Attitudes Towards Care Work and Household Authority Among Married Muslim Men in Malaysia

Abstract

This article explores men’s attitudes towards care work and authority through interviews with 21 married Muslim men in Malaysia who work full-time and are/were stay-at-home husbands or stay-at-home fathers (SAHFs). This study finds that both groups of men embrace caring masculinities but also masculinize care. The way they reconcile both models of care is influenced by how they understand Islamic discourse. SAHFs generally interpreted Islam to mean that care work and their role did not detract from their sense of masculinity. Interpretations of Islam affirmed a negative relationship between unemployment and a sense of masculinity for men working full-time. This article seeks to expand the geographic scope of Western masculinity theory by exploring how religion influences men’s attitudes towards alternative gender roles in a Muslim-majority setting.

In this article, I interview married Muslim men in Malaysia who work full-time and those who are stay-at-home fathers (SAHFs) and compare both groups’ attitudes towards care work and household authority. I ask two questions: (i) what differences are there, if any, in attitudes towards care work and household authority between men who work full-time and men who are SAHFs; and (ii) how much do interpretations of Islam account for these differences? I contrast the concepts of “caring masculinities” (Elliot, 2016) and “masculinizing care” (Jordan, 2020) to engage with the scholarly literature on Muslim masculinities about the potential for Muslim men to cultivate more gentle forms of masculinity. I find that men do not just embrace caring masculinities or masculinize care. They do both, and the way they reconcile both models of care is influenced by how they view Islamic discourse. I find that both groups of men see the importance of engaging in care work but do not dispense with the idea of the man as the head of the family. However, SAHFs generally interpreted Islam to explain how their role and care work did not detract from their sense of masculinity and being a responsible Muslim man. For men working full-time, interpretations of Islam affirmed a positive relationship between gainful employment and masculinity. They continued to prioritize being a reliable income earner, albeit acknowledging the importance of care work.

Men who stay at home and engage in caregiving responsibilities while their female partners work in the labor force have been variously described through terms such as househusband (Boyer et al., 2017) and SAHF (Kramer et al., 2013; Latshaw, 2015). Following Shah (2023) and Huang (2024), I use the term SAHF to focus on men who are fathers primarily responsible for their children while their wives go out to work, rather than just husbands who do not have childrearing responsibilities. While work on SAHFs suggest mixed findings in terms of their level of acceptance towards this role and comfort with their masculinity (Chesley, 2011; Lee & Lee, 2018), I propose to add to the literature on caring masculinities by exploring how Islamic discourses shape men’s atittudes towards care work and household authority, based on their employment status.

Malaysia’s Religious Context and Perceptions towards Care Work

Malays, the majority ethnolinguistic group in Malaysia, are Muslim by law. This also means that Malay and Muslim identity in Malaysia are inextricably linked. Historically, Islam in Southeast Asia has been marked by a cultural pluralism since it established a presence in the Malay world around the 1300s (Peletz, 2011; Zeitzen, 2018). Women were actively involved in trade and diplomacy, and kinship systems were governed by a blend of Islam and Adat (cultural tradition), which involved bilateral rules of descent (Adat Temenggung) and, even in certain communities, matrilineal descent (Adat Perpatih). In traditional Malay societies, Adat provided women a significant level of prestige, mobility, and autonomy (Karim, 2021) and accorded women decision-making capabilities in their marriage and family, especially where matrilocal rules of residence required men to leave their natal home after marriage to live in the house of the mother-in-law.

In recent generations, the importance of Adat has waned in Malaysia, due in large part to economic developments and Islamic revivalism (Ong, 1990; Peletz, 2021). In the 1970s, Malaysia launched the New Economic Policy (NEP) to address poverty among all ethnic groups, especially Malays, promoting urban-centered industrialization with the help of foreign capital investments. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad envisioned a “New Malay” who was educated, sophisticated, and competitive in the marketplace. While women were not discouraged from engaging in economic activity, the “New Malay” was implicitly an urban-based male figure, with women thought of as housewives whose unpaid support was crucial to the economy (Rahmat, 2020). The NEP was launched alongside Islamization and the rise of Islamic revivalist groups in Malaysia, in turn a response to the rise of a global Islamic movement symbolized by events such as the Iranian revolution (Basarudin, 2023). Across the Muslim world, the Islamic resurgence shared common themes, such as growing criticism of the West, a quest for identity, and traditional gender roles, symbolized in part by an emphasis on women’s veiling (Göle, 1996). In Malaysia, the Islamic resurgence was characterized by an ethnoreligious resurgence among Malay groups, who focused on securing special rights for Malays. These groups, many of whom comprised the middle class who benefitted from the NEP, sought to infuse Malaysian society with Islamic values against the backdrop of what they felt to be a deemphasis on Islamic values in modern industrialized society (Saleem, 2023). A major impact of Islamization was that religion became less of a private issue and more a public concern for Islamic authorities.

