I have a confession: for many years, I have allowed myself to be influenced by the social norms that have

been imposed on me by those who wish to uphold oppressive tradition. And overcoming that influence
has been the greatest challenge of my life.

Growing up in a conservative Kuwaiti community, I felt I had no choice but to conform to the beliefs that
have formed the basis of this society. In school, I heard girls encouraged to commit to the societal
interpretation of the Muslim religion and morality to ensure that their lives would fall into a socially-
acceptable path. Around me, I saw women who had spent their lives conforming to the rules imposed
on them by this society, the rules intended to contain them: Good females must return home by 10pm.
Good females should not engage in conversation with boys outside of school. Good females must use a
low voice and refrain from arguing in public. Good females should not demonstrate for their political
rights in the street. Goof females must fully embrace complete male guardianship. Their lives were
dictated by these rules and so many more, and even the thought of questioning these social norms was
taboo amongst my peers.

My father, however, always encouraged us to ask questions about our faith in order to understand it
better before we embraced it into our own lives. He and my mother both approached their
understanding of Islam by reading stories and contextualising the beliefs they had been raised with.
Growing up in a more liberal family partially separated us from the community that surrounded us –
when it was discovered that we chose to celebrate Christmas and put up a Christmas tree, our family
drew condemnation for “buying into the divinity of Christ”, even though we saw it as another
celebration rather than a religious holiday.

It was this more open-minded approach to religion that sowed the seeds of doubt about the treatment
of women and girls around me. I’ve always believed, even when I would not speak on the matter, that
these rules and expectations fed into the neglect of women’s rights and attacks on the liberties women
did have. This system of patriarchal power was so deeply entrenched as to limit women’s opportunities
and encourage them to conform to a system that did not fully support them, and the social price of
questioning this reality was harsh.

And it was this price that kept me from questioning these obvious harms dealt against women by certain
people’s interpretation of Islam. I didn’t dare turn a critical eye to these beliefs around my peers,
because I was sure that being agreeable to these ideas would assure my acceptance from the people
around me and guarantee me an affection, I might not have access to otherwise. Even with these
questions bubbling inside my mind, growing more and more insistent with each passing day, I tiptoed
around people who didn’t share these beliefs. No matter how uncomfortable it made me to allow their
treatment of and attitude towards women to go unchallenged, comforting myself in the belief that my
politeness would one day lead to them living a better and more compassionate life.

I was a people-pleaser, determined to not upset the balance no matter how many questions I found
myself with about the impositions placed on and expected of women around me. My cousin went
through a divorce, my friends spoke of her not deserving custody of her beloved nine-month-old son;
other women who separated from their husbands were expected to return to their family homes with
their children and keep a low profile for the rest of their lives for fear of bringing more judgement upon
them and their family. I kept my mouth shut, trapped in the trap so many people-pleasers find
themselves ensnared in – being despised or disapproved of feeling worse than ignoring your own
beliefs.
Last summer, my father suffered and survived a massive a heart attack. The shock of this threw into
sharp relief my need to live life on my own terms – for the first time, I recognized how unhappy I was,
how miserable I had become in trying to live up to the standards set for me by the conformist society I
was surrounded with. I was weak, willing to keep my mouth shut for fear of bringing judgement on
myself or my family.

I began to question just how I had been living my life up until that moment, how my need to please the
people around me had limited me from engaging with my core beliefs. For the first time, I truly asked
what about me? What will become of me if I continue to attempt to conform to those who are so
different to me? Something shifted within me – I realized that, no matter how perfectly and piously I
lived my life, there would always be people who would want to find fault with me, and would do
everything they could to locate it, no matter how agreeable I was or how much I dismissed my own
beliefs. I needed to make a change, and, for me, that meant finding a balance in a society with so many
cultures and beliefs in a way that I could feel sure about.

