Too Muslim to Be a Feminist and Too Feminist to Be a Muslim? Locating Lived Experiences of Feminism and Muslimness in Social Work Academe

Abstract

In this paper, two authors seize space as Muslim women feminist social work educators and researchers. We challenge and hopefully silence homogenizing, essentialist and Islamophobic constructions. The first author is a hijabi, Indo-Caribbean, able-bodied cis-heterosexual Muslim feminist; the second author is a disabled, queer Muslim of South Asian heritage. We identify as racialized and firmly rooted in intersectional critical feminist perspectives. Using an autoethnographic, conversation-based approach, we share our narratives (lived experiences) in social work academe. Navigating feminisms, Muslimness, strategic essentialism and Islamophobia while engaging in a critical praxis, we attempt to bring together contradictory discourses for critical examination. We engage with the following questions: How do Muslim women fit (or not fit!) in social work academe? How do Muslim women fit (or not fit!) in critical social work feminist spheres? And what do Muslim feminist futures look like in social work academe? Our lived experiences as racialized Muslim feminists are standpoint perspectives which offer situated knowledges that disempower dominant social work discourses. Social work can no longer be reactionary and preserve the status quo; it must move forward with foresight and be an active player in dismantling inequities.

On 3 December 2021, Fatemeh Anvari, a grade three teacher in Québec, Canada, was told that she could no longer continue in her educational role as she was breaking the law (Molina, 2021). Anvari's hijab (head covering) put her at odds with Bill 21, commonly known as Québec's “secularism law,” which passed in 2019. Bill 21 (2019), An Act respecting the laicity of the State, requires that public servants who are in positions of authority, including police officers, judges and yes, even elementary school teachers, refrain from wearing religious symbols while working. Although this law is “universally applied,” it explicitly targets individuals who wear turbans, hijabs, or kippehs as part of their faith requirements (Caruso-Moro & Brennan, 2021; Jahangeer, 2020). As Muslim women employed by a public institution in the role of educators, it goes without saying that this news story is deeply personal to us. It has called up reflections of the various ways we have been marginalized within academe, and the intersecting identities of our race, religion, ability, sexuality and gender.

In the current age of “progress” (for some), mass mobilizations against racial, gender and sexuality-based injustices and environmental calls to action, some feminist scholars, including social worker practitioners, continue to consider “Muslim feminist” an oxymoron (Bilge, 2010; Jahangeer, 2020; Mahmood, 2005). The discourse of “progress” signifies ideologies, beliefs, values, practices and much more that tend to follow an idealized linear trajectory of achievements, technological advancements, globalization and such that are logically seen in the development of nation states from agrarian to industrialization and then as developed-modernist states, which have spawned from modernity and enlightenment. Only particular nation-states located in the northern parts of the globe (i.e. Canada, USA and UK) are permitted to use “progress” ideologies and narratives against other nation-states, particularly Islamic, that are solely measured by the institutionalization of “LGBTQ and women's rights” (Najmabadi, 1991; Grewal, 2005). The inability and perhaps the unwillingness for some feminist scholars to separate and critically de-construct Islam and women from Orientalist (Said, 1978) and colonialist tropes and to challenge Islamophobia remain at the margins (Bilge, 2010; Haq, 2022; Zine, 2008). Progress narratives aren’t for everyone's luxury and privilege to deploy. Muslim women feminists are excluded from such narratives and are seen as the exception (Jahangeer, 2020; Thobani, 2007). Particularly in social work education, practice and research, critical understandings of Islam, women and Muslimness are severely lacking. When such topics are engaged, these are undertaken in tokenistic fashion marked by “diversity and multicultural discourses” by non-Muslim feminists who are seen as “giving voice” to the perceived “voiceless Muslim women”; this benevolence is done so on the basis of sameness related to gender (Cooke, 2008; Khader, 2016; Vince, 2020). Much of social work's engagement with Islam and Muslim women has heavily centered on othering discourses that offer knowledge of Islam as a means of meeting cultural competency directives. Chaney and Church's (2017) article titled Islam in the twenty-first century: Can the Islamic belief system and the ethics of social work be reconciled? demonstrates the underlying beliefs informing Western interpretations of Islam and Muslimness: these people and their religion exist in opposition to us. While Chaney and Church (2017) argue that Islamic values are indeed congruent with social work values, the framing of their article reinforces a homogenous and Orientalist, although benevolent, understanding of Islam and Muslims.