Women were heavily implicated in Malaysia’s Islamization project, particularly when concern was expressed about the chastity of unmarried working women in urban areas (Ong, 1987). While women were encouraged to pursue a career and attain higher education, Islamic revivalist groups still stressed a patriarchal understanding of women’s roles as that of wife and mother (Ng et al., 2006). Today, premarital education courses administered by religious bureaucracies are a required component of Muslim marriage registration in Malaysia. These courses teach couples how to sustain marital partnerships and often emphasize the fulfillment of the husband’s sexual needs and the wife’s obedience to him (Mohamad, 2020).

Islamization’s emphasis on traditional gender roles also entailed expectations of men as the financial providers of the family. In Malaysia, “househusband” (AsiaNews, 2006), “stay-at-home dad” (Wan Salleh, 2022), and “male caregiver” (Johari, 2019) have been used interchangeably. These English terms are more often used than the Malay equivalent, suami rumahtangga (literally, household husband). Nevertheless, the most recent figures report that there are about 60,000 househusbands in Malaysia (The Sun, 2017), out of a population of 32 million. The then Human Resources minister Datuk Ismail Abdul Muttalib in the report by The Sun defined househusbands as men who “work” at home by cleaning, washing, cooking, and taking care of the children.

A little under two decades ago, clerics referred to househusbands as un-Islamic and argued that being a househusband goes against the “natural order” (AsiaNews, 2006) . Conservative gender frameworks in Malaysia influence policies and laws which disseminate the idea that women's natural roles are homemakers and child bearers, while the men have the financial authority (Ridzuan & Musa, 2022). In 2006, Women and Family Development Minister Shahrizat Jalil suggested that “the only reason males might want to stay home is probably they are just lazy or can’t cope with office work” (AsiaNews, 2006). However, patriarchal discourses about gender roles in Malaysia do not simply go unchallenged. Muslim women’s groups that interpret the religion in the spirit of gender equality, such as Sisters in Islam ¹ , aver that gender roles are not as fixed as some conservative Muslims make them out to be. More recently, househusbands were included in Malaysia’s economic policy discussions. The government’s “i-Sayang” (“I Care”) programme of marital cash transfers was launched in March 2023 for husbands to voluntarily transfer a small percentage of their monthly Employees Provident Fund (EPF) to their wives. ² The 2024 Budget tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced that the programme will include househusbands (Povera, 2023). Wives will have the option to transfer two percent of their EPF contribution to their husbands. These policy discussions suggest a greater appreciation of men who might not embody traditional notions of masculinity.

Survey data also suggests that Malaysians are embracing the idea of gender equality and equal domestic division of labor, though attitudes are inconsistent. A survey in 2023 showed that 60% of Malaysian respondents disagreed with the statement that “a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man” (IPSOS, 2023, p. 15). On the other hand, 66% of men and 64% of women in Malaysia felt that “men are being expected to do too much to support equality” (p. 12). A significant number of Malaysians seem willing to endorse nontraditional gender ideals, but worry that movements toward gender equality may be too demanding. According to figures from the last three waves of the World Values, 2022, the number of Malaysians who believe men should have more access to scarce jobs than women has been uneven. 59.4% of men and 38.7% of women agreed that men should have more right to a job than women in 2006. This figure increased to 70.4% for men and 41.8% for women in 2012 second wave before decreasing to 32.7% for men and 23.5% for women in 2018. It is not clear why the figures for the second wave drastically differ from the first and third wave.

Most recently, a quantitative study on 576 female participants within Muslim couples in Malaysia (Boo, 2025) showed that their male partners’ religiosity was positively associated with their share of housework and childcare time. All these findings point to an ongoing reality: While there may be inconsistent attitudes towards traditional gender roles in Malaysia, the idea of men engaging in non-financial care work more than what is expected of them is not so novel. Furthermore, the notion of women contributing as much as their husbands, if not more, to the financial maintenance of the household is not that novel either considering that Malaysia’s female labor force participation rose from 45.8% to 56.2% between 2006 and 2023 (DoSM, 2023). The increase in female labor force participation co-exists with the reality of men engaging in non-financial care work in Muslim-majority Malaysia, even if mainstream Islamic discourses in Malaysia do not emphasize on this kind of care work for men.

