Feminism, Islam and higher education: towards new roles and family relationships for young Spanish-Moroccan Muslim women in Spain

ABSTRACT

This article examines the lives and family relationships of young women of Moroccan descent in Catalonia, Spain. Based on ethnographic research and life stories, we have found that access to Higher Education has led these young women to a feminist interpretation of the Qur’an. This interpretation allows them to identify as Muslim women while refuting traditional gender roles. The young women surveyed argue that the bases of gender equity can be found in the Qur’an, but are hidden behind misinterpretations that put the role of women in a disadvantaged position with regard to men. Our study evidences that through this reformulation of Islam, in conjunction with a successful academic pathway, they have started to gain a position of authority and recognition within their families, leading to changes in their family roles and relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamic feminism
• Moroccan women
• higher education
• family relationships

Acknowledgments

We thank all of the young Moroccan women who participated in this project for their trust and for sharing their life stories with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this paper, the term ‘women of Moroccan descent’ is used to refer to both women born in Morocco and those born in Spain with Moroccan parents.

2. In the context of this paper, we understand gender roles as groups of interrelated cultural and social beliefs regarding men’s and women’s attributes and behaviours, and beliefs about which qualities are ‘masculine’ and which are ‘feminine’ (Redlick 2019). In Moroccan culture, gender roles are deeply rooted in religious practices that tend to legitimize hierarchical relationships between men and women (Scheible and Fleischmann 2013).

3. It is important to mention that Spanish legislation forbids identifying nationals according to their ethnic origin, so we cannot know the exact number of Spanish citizens with Moroccan ancestry.

4. According to La Barbera, ‘politics of location aims at using all the different socio-cultural conditions of each specific context as conceptual resources to interpret and represent the mechanisms of social interaction and subordination’ (2012, 23).

5. However, as Khurshid and Saba (2017) stress in their research, women’s empowerment through HE should not be considered a linear-homogeneous process. In order to know how education can transform the lives of women, it is necessary to take into account their contexts and their multiple forms of agency.

6. We understand ‘successful academic pathways’ as those which continue into higher education.

7. A variety of Arabic spoken in Morocco.

8. We have decided to use the concepts of second-generation and generation 1.5 for three reasons. Firstly, because both concepts are used repeatedly in the academic literature in the European context, and particularly in the Spanish context (see Aparicio 2007; Crul and Heering 2008; Dalouh and Soriano 2017). The second reason is methodological, since using these categories allows us to characterize our participants in terms of both the age at which they arrive in Spain with their families and their nationality, and to contextualize their academic experiences. And finally, the third reason is because second-generation is an inductive category within our research; that is, our participants use the term in their everyday speech when talking about the children of Moroccan immigrants, including themselves in this category.

9. By hijab, we refer to the Islamic veil that covers the head and the chest.

10. In Islamic tradition, haram is a word that is used to describe something considered forbidden.

11. Ikram lived in Manresa, a city 65 km from Barcelona.

12. Verses of the Qur’an.

13. A man who leads the lead Islamic worship services and serves as a community leader, providing religious guidance.

14. Jadiya bint Juwáylid and Aisha bint Abi Bakr were two of Mohammad’s wives. They are recognized for their contribution to shaping and expanding Islam.

15. The idea of ‘dual identity’ has been widely discussed in the students’ associations. An example of this can be found in a video produced by the students themselves entitled ‘Dual identity?’, where they question several members of the associations about whether they would define themselves as Moroccan or Spanish. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLUK9yhtIcs&t=44s

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) under PhD grant no. 250955. This paper is part of a PhD research on successful academic pathways of Moroccan Muslim women in Barcelona, Spain