Throughout social work scholarship, Muslim women are constructed parallel to oppression and subjugation (Smith, 2020). Muslim women's voices and stories are not their own (Giorgi, 2021). Even mainstream critical feminists that tout buzzwords like “intersectionality” (Crenshaw, 1991) fall short on engaging with issues of race, religion or meaningful action toward social justice (Beck et al., 2017; Brewer & Dundes, 2018). We recognize that there is a dearth in scholarship regarding the experiences of Muslim women instructors in Canadian academe (Swisher, 2019; Vince, 2020), particularly in social work. Extant literature focuses on Muslim student experiences (Ahmad, 2007; Asmar et al., 2004; Islam & Mercer-Mapstone, 2021, Zimmerman, 2015), South Asian Muslim women living in the diaspora (Jeffery & Qureshi, 2022) and an overall account of the Muslim leadership and the education system nexus (Shah, 2016). There is an emergent body of scholarship regarding the experiences of Muslim women in academe in countries outside of the global North, such as Indonesia (Muflichah, 2020) and Uzbekistan (Peshkova, 2015).

Note About Theory

In this article, we explore our relationship with feminism, the academy and social work education guided by critical standpoint intersectional feminist perspectives (Collins, 2004, 2009). Standpoint feminisms have been vital in producing knowledges gleaned from lived experiences of marginality and resistance founded in the lives and experiences of Black women (Collins & Bilge, 2016). Van der Tuin (2016) articulates that feminist standpoint theory considers the lives of women and marginalized others as “privileged sites of knowledge production” (p.1). The production of knowledge in this way is a practice of exercising power (van der Tuin, 2016).

Standpoint feminism asserts that knowledge, which is socially constructed, resulting from every day life interactions with inequitable and unjust power structures, processes, ideologies, positionality facets, embodiments and experiences are all considered valid, subjective, situated and partial (Harding, 2004; Haraway, 1988). For example, in our case, each person experiencing marginality offers unique perspectives on intersectional oppressions; these perspectives (knowledge) can make visible gaps, whiteness, silences, intentional omissions, systemic racism, Islamophobia, ableism and heteropatriarchy, amongst other forces that maintain the status-quo in academe. Through the lens of our unique standpoints, we engage in dialogue and offer our reflections on these questions: How do Muslim women fit (or not) in social work academe? How do Muslim women fit (or not) in critical social work feminist spheres? And finally, what do Muslim feminist futures look like in Social Work academe?

To the readers, this conversation is about our experiences in academe as feminist social work educators and researchers. There are many parts of our stories, and we hope that you do not focus exclusively on the marginal aspects but see the agency and resistance in our narratives. Our critique of normative Muslim communities is grounded in love, discomfort and frustration all rolled into one; these are not indications of self-hate or Islamophobia. Both of us are practicing Muslims, and we are invested in positive Muslim futures (inclusive of queer Muslim futures and non-static understandings of Islam and Muslims). It's important to read our narratives as couched in present-day circumstances and contexts that are shaped by historical, social, political and cultural factors, namely the rise of Islamophobia in Canada, far-right-wing racist ideologies and attacks, and a push toward secular politics, which targets Muslim women (Bilge, 2010, 2012; Zine, 2022).