Situating Caring Men in Caring Masculinities/Masculinizing Care Debates

Even as men engage in care work, there is still the question of whether they are engaging in “caring masculinities” or are merely “masculinizing care”. Karla Elliot’s (2016) concept of caring masculinities proposes that men’s involvement in care work allows them to become more nurturing and caring towards their partners and family. Caring masculinities aim to portray caring roles as neither inherently masculine or feminine. Elliot suggests three characteristics of caring masculinities. First, men who reject domination and norms of violence treat their partners as equal. Second, men embrace emotional qualities of care. Men feel comfortable expressing positive emotions, unlike in hegemonic masculinity where men are taught to be stoic (hooks, 2004). Finally, caring masculinities reorient traditional masculine values such as breadwinner and protector to more care-oriented values that situate men and women as interdependent on one another. Examples of this reorientation are men who supplement their financial provision with more intimate ways of caring for their children.

While caring masculinities have the potential to foster more egalitarian gender relations, they can also end up incorporating elements of domination when equating care with traditional masculine norms of paternalism. In her study on the UK fathers’ rights movement, Ana Jordan (2020) explores the limits of caring masculinities. She finds that only a minority of fathers define care in intimate ways towards their kids, such as nappy changing and reading bedtime stories. Other fathers stressed the masculine nature of fatherhood, asserting that men are superior when it comes to disciplining their children, as opposed to mothers who were deemed to be deficient in providing discipline. Caring masculinities do little to upend gender dualisms if men view certain forms of care as suitable only for men. Men may upset conventional gendered care norms by becoming the primary caregiver but find new ways to reinstate boundaries between masculine and feminine forms of care. If only certain types of care are viewed as masculine by men, or if they actively distance themselves from femininity and redefine caring practices as masculine, they are engaging in a masculinization of care rather than caring masculinities.

SAHFs ostensibly reverse traditional gender roles and embrace caring masculinities by performing most of the household duties. These shifts in gender roles speak to feminist and men’s own discourses on what it means to be a father in the 21^st century as they become more involved with their children compared to previous generations (Crowley, 2008; Snitker, 2018). However, men may also express distinctions between masculine and feminine forms of care in their approach to household chores, though research findings are inconsistent. For example, Doucet (2018) spoke to 64 Canadian fathers and 14 heterosexual couples. Asking if men engage in “mothering” when they take on caregiving roles, she found that primary caregiving fathers are capable of being affectionate and nurturing towards their children. However, they still made distinctions between fathers’ and mothers’ care for their children, thereby masculinizing care. Fathers routinely engaged in roles we normally associate with more masculine behavior such as physical activity with their children and instilling in them a risk-taking approach to life.

Cultural expectations that men be more involved with household chores are not always reflected in the actual practices of fathers (Wall & Arnold, 2007). Even if men do spend more time with their children compared to before (Kaufman, 2013; Livingston & Parker, 2011), their participation in housework still lags behind that of women’s. Men also tend to specialize in more masculine chores such as yard work (Sayer, 2005). Latshaw (2015) studied the housework chores of 30 stay-at-home fathers in the US through in-depth interviews and time diary data. She found that “reluctant fathers” avoided feminine chores associated with women’s care, while “resolute fathers” performed almost all of the household chores, including those usually equated with femininity such as mopping. In the Philippines, Ballaret and Lanada (2022) found that stay-at-home fathers saw no issue with partaking in chores such as laundry and cooking. Yet, they could not help but feel stigmatized by their community’s judgement of them as “lazy, dependent and unmanly” (p. 4). These studies show SAHFs attempting to cultivate more caring masculinities while not being able to completely avoid masculinizing care.

While debates about whether men are becoming more caring emerged in the West, the scholarly literature on Muslim masculinities has also explored tensions between masculinities that cling to patriarchal modes of gender relations and those that espouse more egalitarian modes, although the literature does not talk about care per se or mirror the debates about masculinizing care propounded by Jordan. While post-9/11 anxieties have portrayed Muslim men as predisposed to violence both in the domestic sphere towards women and on the global political stage through the lens of religious extremism (Khan, 2018), one central question being asked is whether masculinities in the Muslim world are evolving so that “gentler” forms of Islamic masculinity are becoming more prevalent (Samuel, 2011). These gentler forms refer to masculinities entailing qualities of non-aggression and a de-emphasis on male gender roles.

In the Arab region, Marcia Inhorn finds an alternative to stereotypical masculinity in the form of an “emergent” masculinity characterized by “resistance to patriarchy, patrilineality, and patrilocality” (2012, p. 302). These men seek to be more emotionally attuned to their wives and more involved in reproductive and family planning matters. Efforts to cultivate more gentle forms of masculinity are also explored in Arsalan Khan’s study (2018) of the Islamic piety movement, the Tablighi Jamaat. He finds that ritualized forms of face-to-face preaching (dawat) help to cultivate a pious masculinity that allow men to reflect on and address the growing problem of male violence in Pakistani society.

