Girls just wanna have fun Q-News Magazine, Issue 360

From their despotic parents to the wild days they hope will never end, Muslim women speak frankly about their lives on Britain’s university campuses and how their elders are letting them down. Sonia Malik explores the complicated lives of British Islam’s “bad girls” and finds there is more to them than boys, booze and bhangra.

“… Some boys take a beautiful girl, / And hide her away from the rest of the world. / I wanna be the one to walk in the sun. / Oh girls, they wanna have fu-un / Oh girls, just wanna have fun…”

Cyndi Lauper’s original girl power anthem woke me up. Instead of turning the radio alarm off, I managed to knock it to the other side of the room where it continued to play. Who came to mind when I thought of the girls in the song: Muslims girls who I’d met and seen on university campuses struggling to balance their faith, family expectations and peer pressure. All they ever wanted was to have a little fun, just like everyone else.

In today’s society, away from the Islamic Society meetings and gender segregated Eid dinners, many Muslim girls are challenging the kind of life that their parents, imams and “more pious” peers want them to lead. These social rebels could easily be labeled British Islam’s “bad girls” - defiant, intractable, but most definitely in charge. It’s easy to mark them with a scarlet letter. After all, our parents always thought that clubs, alcohol and sex wouldn’t mix easily with our Muslim ways. But it’s too easy to condemn and treat this new generation of Muslim girls with derision. Rather than merely passing judgment on areas of misconduct, it is imperative that we understand why many Muslim girls do the things they do and find themselves in the situations they are in. I decided to take a closer look at the lifestyle of today’s campus Muslim rebels and understand why they take the risk of incurring the anger of their families and challenging the moral directives of their faith.

“Let’s face it,” confides Nazia, a student from Bradford, “at home we’re constantly subjected to tyrannical parenting and hampered by endless rules which dictate our every move. University is the first and only chance a girl gets in life to lead her life exactly the way she wants it. Most Muslim girls don’t even know what they want out of life when they first come here. They’re just not used to thinking for themselves or setting their own boundaries. There’s a whole learning process involved of what to do with your new-found independence. Girls are trying everything and anything because they never had the chance to decide for themselves what they like and don’t like.”

Kinza, a 24 year-old London university student agrees: “My life at university involved clubbing, drinking and dating. Most of the things I got involved in were pursued purely out of curiosity. You don’t put your family reputation at risk if you are at university in a different city. You don’t for one second think about marriage. You just go wild for a bit without wondering who is judging you. The drinking is part of the experience, and these days, you have to dress just to fit in rather than to stand out. Fashion is important to all girls - even girls in hijab look for their own sense of style.”

For a 22 year-old medical student from Leicester University, university wasn’t just a few years of her life, but her only opportunity to live out her “entire life”.

“I only chose to study medicine,” she exclaims, “because the course is longer. I wanted to be away from home for longer. I know I have to live out my whole life in the span of my five year degree because once I get back home, it’s back to being constantly under my parents’ thumb. Some girls here have made major life changes and intend to stick by them once their degree ends but that’s impossible for me. My parents tried to make my older sister marry someone she didn’t want to and she eventually ran away. That meant that their grip over me tightened considerably. It is suffocating.”

The issue of the phrase “despotic families”, as one person described them, came up constantly. The women I spoke to were scarred by their childhood experiences and felt like they needed to take control of their own lives. Are we breeding a generation of Muslim girls with deep-rooted behavioural problems and damaged psyches?

Sarah Littlejohn, Deputy Director of the Counselling Service at Manchester University, is of the opinion that while many girls endure very normal feelings about leaving home and may experience difficulty in making the transition into adulthood, there is always a smaller percentage who suffer from problems related to mental health and eating disorders, which are commonly rooted in family relationships.

“The ways in which girls respond vary. Generally there is a reluctance to acknowledge the disorder. Where girls come from restrictive and controlling families, they are often not used to setting their own boundaries with regard to things like sexual behaviour, food and drink, and may tend to oscillate between modes of behaviour which range from overly controlled to out of control. At times they may aim to mimic that strict and controlling atmosphere, and at others, be very unruly. Many girls find themselves yo-yoing between these extremes.”