Note About Method

The decision to author a collaborative autoethnographic reflection (Chang et al., 2016) on our experiences in education evolved through mutuality and friendship, and conversations about parallels in our journeys. We are both brown Muslim women researching, practicing and educating in the field of social work. We are both employed (albeit precariously) by the same medium-sized university in Southern Ontario, which is a predominantly white institution located in a predominantly white city. There are significant departures in our positionalities. The first author is straight cisgender hijabi of Indo-Caribbean descent. The second author is a disabled queer Muslim of South Asian heritage. This dialogue is an attempt to open space for such nuanced conversation around marginalized experiences, and perhaps empower other such minoritized scholars to reflect on or share their journeys within the Canadian context.

A collaborative autoethnographic approach was used to engage in a detailed exploration of the “commonalities and differences” in our experiences, and “wrestl[e] with these stories to discover the[ir] meanings…in relation to their sociocultural contexts” (Chang et al., 2016, p. 17). This approach has been used by other racialized or marginalized scholars writing about their experiences in the academy (Cruz et al., 2020; Hailu & Simmons, 2022) to capture both the stories of the self and the context surrounding narratives of harm and resistance that are often shared. This approach is used to open space for difference, and to challenge the perception of Muslim woman as a singular and reductive category. In the following section, the authors engage in a dyadic conversation, a dialogue that is intended to invite the reader into reflection on the aforementioned themes. This format breathes life and spirit into the collaborative autoethnography and honours the feminist standpoint epistemology we wish to engage.

Muslim Women Fitting (or not) in Social Work Academe: A Dialogue

Author 2: It is important to contextualize and talk about what a “Muslim woman” means. Many racialized Muslim women scholars have argued against a static and orientalist conceptualization of Muslim woman. “[B]oth Muslim and woman are loaded signifiers and contested categories that cannot be reduced to settled notions” (p. 112) as pointed out by Zine (2008), a Canadian Muslim woman scholar. I have experienced such static discursive constructions many times sitting on institutional equity and diversity committees as student, instructor and community member capacities. My name signifies a Muslim name and before they know that I’m queer, they call me to be on these committees and they realize that I am not what they wanted. There are multilevel intersectional oppressions that I experience because I do not satisfy their hunger for what a Muslim woman construct is. I deviate from that. People in the mainstream LGBTQ+ community are jarred by the fact of my queer Muslimness. On the other hand, people in the Muslim community are saying, “What! I thought you were one of us?” Having invisible disabilities comes with its own sets of privileges and difficulties. Sometimes I pass and at other times I cannot, depending on workload, tenure, departmental expectations, time and accessibility concerns. Oftentimes, I am contending with people's ableism that puts me in a box that is clearly demarcated by racial, gendered and Islamophobic markers. For example, when people talk loudly to me in conversation, I ponder if it is because they question my intelligence and capacity based on race or disability. Perhaps it is both, and all function to structure and construct me in different ways. I am reminded of Razack's (1998) work where she states that “patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism interlock to structure women differently and unequally” (p.159). So this means that I am constructed differently than you. Even though we both embody “difference”—ours is contingent on the unique positionalities. It's difficult and taxing trying to live my truth and trying to navigate people's expectations, while massaging the dynamics. I hate separating parts of my identity, based on who I’m speaking with. I feel that people are expecting me to compartmentalize my sexuality, disability, gender identity and expression, religiosity, and spirituality. Razack (1998) has also written that we all need to be reflecting hard upon what liberation looks like for people who experience intersectional marginalization. For me, accountability is intertwined with liberation. I have to take responsibility and try to rectify my complicity in this system, and I am still on this journey.

