struggles experienced by Muslim women in Western societies and contends that the only reasonable way to allyship, on the part of the State in fulfilling its duties to citizens, and activists as watchdogs and change-makers, is to operate on the grounds set by those directly affected (Freire, 1968; Crenshaw, 1991). This investigation is set to highlight material and historical heterogeneities that influence the life experiences of Muslim women and their status in both British society and their respective Islamic communities. A feminist set of capabilities will support qualitative assessments of well-being, empowerment and freedoms (Sen, 2003; Robeyns, 2003). The Capability Approach examines real freedoms (the means necessary to achieve the beings and doings that one seeks), while considering human diversity and particular circumstances that influence the capability of individuals to achieve well-being. Capabilities and functionings (actual achievement of beings and doings) are taken as indicators of levels of empowerment in the familial, economic, social, and religious domains. Furthermore, the proposed debates on Islamic feminisms encompass a post-colonialist critique of the secular and the positive re-assessment of feminist engagement with religion, putting feminist interpretations of the Qu'ran, envisioned reforms of Shari'a law and the divestment separation between religion and culture at the centre of the struggle for gender equality (Mir-Hosseini, 2004; Modood, 2010b; Joly & Wadia, 2017).