Other studies suggest that despite these shifts in masculinities, “men’s social dominance both in the Muslim world and everywhere else” remains intact (Ouzgane, 2006, p. 6). Siraj (2013), for example, explores how male Muslim respondents in Scotland construct masculine identities and feel that it is their responsibility as men to protect women and children not just in the physical sense (from harm), but financially as breadwinners. While these respondents care for their families, they emphasize themes of strength and paternalism to “legitimate male superiority” (Siraj, 2013, p. 108). Caring for women under the framework of patriarchal masculinity may also result in extreme consequences such as violence against women. In a comparison of attitudes towards wife-beating among a sample of Muslims in Indonesia and Norway, Eidhamar (2018) finds that 28 of his 35 respondents within the Indonesian sample approve of wife-beating if she is disobedient. Notwithstanding the contentiousness of wife-beating in Muslim circles, both men and women in the Indonesian sample endorse wife-beating as a sign of love towards and education of the wife. They view wife-beating when she is disobedient to the husband as a reminder of her place in the household and a way to increase her chances of entering heaven by being obedient. Hence, wife-beating is seen as an expression of concern for the wife in the afterlife.

A rare study of SAHFs in a Muslim-majority society, Pakistan, found that many of them adopted the role not out of choice but out of economic necessity, due to unemployment, and experienced stigma and other negative repercussions in their community (Shah, 2023). These men did not embrace caring masculinities; they expressed shame at their caregiving roles. “I am not in a situation that I could be proud of,” one respondent said (Shah, 2023, p. 443). Islamic discourse and its influence on Shah’s respondents was not a central focus. The Muslim men in the present study, including SAHFs, are more open to caring masculinities. They draw on a variety of discourses all at once, including religious ones. They view themselves as caring men, sometimes in defiance of traditional gendered norms, and they also rationalize care work in ways that may reinforce male dominance. I propose that the ambiguities in their self-presentation may contribute to broader literature on masculinities and caregiving in diverse socio-cultural contexts by highlighting how religious interpretations determine how men resolve tensions between wanting to be more caring and responsible as leaders of their families.

Methods

I conducted in-depth interviews with 21 married Muslim men. This sample consists of 10 men working full-time, 9 current SAHFs and 2 university students who used to be a SAHF or stay-at-home husband. All interviews were conducted in English. For the men working full-time, 2 used to be SAHFs. All the current SAHFs had considerable levels of gainful employment before taking on the role. These fathers continue to earn an income on the side. Two of my respondents do not have kids. Most respondents were based in Kuala Lumpur. All my respondents are Malaysians except for two; the two who do not have Malaysian nationality reside in Malaysia. I announced my study on social media (Facebook, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn). Social media proved to be the least effective in recruiting respondents. Only three respondents responded to my social media announcements. I recruited my respondents through relying on friends, acquaintances, respondents from a previous research project, and respondents in this current study who suggested other people I could interview. Relying on these various networks also reminded me of how difficult it was to find Muslim SAHFs to talk to, likely because they were low in numbers or were hesitant to speak in public. Not surprisingly, reaching out to men who work full-time was easier. This difficulty in finding Muslim SAHFs to talk to also explains the lack of diversity in terms of their class background; 8 were at least middle class while 1 was working class. For those who are currently not SAHFs, 10 were at least middle class while 2 were working class.

I interviewed respondents both online and in person. I obtained verbal consent from my respondents before recording the interviews and used pseudonyms throughout the research and writing process. The interviews were transcribed verbatim.

During my interviews, I delved into the life histories of the SAHFs. Some had similar trajectories; their wives had reached a point in their career where it just made economic sense for the husband to stay at home. Other SAHFs took on the role for more personal reasons. They also mentioned the challenges they went through internally when assuming their role. I also asked the SAHFs about their interactions with their wives. How do they view their relationship with their wives who are the breadwinners? How are chores shared? I had a somewhat different interview guide for married Muslim men who are not financially dependent on their wife. I asked them what they thought of SAHFs, and if they could imagine being one full-time.

Interviews were coded using the principles of thematic analysis as defined by Braun and Clarke (2006). This entailed generating codes from the transcripts through a line-by-line reading and a three-stage coding process. Labels were tentatively assigned in the first stage to words or phrases that shared common properties and reflected how respondents generally approached care work. Codes during the first stage were narrowed down at the second stage to include any distinctions made between men’s and women’s care work. The last stage combined the codes from the second stage into broader themes, that is, how both groups of men interpreted Islamic discourse when making sense of traditional and non-traditional notions of masculinity.