Muslims who wear head scarves are already marked as a visible Muslim, as you are, I am not. You are much more of a target and surveilled more so than me. If anything, my queerness in some ways makes me less threatening. As people have this idea that queer individuals are not religious, there are extensive histories and present-day practices that oppress and erase queers in religious communities and institutions. Islam is no different than its Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu counterparts. When people experience me as a queer Muslim individual, I am perceived as someone who is “cultural” and therefore non-religious. I am constructed as “less threatening’ since there is a connection made in people's minds about “religious Muslim = extremist views and Islamic fundamentalism.” I am seen as more approachable because I’m not a visible queer Muslim. Many secularists have told me that my queerness puts me in the category of “good Muslim” who is “culturally Muslim”, as opposed to “religious Muslims” who practice their faith. However, that is not the case for me. For me, it boils down to safety and survival in academe at the end of the day. I think about the Muslim women professors who have made the intentional decision to not wear the headscarf because they need to survive in academe. You need to be here to make the changes you want. There are too many battles to be fought against toxic masculinity, orientalist constructions of Muslim women, stereotypical secularist discursive constructions of queerness and queer Muslim women. Because you can’t do it all!

Author 1: In this case, I may be the “bad Muslim” woman, who is so oppressed that she still wears hijab in the liberated utopia of social work academe. I anticipated some differences regarding our positionality, and indeed these are revealed through your discussion on the intersection of Islamophobia and homophobia and your comments about navigating disability and ableism. I appreciate your vulnerability here, particularly as a straight cisgender woman who does not share these experiences.

To my own feelings of “belongingness” in the institution, I can confidently say that “fitting in” is a rare and fleeting feeling. As a precarious employee (sessional instructor, subsequently employed on a limited-term contract), I am often anxious about my position at the institution. If I do or say the wrong thing, will it be revealed that I am not the quiet, smiling diversity hire? I reflect on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives, which have been pushed to the forefront in higher education, and their often superficial and time-limited nature. Universities across Canada have started to create departments and new positions, and/or hire racialized individuals to support the equity-based initiatives and programming. Ideally, such departments would be beneficial in challenging the institutional status-quo, namely of whiteness; yet, they are often tokenistic, with little enforceable authority and as such, they do not address systemic issues (Jawaharlal, 2022; Wolbring & Lillywhite, 2021). The structural racism that takes place within higher education, via aspects such as precarity in employment, reveals the hypocrisy of these EDI initiatives. As a visibly Muslim (hijab-wearing) racialized woman, I am a worthy recipient of “diversity hiring”, but only when this serves the institution (Bilge, 2020). In raising questions regarding how policies/practices keep marginalized bodies out of the institution, I have been met with resigned sighs and non-committal shrugs. Oh well, they seem to say, be grateful for the fact that you are here now!

As an instructor, I have observed that diversity within the classroom has increased. In fact, the 2020–2022 master's in social work students may be the most racially diverse cohort we have had. As one of few racialized faculty members, I have found community and collaboration with many of these racialized students. In my graduate experience, I was exclusively taught by middle-aged cisgender white women. I wonder what it would have meant for me in my student experience to have racialized, queer, Muslim or “other” instructors. Without fail, every single visibly Muslim student (hijabi) that I have taught—as few as they have been!—has approached me to share what it means for them to see someone like me/like them at the front of the classroom. All of them share that I am the first hijabi they have seen in the position of instructor, and many note that for them, this opens up possibilities of where they see themselves in the academy. Many racialized students also express similar feelings—how important it is for the racial diversity in the classroom to be matched with the diversity in the faculty (Khan, 2016). It was largely due to these connections that I initiated and facilitated a formal protected space for racialized students. We gathered on a regular basis to discuss concerns of racism, discrimination and whiteness in the academy. Students shared how challenging it was to raise these issues when professors who did not share identity were unable or unwilling to facilitate challenging conversations about racial dynamics in the classroom. One student stated clearly that if not for our relationship and the protected space, she wouldn’t have made it through the programme. While I love doing this relational and community-building work with students, I am also very aware of the precarity of my employment and the added burden of time and energy that this requires. I wonder, who will do this work and support these students in my absence?

