University experiences, as participants claim, have altered their perceptions about themselves, their communities and families. Finding a comfortable space to express their identities without feeling the need to conform to fixed notions of ‘race,’ culture, ethnicity, gender and religion remains a pertinent issue for respondents. Whether they have moved away or stayed home to study for their degrees, the majority think that they have to navigate
between cultural and religious identities, contested stereotypical racialised and ethnic ‘labels’ so as to generate new gendered identities:
‘Asians here, like my family and family friends, are saying ‘you are being whoever you want’ and I say ‘it’s not about being whoever I want to be’ but I’ve got my identity, I’m happy with who I am and just because I don’t hold the cultural belief that we should all go to Pakistan at 16 and get married doesn’t mean I can’t be independent, cause I’ve got my morals and values, which are more religious’ (Saeema).
Some women reflected that the beginning of university life brought up ‘confusing states’, where they found themselves questioning and assessing their identities to eventually reach a stage of acceptance, hence embracing their new gender positioning. In this process, they develop alternative identities which become contextual, depending on where they are and what they are involved in. Previous research conducted by Knott and Khokher (1993) also reveals how young South Asian Muslim women in Bradford express changing values and attitudes through negotiations of ethnic and religious factors that define their everyday experiences. Indeed, Tasneem reiterates how university culture highlights differences, whereby clashing lifestyles are apparent:
‘At uni it just makes things clear and it highlights the differences more than the similarities, for example not drinking, before it was never such an issue cause the friends you had, like under-aged, no one was actually drinking but even if they do, they’ll offer you orange juice but uni culture is basically drinking, your social life is about drinking and it’s quite a big barrier I would say, clubbing...the differences for me, it was more of a shock...and yes you might want to go to the cinema and bowling but I completely understand why someone would spend the night out clubbing or having a drink as that’s what they enjoy more, and why not? So it shows the differences a lot more’ (Tasneem).
Participants feel the pressure to embrace university culture but are somehow constrained by their religious convictions or cultural upbringing. For instance, Habibah suggests that peer pressure of ‘trying to fit in’ at university resulted in her neglecting her cultural identity; being Muslim prevented her from involving herself fully in university life. However, a trip to India during a university placement acted positively on her perceptions, leading her to re-evaluate her social context and recognise that she still values her ethnic identity:
‘I wasn’t happy to be from…not Muslim background but some of the constraints that you have in being an Asian woman, wasn’t happy about that cause you can’t be out too late and I wasn’t happy and I lost a bit of my cultural identity as I was trying to fit in with everybody and that’s what happens if you’re working in an environment where people who aren’t from ethnic minorities and then when I went to India I realised that actually, I’m proud of my culture, it’s different from everybody else’s culture and I’m more in touch with my culture now’ (Habibah).
To ‘live the full university life’, Alia moved from Manchester to study in Aberdeen. For her, gaining the experience and skills to live alone and independently, without having to feel the need to go home every weekend and be part of her community, was crucial. Alia hence learned to manage on her own, throughout medical school so that she ‘would not have to report to anyone what I’m doing’. On the other hand, Saeema was ‘shocked’ in moving to York to study:
‘I live in a community where there are mostly South Asians and in York, you’re the only Asian there! And you’re like ‘Right, what is happening!?’ (Laugh)...but I just learnt so much about myself, about other people...and just about life and now I know... if anything happened with my family, I know I can be independent myself’ (Saeema).
Having lived in a close-knit Asian community in Leeds, she describes the exposure she encountered at university, and how this has moulded her personality. Setting out to university, she recounts how she expected to mingle with South Asians but found herself in a totally unexpected setting, where ‘whiteness’, as opposed to ‘Asianess’ was the norm; managing differences proved to be a challenge in the beginning. University experiences have given her the opportunity to appreciate multiculturalism within an academic setting, where she evaluates her identity. Women maintain that it is up to them to decide how to behave at university and they make conscious choices of how to integrate amongst diverse cultures, societies and groups. They reiterate the do’s and don’ts of university life, which for Muslims, encompass the non-consumption of alcohol, the consumption of halal food and the prohibition of engaging into non-marital relationships i.e. having boyfriends and engaging in sexual activities. Indeed, Shazia talks about the range of options that exist at university, and ‘one has to choose between what’s right and what’s wrong’ and ‘everybody has a choice’.
Not betraying parents’ trust seems to be an important notion for respondents. Even though Shazia goes out socialising with friends in the evenings, her parents are not aware of her activities as she tries to keep those undercover. This is a strategy that women adopt so as to, on the one hand, juggle individual desires and wishes, and on the other, fulfil parental expectations. As Shazia explains, her parents do not know her entire whereabouts but at the same time, there are limits that she imposes on herself when it comes to lifestyle choices such as drinking alcohol. Indeed, Hanah claims that she did not set out to have ‘the typical student lifestyle’ but was more concerned about getting her degree and ensuring that she had her choice of lifestyle at university. Investing in the future was her priority:
‘I don’t know about independence, has my education given me independence? It has certainly given me confidence….in terms of being free and doing what you want yes, in a way my chosen career was what I wanted to do but independence in terms of
what goes on today, at university and university life that you go, you have that lifestyle and no, that’s not what I got and it wasn’t something that I set out to do neither, it was just that I went, did my thing and came back’ (Hanah).