Results

In the following sections, I explain how my respondents resolve tensions between their intentions to be more caring men and retain a traditional sense of masculinity. While I find that both groups of men embrace caring masculinities and masculinize care at the same time, the way they reconcile both models of care is influenced by how they understand Islamic discourse. SAHFs generally interpreted Islam to mean that care work and their role did not detract from their sense of masculinity. On the other hand, full-time working men express more tension between both models of care. Interpretations of Islam affirmed a negative relationship between unemployment and a sense of masculinity for them. In the first section, I focus on how SAHFs are generally more able to reconcile care work with their own masculinity than the full-time working men. In the second section, I explain how SAHFs generally feel that their role does not compromise their position as the head of the family. They generally interpret Islam to explain how their role did not detract from their sense of masculinity and being a responsible Muslim man. For full-time working men, they find it harder to accept that a SAHF can be in charge.

Care Work: Being More Caring while Also Being More Masculine

I found that the SAHFs saw less conflict between care work and traditional masculinity than did the men working full-time. They were better able to reconcile care work with traditional masculinity. Zairul, 34, was laid off around 2019. He is now a SAHF. He enjoys doing housework, something he was used to doing even when he was working full-time. Being a SAHF meant that he could now do every chore in the household so that his wife only had to do the bare minimum since “the wife is supposed to help if she wants to help.”

To me honestly, I don’t mind it at all … because in Islam as well, the husband is the one who is supposed to do everything at home. Cooking, cleaning the house, getting the house ready for your family. The wife is supposed to help if she wants to help...I like it when I am the one who is providing for the family, maybe not in terms of money, but I prepare the home for them to live.

For Zairul, being a breadwinner was not the only means for him to provide for the family. He thought of himself as the provider of the family through doing most of the chores. By being the person who did all the chores, Zairul hoped to be a responsible Muslim man. His vision of masculinity embraced housework, in keeping with Elliot’s conception of caring masculinity. At the same time, he also appeared to masculinize housework as a specifically male responsibility, which seems to echo Jordan’s concept of masculinizing care. Like Zairul, Izzat, 33, was demonstrably receptive towards the idea of being a SAHF. He went a step further by admonishing himself for not being a good enough caregiver for his niece and nephew to take the load off his wife. He interrogated his own patriarchal privilege in the process:

So when I say I’m not really a good househusband, it’s that like I haven’t reached the point where she can fully let go. I feel like I guess a bit patriarchal in that sense. But if she can like kick back and not worry at all and just work, work, work, I feel that that’s the goal ... but I guess I’m not stressed out enough about the house. Like literally right now in this room, there’s a lot of cat poop that I have to pick up but I don’t have the urgency that she does.

Izzat did not have to reconcile care work with traditional masculinity. More than Zairul, he could embrace caring masculinities wholeheartedly. He felt that “in terms of the core teaching of equality in Islam, we can definitely do more as men in society without you know, I guess, going against Islam.” He opined that Islam provided room for men to be more than just breadwinners.

Zamiq, who calls himself a full-time househusband, saw no gendered distinction between who does a particular task in the household:

There is no written rule on who does what.... If she [his wife] sees clothes that need to be folded and I am busy, she will help do it…. I think housework should not be gender specific. If something needs to be done in the house, both husband and wife should be able to do it.

Zamiq’s opinion that “housework should not be gender specific” is a key feature of caring masculinities, since he believes men can engage in care work. He was not bothered by religious commentators who felt that men should not be too home-bound but should be working outside since “work can be defined in many ways”.

If the woman has an ability and talent to earn more working full time, and the man can also earn some income working part time and help focus on managing the house and kids, it's a happy partnership. Both roles require dedication and understanding from each other.

Zamiq did joke that the “house tends to be a bit more organized when woman are the primary caregivers, and food tends to taste much better ”. Yet, I do not take this to mean that Zamiq thinks care work is a woman’s responsibility. Rather, he is expressing an honest opinion that housewives happen to be more capable than SAHFs in keeping the house in order.

Zairul, Izzat, and Zamiq do not feel that engaging in care work compromises their sense of masculinity. They see no reason why care work is a woman’s domain. To them, confining women to care work goes against the spirit of Islam. They interpret Islam in a way that allows them to share care work with their female spouses, sometimes even relieving them off this work. Neither do they associate care work with a decrease in masculinity. In Zairul’s case, care work actually makes him feel more of a Muslim man.

The men working full-time also embraced care work but also had strong biases against men performing this care work full-time. Aziz, who now works full-time, used to be a SAHF for 18 months during the pandemic. He noted that it was a stressful, yet meaningful experience for him. Rather than see parenting as a chore, he saw it as a “perk,” even showing emotion when talking about his children. This was perhaps the clearest instance in my interviews of caring masculinities:

You know, taking care of the children is quite stressful, but at the same time, there are certain perks to the job itself…. The first one and a half years of my marriage, I did not manage to get to see my eldest child grow up from being a baby to a toddler ... you know…. I do get emotional when I see them going to school.