Author 2: I hear you about the students. I have become an unofficial mentor to racialized and disabled students at the faculty. Over the years, many such students have cried tears of grief and sadness in my office, over the phone, in coffee shops and now over Zoom. I have been supporting students in navigating racism, whiteness, ableism and overall discrimination that transpires in the classroom, with peers, within practicum, instructors and administration—some of whom have no idea or possibly don’t care about the harms caused. Emotionally supporting and advising students to navigate social work academe and practicum come at a cost. The cost is shared between the students and myself. There have been many racialized and disabled students who end up transferring into my classes and if they can’t, some just suffer. Some students have just dropped out the programme. Some students undertake a leave of absence, and some do not return.

This labour of love goes unnoticed and unaccounted in academe. I like supporting racialized and disabled students; sometimes I don’t have a choice about the additional workload. Who else can step up? I don’t think it will be the administration who just wants to increase numbers in the programme without actually addressing systemic issues and barriers experienced by racialized and disabled students.

Muslim Women Fitting (or not) in Critical Social Work Feminist Spheres

Author 2: Even in critical social work feminist spheres, I cannot get away from hegemonic orientalist and discursive constructions on Muslim women. At a Canadian social work conference, I participated in a panel on Muslim Feminisms. After presenting on the agency and resistance strategies of queer Muslim women, I was approached by two fellow panelists. They remarked about how “brave” my research is to stand up against bi-trans-and homophobic Muslims. I was asked deeply personal questions, including if my family had tried to annihilate me (murder). I was very upset but I had to respond with, “No, they did not!.”

For me it is really about survival. Can I survive in mainstream critical social work feminist spheres? How much energy do I need to expend in doing work to stay to argue against queer Muslim phobias, Islamophobias, racism, secularism, sanism and ableism? To bring up the notion of Islamic feminism in such spheres creates many barriers since Islam is very much constructed as causing the oppression of the woman, so it can never be seen as something that is feeding agency or resistance.

Depending on who you talk to, Islamic feminism can mean different things. The definition that resonates with me is grounded in critical, feminist and liberatory perspectives that view Islam and Muslims in a pluralistic fashion (Esack, 1997; Wadud, 1999). Women, sexually and gender diverse individuals are seen as whole, legitimate and worthy knowers and practitioners of the faith tradition (Shaikh, 2007, 2012, 2022). In this perspective, emphasis is placed on emancipation and liberation of the faith tradition (Islam and its followers) from heterosexist, patriarchal, cisgendered, misogynist, racist, sexist, beliefs, ideologies and practices (that cause oppression) embedded in the religious doctrine. This has to happen in order to create a more equitable and just society for all creation (Esack, 1997; Wadud, 1999; Mir-Hosseini, 2022). Furthermore, through Islamic teachings, women and sexually and gender diverse individuals can work toward individual and collectively freedom and empowerment to effect social change (Esack, 1997; Hammer et al., 2012; Wadud, 1999). Amongst other things, empowerment for Muslims is about living a good life that is going to make things better in some ways. Empowerment is going to look different for all Muslims, as we all don’t face similar contexts, geographies and laws; that is what is so beautiful about Islam—it is inherently pluralistic. Each Muslims’ Islam and practice of it will be different based on their unique standpoint, experiences and geographic contexts (Khan, 2021a, 2021b).

I think feminists (Muslims and non-Muslims) are challenged by the notion of reconciling Orientalist understandings of Islam as something that is constructed as static, un-pluralistic and monolithic. For some Muslim women, patriarchal and Salafi versions of Islam and Shariah laws do indeed cause women's oppression around the globe. Reproductive health and rights around marriage, divorce and inheritance in nation states like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are allegedly informed by extremist interpretations of faith-based laws (Anderson, 2021). I always make a point to say that Muslim women are not just passive pawns of the state and patriarchal men, highlighting the notable work of Muslim women human rights defenders and allies by Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) organization. How Muslim women are fighting and rising up against patriarchies and injustice is a fact often elided. “Women Living Under Muslim Laws is a transnational solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam” (WLUML, 2022, para 1).