Similarly, Faiza reflects on her university experiences. Labelling herself as ‘the good Asian girl’, she claims that she mainly befriended South Asian girls because they shared similar levels of understandings and like Saeema, talks about her university space as being essentially ‘white’:
‘I was a good Asian girl in the sense that I did not go out clubbing, drinking and so on and then did my Mphil and most of my friends have been Asian but the university I went to was predominantly white’ (Faiza).
In a space which is predominantly white, women pick up on racialised identities and make deliberate moves to associate with other ‘Asian girls’. Indeed, unlike Saeema, who embraced cultural differences and diversity in friendships, Faiza consciously chose to socialise with ‘Asian’ girls as she found it easier to communicate and contextualise her sense of ‘self’ within the South Asian community at university. However, some women are also determined to enjoy university life fully until it is time for them to ‘settle down’. Breaking the ‘good Asian girl’ stereotype, Rahila enjoyed clubbing and socialising whilst at university; once married, she no longer goes out clubbing and is now working full-time and looking after the family.
As for Nadia, she lives at home due to her parents’ wishes. However she negotiated with them that she would be allowed to occasionally socialise with friends outside of university campus and course schedules, conditions which her parents agreed to. That said, her parents are not aware that she drinks and goes out clubbing as this would mean restrictions upon Nadia’s social life in the future:
‘Well I go out! I’ve got mates in Sheffield and Nottingham and I go and I can stay over, I mean not all the time but I’m allowed to but obviously they won’t know that I’m out clubbing and all no! Just because of the negative things that I do with it, it’s true, if they find out but I’ve done it now, the whole drinking thing…that’s the western thing’ (Nadia).
Some participants are consciously following prescribed parental rules while others ‘play the system’. Nadia, nevertheless, makes compromises in ensuring that she lives the ‘western’ and the ‘Muslim’ lifestyles simultaneously. Going ‘halfway’, she has two groups of friends, non-South Asian friends and South Asian friends. With her non-South Asian friends and some South Asian friends, she finds it comfortable and also non-contradictory to ‘go out clubbing’ and consume alcohol. However, with a group of South Asian Muslim girls, she can also share cultural and religious affinities:
‘I’ve made friends where I can embrace both sides because it would have been difficult if my uni friends didn’t embrace both sides like we go to mosque and I don’t think if my uni friends didn’t all go do it together, I don’t think I’d do it on my own but it’s an experience we share every week, it’s something that keeps us together and we might not see each other for the whole week but that day we will and we will all go together and it’s a good feeling, we all feel close’ (Nadia).
Having shared cultural and religious experiences on a regular basis at university remain important to respondents. Once a week, Nadia and her Muslim friends go to the mosque to pray. University allows her the possibility to reflect on her individual needs outside the family and community settings that she is used to. She deliberately chooses to maintain a balance in fulfilling her academic and spiritual goals, hence affirming an independent Islamic identity, where she navigates between ‘the west’ and ‘the east’ with ease and composure. However, despite negotiation strategies, some women still feel constrained and unable to fully get involved in options that they would essentially be willing to explore whilst at university. For example, Sanaa suggests that she was ‘stuck at university’. Sanaa ‘was respectful to her parents’ when she was still at school but felt that:
‘I was missing out, couldn’t do what the other girls were doing, so I felt I did nothing and everybody else did everything at university’ (Sanaa).
By ‘everything’, Sanaa means drinking, clubbing, and having boyfriends. So, whilst at university, she rebelled against parental restrictions and experienced all of these. She had relationships at university, with ‘English’ (White) guys but suggests that she kept them ‘casual’ so that problems would not arise at a later stage where parents would get involved:
‘With boys, going out, staying out all night, drinking, I never did drugs but I do drink so basically that lifestyle, but then I wasn’t happy with that, that wasn’t me and actually for a while, I didn’t want a boyfriend because I thought ‘Oh no, what if I fall in love with somebody and he’s English?’ I’ll have to choose between him and my family, back then I really thought it was a big issue so I would go out, mess about but nothing serious’ (Sanaa).
There were instances where relationships could have developed but Sanaa felt it was impossible to take them further due to cultural and religious barriers; her parents would never accept that she considers a non-Muslim and non-Asian British boyfriend as marriage material. Today, Sanaa still dates ‘English’ guys with no intention of settling down with them. University hence provides women with spaces where contestations occur. As they navigate ‘cultural’ and ‘religious’ boundaries, respondents demonstrate agency in the choices they make with regards to which social activities to embrace at university, and which ones to reject. Indeed, decisions about drinking alcohol, socialising and having relationships are very carefully negotiated by young women. Their negotiations are informed by personal choices, as well as family and community ethos that promote cultural gendered norms which prescribe particular modes of behaviour which respondents are
expected to honour. As such, participants develop strategies to negotiate their social experiences at university, thereby generating new gender identities as they decide how to position themselves within the wider context of university life. In my study, participants also maintain that peer pressure at university influences the ways in which they decide to affirm their identities as they learn to navigate the ‘differences’ and the ‘similarities’ (amongst students) they encounter on university campuses. All these factors influence how women decide to affirm their identities on campus. In the next section, I explore respondents’ involvement in university student societies, with a particular focus on Islamic Societies at university. This discussion reveals how respondents, through student societal groups, negotiate their ways around activities, thereby further highlighting the impact that social experiences have in generating women’s gender identities.