Yasmin, a 25 year-old teacher from Leeds, believes it depends on what the individual considers to be more important. “Having overly controlling parents can result in you becoming very bitter and rebellious if you don’t see it as anything more than needless restriction. Growing up, I could not see why they did it, but now I am grateful. As a teacher I recognise that kids need boundaries. I am a strong person. I would never have been who I am now if they had not raised me that way.

“I had a curfew for everything. I had to be back from school by 3.30, back from college by 4pm and back from university by 6pm. My parents were strict because they were upholding their family honour, which inevitably falls on the girl’s shoulders. There was no way I would ever go near a guy. My parents always told me if I so much as look at a guy they would kill me. I was not even allowed to talk to boys in school. You’re so scared of breaking the little rules, you wouldn’t even consider breaking the big ones. This has definitely affected my ability to socialise with people. I hold back from making friendships with guys. To this day, I am a teacher, and I do not talk to men at work. They have to initiate the conversation and when they do, I feel uncomfortable. I prefer for them to stick to work-related topics. I don’t enjoy socialising with them. It takes time to break down the mental barriers.”

Most of the girls I spoke to understood the importance of family honour and often use all kinds of subterfuge to keep it out of the limelight. Yasmin feels differently. “If upsetting you family or their honour means something to you,” she says, “then you will never go too far. Even if you put me on the other side of the world I would never go clubbing, go out with guys, wear miniskirts or drink. Parents shelter you so you don’t want to ever do that.”

Guarding the family honour is lonely, but Yasmin also feels that it made her independent: “Everyone else does it and you get left out because you don’t participate. I have a strong personality and didn’t want to, but not everyone is. Off-the-rails girls keep going until somebody stops them.”

However, it is arguable that even in this day and age many girls do not fully realise the consequences of a reckless lifestyle. Sexuality is rarely discussed openly in Muslim families and Muslim students rarely get any real guidance on sex. Many are withdrawn from school sex education classes by their parents, fearing the teaching will make them more permissive. This knowledge gap and the social pressure to explore their sexuality and their bodies leave some vulnerable, as a 26 year-old student from Cardiff explains.

“I come from a household where my comings and goings were pretty restricted. My family is made up mostly of girls. I had no brothers or male friends to grow up with, so you could say I was quite sheltered from the realities of life as a result. When I enrolled in university, I experienced personal freedom for the first time. I began socialising with students who appeared to be a lot more well-adjusted and sophisticated than me. By the end of my first year, I naively entered into a relationship and fell pregnant.

“There was a part of me that felt very isolated and bewildered when I first arrived at university. My boyfriend was warm and compassionate, and I felt he was someone who would look after me. I didn’t even think about him having ulterior motives. I found it very difficult to speak to and befriend genuine people at university, and I think that is what made me such easy prey. He knew, no matter what happened, I wasn’t going to run around telling people.”

Phillip Hodson, a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy specialises in family relations, the behaviour of adolescents and young adults, and has worked extensively with ethnic minorities and Muslims. He believes that people who have never learnt to say ‘no’ can face a multitude of dilemmas.

“The western model of parenting allows for a rebellious adolescence and a rejection of family values, but the eastern model can generally be a case of ‘do as you are told’, and unfortunately such attempts are not always successful. You’re not allowed to challenge the culture or the rules, and while this may prove effective for children doing their A-levels, it’s normally quite a different story when it comes to university and relationships. Being exposed to a value-free secular culture can create enormous problems when you have hitherto led a comparatively protected existence.

“Commonly, excessively dominating parents de-skill their children. Consequently they are left literally immature in decision-making since their parents have usurped this. Many children have it drummed into them that they cannot make mistakes, but people need to learn from their mistakes. For Muslim girls especially, it can unfortunately be much more serious if they make a mistake at twenty-two rather than making one at twelve.”

As for whether rebellious behaviour was a healthy exploration or a cause for concern, Hodson felt that was a question for the individual. “A girl has to decide for herself what her own values are. She is responsible for herself and she has to become an individual. As for parents, they need to empower both their sons and their daughters equally and accept that women as well as men may want to aspire to challenging careers and alternative choices. We need to get away from the idea where parents are disappointed when a baby girl is born. Daughters are undervalued from the very beginning, and these are attitudes that girls catch on to and carry with them for the rest of their lives, resulting in many of the problems they encounter.”

