Abstract
Even in the twenty-first century, education is widely typified by inequality. Equality of access is upheld by constitutional right in South Africa, is internationally regarded as consistent with respect for democratic principles, and is generally regarded as a legitimate entitlement of humanness. In South Africa, diminishing differences between education for boys and girls suggest a reclaiming of female rights and a departure from trivialising education for girls. However, certain communities actively disparage female education on the basis of religious identities and cultural positions. In such settings, girls are educated under censure, and separated from learning opportunities that are incongruous with patriarchy and a parochial world view. Nevertheless, females from such backgrounds have performatively depicted leadership and agency in pursuing educational opportunities.
This qualitative study is based on a research sample of four Muslim females who did not initially have access to adequate education. The study seeks to investigate how South African Muslim females have enacted leadership agency to transcend educational restrictions. It was oriented to explore the perceptions of these Muslim females regarding their religio-culturally imposed limitations and the role of the wider community in their education and agency. The study required gaining an understanding of the individual and community-related challenges that confronted their respective pursuits of education and knowledge of the actions each employed to overcome them. Data to support the study was collected by conducting individual, online, semi-structured interviews and through a WhatsApp share chat.
The study pivots on a feminist epistemology and is filtered through a critical feminist framework that interrogates postulated truths and seeks to identify both visible and latent elements of the discourse. It seeks to expose typical nuances of opinion that serve to ostracise women from educational opportunity. Proponents of critical feminism argue that education for girls is fundamental in shaping an economically and socially stable global position (Haque, Chowdhury, Ahmad & Rakibuddin, 2020), and essential in the process of revolutionising the orientation of women in the family and society (Islam, 2016). The study also engages thinking that favours unbiased gendering and advances social justice within the schema of sacrosanct Islam. Conduct of the study required sensitivity and stringent anonymity, and a high level of participant trust, yet it paved the way for courageous revelations of discontent around the embargo on female education. It documented a turnaround from deference to the domestic female stereotype, towards initiative in seeking change. Despite the manipulation of male-dominated proscription and prohibition, the participants epitomised Harris’s (2004) ‘can do’ girl: an embodiment of female agency and contemporary girlhood exercised despite inhibiting masculine despotism. Lastly, the study affirmed the emergence of revised standards for educational access in the immediate and greater participant communities, ensuing from the leadership agency of the participants.
A powerful statement encapsulates the rationale of this study:
No society treats its women as well as its men. (Lee, 2004: 6)
Key words: Critical feminism; qualitative research, phenomenological narrative; leadership agency; Muslim girls; educational restrictions.