I began reading more deeply into Islamic texts and stories, finding context for so many of the beliefs I
had been led to belief were inherent to the religion for so long. And what I found was that this religion
fostered debate and disagreement, just the way my father had in our family – it demanded questions so
as to build a deeper and fuller picture of our faith.

At first, I found myself struggling to overcome the deeply ingrained beliefs that the society around me
had treated as normal for so long. I was fearful than my friends would view me as morally compromised,
my views questionable and my faith weak. These ideas about what made a good woman were difficult
more me to shake, even as I began to see how they really functioned within Islamic stories. Shaking off
the binds that had been made to contain me and so many other women was difficult, but I knew I could
not continue to live my life under the constraints I had for so long when my beliefs clashed with them. I
confided in a friend, admitting that I wasn’t being fair to myself or respecting my true feelings by trying
to please everyone, and that it was time to embrace myself for who I truly was.

But through my understanding of Islam, I began to see that I had more power than society had ever
given me credit for. My value was not determined by the expectations of those around me or how well I
conformed to those expectations, but rather by my commitment to serving and pleasing God. Despite
what I had been led to believe, Islam was the first major religious ideology to grant women certain
rights, encouraging them to make spiritual progress and seek growth in that sphere instead of treating
them as tools of evil as many other religions did and even still do. Under Islamic belief, women share
many rights with men, and, now I could see the context for the repressive ideas that had been imposed
on me by society, I could truly understand the truth of how Islam attempts to equalise men and women
across the board.

The freedom I felt in these discoveries was incredible; knowing that my purpose was not to serve the
beliefs and expectations of people around me, but rather to please God, made me feel as free as an
eagle. With this wind beneath my wings, I threw off the shackles of my previous beliefs about politeness
serving as the best tool to get people to live better lives. I started to express my newfound
understanding to the people around me. I took on personal issues such as the right to choose a spouse
and the acceptance of our expression of affection for people we care for, along with professional biases
like the right to equal education and employment as men.
By opening my mind, I did not allow others to dictate my understanding of the world or the way I lived
my life; it gave me the confidence to question my beliefs and know that they could stand strong against
that which I did not agree with. I had confidence in myself and what I stood for, more than ever, more
than I’d ever been able to before.

Of course, these questions that I raised were not always accepted by the people around me. When I
expressed my support for LGBT people, I was met with pushback. Despite progress in many other
countries, Kuwait continues to strictly enforce its public morals rules, which criminalise homosexual and
transgender individuals. Consequently, LGBTQ locals experience persistent prejudice, condemnation,
and even criminal prosecution. For a long time, like the friends I grew up with, I believed that parents
had a duty to provide moral principle to their children, which might include rejecting ideologies or
identities that contradicted their Islamic beliefs. But, as far as I was concerned, LGBT people have a right
to live their lives free of discrimination based on their identities. The differences between us are not
only natural, but healthy, and accepting these differences is a vital part of building a healthy society.

As I embraced the change within me, I soon discovered that the conformists around me felt threatened
by my open-mindedness and willingness to question my beliefs. They hold on to tradition because the
thought of engaging with something different feels like an attack on their customs and lifestyles. The
pushback I received on my opinions and support of marginalized groups like women and LGBT people
signified their fear, and I learned to accept that their fear came from a place of ignorance. I believe in
the importance of customs and tradition, but there is no reason not to balance them with a fuller and
more diverse view of the world.

When I chose to learn Islam in the same way my mother and father did, I came to realise that it is the a
religion that has become completely politicised.That politicisation has been crafted to benefit men and
control and oppress women, enforcing constricting beliefs on what makes a “good” woman to limit
women and girls from pursuing a life equal to men and boys. Whenever a person reads a verse from the
Quran, they must endeavour to find it’s context, to search out the reality of it’s original meaning, instead
of cherry-picking specific verses to enforce certain restrictive views. By embracing the change within me
and understand the value of respecting myself, I have come to understand my religion and it’s purpose
with more clarity than ever before.