He embodied another example of caring masculinities by noting that he did not feel men and women in Islam were delegated particular roles, averring that it was “not accurate [to have this mindset]”:

In a modern society, the rules of who is the provider is fluid…. If the wife can earn more than the husband, the husband can provide in other matters as well. It can be emotional, it can be mental … household chores, and so on.

Aziz’s involvement with fatherhood suggests that he did not see parenting as a feminine activity or an activity in the domain of women. In fact, it was difficult for him to be separated from his eldest child in the early years of his marriage, so he valued being there for his children during the pandemic. However, Aziz did not completely challenge the traditional idea that a woman’s inherent role was to be a caregiver. Aziz joked that if his wife earned enough for the whole family to live comfortably, he might as well become a househusband again, akin to a “maid.” He was not entirely joking:

I always make this kind of joke—I do feel there’s some truth in it—if my wife earns quite a lot for us to live comfortably, I don’t mind being a full-time househusband. In fact, if my wife managed to earn like, millions, or maybe, you know, she’s filthy rich in what she earns, I might as well wear a maid costume and do the work itself. Become a full-time maid, not even a househusband.

Aziz’ use of humor to explain his willingness to be a full-time SAHF suggests a slight discomfort with this role. The patriarchal mindset was still visible in his use of the role of a maid (a woman) as a humorous point of reference when talking about the possibility of assuming a role which men normally would not assume. While Aziz embraced caring masculinities, this comment was also a very evident example of masculinizing care.

Like Aziz, Hafiz also harbored biases against care work performed by men. Hafiz considered being a househusband before marriage, assuming he married a wealthy woman. He was, and is, “very oriented” towards raising children, suggesting an espousal of caring masculinities. After raising two kids of his own, he acknowledged that being a househusband would be difficult, since “women in general have a kind of resilience, or mental resilience, and also even physical resilience that men also don’t have.” Hafiz was supportive of a man who wanted to become a househusband, initially encouraging it. He felt “more inclined to challenge a patriarchal notion of what it is like to be a Muslim man”. He did however express caution towards the househusband’s intentions:

If you are then a househusband, please be a good parent and a good husband, you know. I hope you are doing it and I hope you are not just you know, taking a free ride and also expecting your wife to do things for you.

Hafiz expressed concern for situations where househusbands took advantage of their wives. When I asked him whether he had the same concern regarding housewives, he reflected: “Good question. That’s a great question. I’ve never thought about that. So that kind of informs me of my own biases, right?” Unlike Aziz, Hafiz may not have made jokes about women being more suited towards household work. Yet, he expressed a discomfort with his own biases, even questioning himself. While his concern with women not being taken advantage of could be viewed as reflecting ideals of caring masculinities, there is a patriarchal undertone in hoping that men, who are traditionally expected to work, do not take advantage of their wives who are breadwinners. Underlying Hafiz’ concerns is an assumption that men cannot do care work as well as women and if they were caregivers, there is a risk that they would still expect their wives to do the bulk of the care work. He did still masculinize care in associating care work more with women.

Walid, 41 and also working full-time, had similar concerns to Hafiz, in terms of wondering what the intentions of househusbands were. He subscribed to the view that “it’s a man’s job [in Islam] to actually provide income to the family.” He said he came across instances of the husband taking advantage of the wife when the latter had to take over as the provider due to circumstances. He acknowledged that certain circumstances required the wife to take over as the breadwinner, but this was not the ideal arrangement for him. While he noted that he was less judgemental of men being househusbands as compared to a decade ago, he still had reservations:

There are also a number of instances where the husband actually was taking advantage of the wife.... So I guess we have to look deeper. Why actually is the wife the one that has to go to work? Is it really things that are unavoided or it’s the househusband that’s actually taking advantage of the wife? So I think we need to look into that.

To Walid, men’s ideal role was to provide for the family. At the same time, he did not view women’s roles, especially housewives, as simply complementary or less strenuous. In this sense, he made no distinction between paid and unpaid work. Instead, he acknowledged that a housewife taking care of children is also work: “Your wife might not be working, but she’s at home taking care of the children. That’s also work right?” On the surface, he embraced caring masculinities by not putting men’s or women’s work on a higher pedestal. However, his embrace of caring masculinities was conditional, dependent on whether that man was a SAHF or not. More than Hafiz and Aziz, he was explicit in masculinizing care by clearly delineating what a man’s role in an Islamic household was: to financially provide.

I find that respondents who are SAHFs generally do not feel that their masculinity is compromised because of care work. Interpretations of Islam help provide a sense of conviction that care work does not contradict their masculinity. Such interpretations may even enhance their sense of masculinity. Hence, they are open to embracing caring masculinities. The men who work full-time are supportive of men being more involved in the household and family life but harbor traditional assumptions about which gender is more suitable for care work and financially providing for the family. They associate care work with women more than the SAHFs do. Men such as Walid readily accept that to be a man in Islam is to provide financially for the family. Unpaid care work was not seen as an ideal male Muslim role.