Aisha, a Bangladeshi Muslim from Birmingham, who suffers from obesity and low self-esteem, believes this is due to neglect from her family. Her liberation at university only heightened her sense of helplessness.

“When I was doing my A-levels, I wanted to do art subjects, but my parents did not see any prospects of a good career for an arts graduate. They wanted me to do medicine so I ended up taking science-related subjects instead, and consequently performing very poorly. I was very angry about the lack of choice I was given. I have been rebelling and screaming for help ever since then. At university I broke every rule in the book because I kept thinking these were all the other things my parents had been denying me.

“However, I was not serious about any of my flings because I knew I was destined for an arranged marriage. So many opportunities have slipped by. I now feel bitter and bad-tempered, and find it difficult to perform well so many other areas of my life. I find it very hard to trust anybody, since I don’t even trust my own family. I have given up my job because of lack of self-confidence, and even whilst working I never had aspirations for promotions or higher paying positions. I just thought, what’s the point?”

When family cultural traditions are tied so closely to Islam, experiences of growing up under lockdown and the subsequent liberation of campus life leaves bitter feelings about religion that are tough to shake.

“I now disrespect parents who are religious,” explains Aisha, “because I think they just twist religion to suit their own ends or in order to please their social circle. My faith has definitely been tested. I have gone from being a hijabi to doubting my faith altogether. I feel in order for there to be any change, parents need to learn how to practise Islam in a positive way, rather than using it as a weapon to condemn others. Also, we need to stop back-biting because it is the source of intense family anxiety. Girls will never be able to live out their dreams.”

But Kinza feels the “wild days” are eventually tempered with age. “After three years at university, I started attending Islamic events. This has definitely helped me re-prioritise my aspirations. Most girls I know ignore Islamic Societies and avoid the religious people because they have already made their mind up about them. Eventually you look around and see that there is a world beyond the pub or the club.”

It is easy for imams and community leaders to patronisingly blame the lack of discipline at home and “western permissiveness” for the situation of Muslim girls on the campus. This is just another example of passing the buck. Young Muslim women experiences of growing up Muslim and British are complex. The life challenges they face are ones that their parents’ generation didn’t fathom. The popular culture they grow up in - whether the MTV or B4U variety - is powerful. The experiences of young women are difficult to generalise.

When asked about a search for solutions and a way forward through this maze of conflicting influences and such manifestations of frustration and disillusionment, Humera Khan, a founder of An-Nisa Women Society and an established social worker of two decades, felt that it all depends on what people are looking for.

“Whenever you seek to initiate change or explore a given situation you will inevitably uncover many ugly things. How these unpleasant aspects are dealt with varies from person to person. University life is a confrontation with yourself and self-awareness is a process that can take many years. The journey is essentially the same but we often take different paths.

“Nevertheless, young people are being short-changed because they are not getting guidance appropriate to their lives, influences and choices from their elders. Families often impose restrictions and make unwise decisions in pursuit of a social or cultural ideal. Providing ‘cuckooland’ alternatives for people dealing with harsh realities results in solutions which are superficial and ineffective. Further to this, many girls are still not taking responsibility for their own actions and problems. I agree that girls can essentially be very vulnerable, but one of the first steps towards empowering yourself and taking control of your life is to stop seeing yourself as the victim.

“Ultimately, we need to discover our God-given potential for humanity rather than getting caught up in these tribal, materialistic or western cultures.”

The challenge for British Muslims, therefore, is to create spaces for engaging with young people without recourse to fatwa or condemnation. Many of us are teaching our young women to hate their faith. While growing alcoholism and sexual permissiveness are problems, they are symptomatic of a community that is ill equipped to engage with the messy lives of British youth. If faith is to be an important part of our lives, then it must speak to the cultural and social realities of today and give meaning to our needs and aspirations. The emergence of a British Muslim culture that gives us reasons to celebrate life and faith needs to be facilitated. Otherwise, the prevailing and powerful “wanna have fun” narrative has already won.

To respect the anonymity of the women who were interviewed for this article, all names have been changed.

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