Even before talking about “fitting in” and to get your little toe in the door, one must answer and explain the choices of patriarchal religious male authorities. I can only be burdened by answering for my own actions, inactions and intentions, and not for the entire Muslim world. If it comes to it, the entire Muslim world may not come to my rescue due to my queerness. So, getting over people's shock in both Muslim and non-Muslim spheres as a Muslim feminist is frustrating, as these spaces do not really understand intersectional identities and lives.

Author 1: The Orientalist frames of what it means to be a Muslim woman—this resonates deeply. I have been invited to several research projects because I bring a “diversity lens”—perhaps a good move for my career and advancement, but a terrible one for my spirit. I am invited only because I am seen to represent unknown “other,” and therefore to lend legitimacy to the projects of white social workers examining race and racism. However, when I do share an opinion that differs from what is anticipated or desired of me (due to the hegemonic constructions that you mention, and the discursive constructions of Muslim femaleness), I am ejected from these spaces. I have been disinvited from meetings, referred to as “intimidating,” been interrupted and spoken over during committee meetings.

As a student, it was made very clear to me that Islam didn’t belong in the classroom. I remember one conversation in class where I raised the possibility of bringing spirituality into clinical social work; another student accused me of “trying to convert” service users. While I can confidently say that this did not reflect the language I had used, nor was this my intention, it was the interpretation that this student made. It is important to note that the instructor did not interrupt this Islamophobic narrative; in fact, it was a Black Christian woman who allied herself with me and stressed the possibility of religion as a healing force. Unwittingly, I have carried these lessons into my teaching. Do not bring Islam into the classroom, lest you be seen as one of those Muslims. Though I remain in hijab, I have actively tried to leave my “Muslim-ness” aside; it is becoming clearer to me that this has resulted in an internalizing of whiteness, white norms and white culture that are all present in the academy at large, and in social work education in particular (Okun & Jones, 2001; Beck, 2019).

As I share these brief and de-contextualized narratives, I wonder about the reader. Who will be reading this and how will they be interpreting my experiences? Will their mind seek to explain these occurrences, attribute personal blame to me, thinking that there must be something I have said or done to create these kinds of responses? I feel compelled to offer a pre-emptive self-defence of sorts, which runs parallel to the experiences I have as a Muslim woman in critical feminist spheres. I am often on the defensive, attempting to explain aspects of my religious practice such as my decision to wear the hijab to non-Muslim feminists. (Yes, it is my choice! Imagine that! In fact, I believe it to be a deeply feminist choice, which I have reflected on in another forthcoming article.).

Upon further reflection, I observe that I have never seen a professor wearing any kind of head covering. Turban, kippeh and hijab. Is this a conscious choice that is made, to remove these indicators of our religious practice when we enter the space? Or is this a decision that has been made for us, through laws such as Bill 21 in Québec? You mention that the institution does not understand or make space for intersectional identities and lives—I believe that it forces us to choose one and abandon others, and only insomuch as you reinforce the notions of what these identities are believed to be. You can be Muslim, but only this version of Muslim. You can be a feminist, but only this version of a feminist.

In the academic space, I am forced to occupy the role of voiceless Muslim woman (Zine, 2004), and if I act in a way that does not reinforce this notion, then I am no longer a desirable subject. In this case, the subaltern can speak (Spivak, 2015), but if she does so in a way that challenges hegemonic notions of Muslim woman, then she will be silenced.

Muslim Feminist Futures in Social Work Academe?

Author 2: Trying to fit myself into critical social work feminist spheres does not work. I was doing a lot more work in trying to fit and make people really understand that I have a unique experience. Now I spend energies on building alliances across disciplines (sociology and humanities) where I have experienced like-minded Muslim feminists or Muslim women who write on the intersections of transnationalism, feminism, queerness and Muslimness. I have a stronger connection and a feeling of being at home when having conversations with racialized scholars as opposed to trying to shove myself into a system that is always going to question my ethics, humanity, morality and experience. I have changed tracks a little bit, and that has been very helpful for me, because I can just get into the critical conversations right away. I don't have to do a preface or offer some kind of preamble to explain my identity and make sure that we are all on the same page.