A Duty to Lead and Serve One’s Family

The idea of guiding one’s family as the husband’s responsibility emerged as a theme in my study for both SAHFs and men working full-time. While there were SAHFs who confidently asserted that their role did not clash with their other role as the primary authority in the family, men working full-time found it hard to imagine being a SAHF because not contributing a significant income signalled to them a deviation from their responsibility as a Muslim man. Leadership and service ideally meant financial contribution to the household, although some respondents were also flexible and willing to talk about leadership and service in less tangible ways. Luqman, a SAHF, earns a bit of income on the side. Initially, being a SAHF felt like a forced role, and he did hope to “break free” and provide for the family and “surpass” what his wife has. He admitted that “sometimes it is painful enough to be in this situation.” If he “found enough evidence that there is no such thing as what I am doing”, he would have to tell his wife. However, he also looked at his role as “my sacrifice” since his wife helped to take care of his late mother when she was unwell. Luqman grew to embrace a caring masculinity, realizing how valuable time with his children was:

Oh, the time I have with my children. I see them grow in front of me … that’s one of the most rewarding things, to see them grow in front of you ... to have my children close to me, to see them grow up. And, I was at almost every function imaginable at the school.... I was there at every step of their progression. I feel sorry for my wife … because she’s just too busy even at night…. I think she missed a lot. I am lucky to see every single thing since 2014. I’ll make time for them [his kids].

Luqman’s appreciation for fatherhood, and his pity for his wife who cannot be as present of a parent, shows how he thinks about gender roles. Parenting to him is not a feminine role more suited to women. Both men and women can be good parents. He hoped to provide for the family, but noted he would “miss having the children, watching the children.” As comfortable as Luqman felt in his caring masculinity, he felt bad that his wife could not share in this parenting joy. However, where he masculinizes care is in his understanding of who the head of the household is. Being a man in Islam for him meant being a “husband to wife, father to the children and of course to get the family to Jannah ³ …make sure all of them are god-fearing.” While this quote suggests a belief in spiritual authority, Luqman was also in charge of most of the decision-making at the household level:

I am the head of the household.... Actually, it’s me who steers everything, then she’ll pay for it. For example, if we want to go somewhere on holiday or whatever, the ultimate decision falls on me…. She gives me the chance to choose and she will not say anything.

Luqman could embrace caring masculinities but still masculinized his care by framing his role as a leader for his family in this life and the next.

Roslan, a SAHF, articulated his masculinity through a confident humor. He acknowledged that his wife was the main income earner, but made it very clear who the head of the family was:

No, man, I’m the king! [Laughs.] There’s no question about that. That is cemented. But the king also has his associate, his partner. My wife is my other half. Leader-wise…. I am still the head of the family. As I mentioned, because in the akhirah ⁴ [afterlife], I will be held liable for the affairs of my family and my wife knows that. But living on this earth you know, like practically worldly life, we support each other.

Roslan made a reference to a Hadith (prophetic tradition) which mentions that “every one of you is a shepherd…The man is responsible for his subjects. The wife is responsible for her subjects—the children and whatnot.” Roslan invoked this source to comment that the man is the head of the family. Roslan was perhaps the clearest example of SAHFs masculinizing their role as head of the family. By using the word “King”, he meant he had an immense duty to care for his family in this life and the next since he felt that that was his religious obligation as a Muslim man.

Amrin, a doctor, echoed Luqman and Roslan’s assertion that the man was the head of the household:

To me, I do believe that the husband’s role [in Islam] is to provide for the family. However, this is my own opinion, due to the dynamic nature of the world at the moment, some people's finances can differ from time to time.... If there comes a time when the husband is not able to bring any income at all, then the family should come to an agreement that the husband stays at home, and the wife goes to work.... I do not think poorly of the situation.... But yes, the husband must make every effort to try to provide for the family.

Amrin felt that being the breadwinner made it easier for him to exercise his role as the masculine provider. He masculinized care by mentioning that men should try to financially provide for their family as much as possible. Yet, he acknowledged that not every man could live up to this ideal. He did consider embracing a more caring form of masculinity, albeit only if circumstances required him to do so. There was one SAHF who sincerely wanted to embrace a more caring form of masculinity, but had to confront a lot of difficult emotions. Faizal quit his job to become a SAHF so that he could be there for his kids; he did not like being away from them. Like Aziz, who used to be a SAHF, he was emotional when talking about his kids: Being a father “really brings tears to my eyes to see them be able to grow up.” However, deciding to be a SAHF voluntarily did not make the transition any easier for him. He had internalized the expectation of providing for the family as a Muslim man:

Because like it or not, I’m still a Malay. You always have it in the back of your mind that you have to give something back … as a Malay Muslim, like it or not, we’re expected to provide.