This interdisciplinary collaboration and building of alliances across difference and sameness with folks who occupy many intersections is working for me. I think about Sherene Razack's (1998) work in bringing focus to working across multiple axes of identity, life and experiences (difference and sameness). Razack (1998) wants us to examine deeply what is referred to as “woman” and the experience of gender, since these are embedded in many discursive constructions and realities locally and across the globe. The construct of woman is experienced differently based on one's geopolitical location, and it is important to question what makes a woman? Is this someone with vagina and breasts? Trans, Gay, lesbian, queer and feminist scholars have challenged and are continuing to have many conversations about essentialisms and unlocking normative binary gender and sexuality constructs (Butler, 1999; Collins, 2004, 2009; Erickson-Schroth, 2022; Pyne, 2015).

Sometimes I think it is okay for us to engage in strategic essentialism and use such categories to align ourselves. We have to be very cautious and wary while doing so and constantly ask: Who are they excluding? Why am I still invested in these categories? Identity categories have a lot of currency in our society for a variety of reasons, and it is vitally important to discuss the resulting implications of their use. I deploy the Muslim woman construct as a “political device” following Ahmed (2006) to bring attention to the elision of queerness in this configuration. I do not want to be ignored or silenced. A category can be used to gather and align similar values and politics, and concurrently be used to alienate since just because someone looks like me doesn’t guarantee similar politics.

Author 1: Within social work academe, I believe that as a Muslim feminist, I must challenge notions of social work as liberatory, social workers as rescuers and the preoccupation with the white saviour complex (Blackstock, 2019). I think about Indigenous scholars and activists who emphasize the notion of relational accountability (Absolon & Dias, 2020; Hill & Wilkinson, 2014). What do others who are marginalized in and by the academy need from me? How can I act in solidarity with these communities, particularly in the context of teaching social work practice—a field that has been and continues to be notoriously complicit in the marginalization of Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities across Canada? You are a role model in this and have embodied this practice in recent work (Khan & Absolon, 2021). You also offer strategic refusal (Tuck & Yang, 2014) and the building of interdisciplinary alliances, something I hope to achieve if I remain in the academy. In the meantime, I think about what I can do immediately. I reflect on my efforts to support racialized students via mentorship and ensuring that course content is critical and affirming, yet even this is turned against me. A student complained on a course evaluation that I “played favorites,” while another stated that I “made everything about race” (this, in reference to a course that had Race as the first word of the title!). As a brown hijabi Muslim woman, I know that everything I do is under the microscope. I will never truly fit into these spaces; so how might I come back to Islam to give me the strength needed to persevere while here?

There is a rich tradition of feminist empowerment in Islam—indeed, women fought on the front lines in battle; women were business owners, scholars, poets and what we may refer to in modern parlance as activists. I don’t want to constantly be fighting against Islamophobia, sexism and racism—I think my energy would be better spent elsewhere! —but as the venerable artist and lyricist Tupac rapped, “I was given this world, I didn’t make it” (Shakur, 1993). I believe that we must contend with academia as it is, using the strengths that we have. Islam provides me with a great deal of strength. I come from a tradition of powerful Muslim women, but their strength doesn’t always look like mine, loud and boisterous as it may be. Their strength has been quiet, resistant, subversive and rebellious (Baksh, 2016). I want to continue in their tradition and find ways to push forward even as the institution continues to push me out.