I kind of took it out on my children pretty often…At some point, I was so frustrated, I actually start throwing things at them.

As much as Faizal embraced being an involved father, he still had to negotiate expectations of him and masculinity within the Malay Muslim community. He tried to deal with these expectations by trying to “suppress that Malay part of me.” The words “like it or not” imply that though he would like to have a more egalitarian view of gender relations—a caring masculinity—the traditional mindset within him was persistent. Faizal still thought of the Muslim man as someone financially providing for his family.

Like Amrin, Hakim agreed that the husband’s role should be to provide for the family. While he works full-time, Hakim says he was a househusband for a few months after resigning from a previous job to look after their new-born child. His wife was not working when he was at home for those few months, so the family relied on savings to get by. Hakim saw the SAHF roles as one fraught with shame based on his understanding of Islam. Hakim imagined that men would “suffer internally”, assuming they did not become a SAHF due to circumstance:

From my reading … of secular knowledge and also from an Islamic perspective, naturally, men are more like hunters, like someone who carry the higher burden of providing for family and that really fits their ego...So naturally, I can sense that whoever is doing that [being a househusband], not because of the situational need, they kind of suffer internally to express themselves to the optimal level.

Hakim felt that being a househusband should not be a husband’s first priority. Having been one himself, he knew what he would go through if he were to ever become a full-time househusband. Assuming that role full-time, if it ever came to it, would be very difficult:

I will resort to being a household husband and let my wife fully work and provide for the family, but I can naturally think that I will keep myself distanced from my friends a bit. I feel like I’m not being a good man anymore.... I think I felt that when I was in that three-months period, even though I’m happily being a stay-at-home dad. But when it comes to external contact, I was very quiet. I don’t want to talk so much with my friends…. I feel like, you know, a bit inferior when I'm not working and providing for the family.

The key word in this quote is “resort”. He did appreciate the time he could spend with his children, showing them more emotional care as a father. Yet, care for him as a man was better expressed through financial means, and not through a model of caring masculinity. He felt embarrassed to interact with friends since he felt he was not a real man for staying at home.

The SAHFs are able to reconcile their role with their position as head of the household by masculinizing their authority. Interpretations of Islam guaranteed them this authority, regardless of their employment status. They understood Islam as a guide that provided them spiritual authority in their family, even if they did not have financial authority. Not being the main income-earner did not diminish their status as leader of the household. Hence, their masculinity did not feel diminished. As SAHFs, they were able to express caring masculinities by spending more time with their kids, sometimes even showing emotion when talking about their kids. The men working full-time had a harder time reconciling caring masculinities with their roles as the provider of the family. Interpretations of Islam affirmed a positive relationship between gainful employment and masculinity. These men struggled to embrace caring masculinities as they felt such a model of masculinity deviated from their responsibility as a Muslim man to provide income for the family.

Conclusion

This study delved into the experiences and perceptions of care work and authority among 21 married Muslim men in Malaysia. The study found that SAHFs are generally more able to embrace caring masculinities, even if they masculinize care to some extent. Being a SAHF does not compromise their sense of masculinity and position as head of the household. Their interpretations of Islam allows them to embrace caring masculinities in a way that does not make them feel like they are deviating from traditional masculinity. The men working full-time find it harder to reconcile caring masculinities with traditional masculinity, based on their understanding of Islam. These men, in theory, understood the importance of being a more involved father at home. Yet, being a SAHF, whether full-time or not, dealt a serious blow to their sense of masculinity because they ultimately felt that the man’s responsibility in Islam was to financially provide for the family. This study is important in demonstrating a nuanced application of the caring masculinities and masculinizing care frameworks in a non-Western context such as Malaysia. I extend Elliot and Jordan’s frameworks by incorporating the role of religion in men’s expression of their masculinity. It is evident that the men in this study do not just embrace caring masculinities or masculinize care. They engage in both processes at the same time. There is a constant tension between wanting to be more caring and clinging to traditional expectations of masculinity. This tension is in turn informed by how my interlocutors understand their faith. It is hopeful that this study encourages more work on how religion informs tensions among men who strive to be more caring but are not able to dispense with traditional ideals of masculinity. While this article contributes to our understanding of how Malaysian men approach care work and household authority, there are limitations. The participants are overwhelmingly from middle-class backgrounds. Future research may look at how class influences expressions of masculinity in Muslim-majority societies, as Shah (2023) has done. Such studies offer a wider understanding of how identities across class, religion, and gender shape men’s attitudes towards care work and authority in the Muslim world and other parts of the world.