Discussion and Conclusion

Our conversation here has sought to open space for theorizing around the ways in which Muslim women, hijabi or non-hijabi, queer or cisgender-heterosexual, disabled or able-bodied, silent or silenced, can uncover and recover their voice and agency. As with every theoretical approach and method, our autoethnographic standpoint account has its limitations. Our experiences are situated and embedded within individual, community, and societal contexts—which have shaped our lives and identities. Some racialized Muslim women from diverse backgrounds may resonate with our accounts and analysis; yet generalizing our experiences to envelop all individuals and communities that form around social markers like woman, Islam, Muslim and so on is erroneous. There are many chasms surrounding discourses of sameness and difference related to socially (discursively) constructed identities and experiences. One such chasm is the power of discursive construction—as our accounts can reinforce hegemonic discourses, while also simultaneously erecting alternative and nuanced perspectives. As mentioned above, our intent in this manuscript is to concurrently expand and challenge academic social work academic spaces that sustain homogenous and essentializing Islamophobic othering for Muslim feminist educators and researchers, and any negative discursive construction reinforcement is regrettable.

We are deeply inspired by Fatemeh Anvari's courage and story. It is because of Muslim women like Anvari, who have taken a stand against Islamophobia orchestrated in varying forms by the nation state that gives both of us courage and fuels our passion and determination for this work. In a recent 6 June 2022 interview with journalist Anderssen, Anvari reflected on challenges related to Bill 21, and remarked the following at the end of the interview:

“Fights for freedom and justice should not just be the fights of people who are directly affected,” she says. “Don’t we all have a voice? Can’t we all educate each other, just by being a good person in our world?” (Anderssen, 2022)

We rise in solidarity with Muslim women like Anvari and alongside her, our work demonstrates an effort to reject Orientalist framings of the Muslim woman as oppressed, voiceless and in need of saving. The employment of dialogic ethnography has allowed us to embrace a standpoint feminist approach, wherein we have used our personal situated narratives to explore and expose dynamics of Islamophobia, feminism and Muslimness.

We do not end with policy recommendations for the institution, nor do we suggest practice implications for social workers. Indeed, this work has been done at many public institutions, as student activists and academics alike have called our attention to structural changes that must be made (Lindo, 2017; Wolbring & Lillywhite, 2021). Rather, we end with a call to attend to the diversity that exists within categories that have been rendered homogenous and to engage critically and reflexively with how stereotyped notions of the Muslim woman have manifested in the so-called radical space of critical feminist social work. We encourage readers to reflect on how Muslims are used for their identities, while being harmed by Islamophobia. As social work educators and students, we must continue to expand our thinking around anti-oppression to include the voices of those marginalized by these systems that aim to support, empower and uplift.

We say to diverse students (racialized, Muslim, disabled and queer) that it is important to find community where you are; whether it's an online community or in person. It would be important for students to set up an informal collective or a group to discuss issues of racialization, discrimination and to strategize for social justice with peers. It would also be important to bring in staff and faculty, who identify within these intersectional facets and maintain a critical praxis alongside allies who can be supportive to work through the institutional red-tape and bureaucracies. As we have discovered over the years, any attempt to challenge the status quo and effect social change cannot be done in silos. Conversations need to happen; social, emotional and resource capital must be identified, and people need to get together. The institution wants you think that you are alone given our neoliberal contexts. Critical, collective, peer, staff and faculty-based alliances can be fruitful. For example, at Wilfrid Laurier University the first author leads and organizes a brave space for diverse students. This NIRE (Normalizing intercultural relationships in education) programme is formalized as part of the equity committee's work to decenter whiteness and work toward social change. In this group, diverse students have an opportunity to build networks, obtain feedback, build community, offer peer support and network with faculty and staff to address the ongoing challenges in the social work faculty. Social work can move forward with foresight by understating that it is implicit in perpetuating Islamophobia, systemic racism, upholding whiteness and how it perpetuates colonial legacies. Once this is understood, schools and faculties of social work can work toward challenging such oppressions through micro, meso, and macro strategies (Khan & Absolon, 2021; Tuck & Yang, 2014).

We hope that critically robust dialogues will emerge instead of pining for quick fixes and “band-aid” solutions and strategies that fool oneself into claiming innocence as social work feminist educators. It is our hope that future research and writing in this area will allow for more marginalized voices to emerge so that we may deepen our collective understanding of intersectionality as it manifests in academe.