First Wave Feminism and The Suffrage Movement: How Is It Relevant to Muslim women??

We embark on our study of Western feminism by examining its historical development through the first wave of women's struggle for equality: The suffrage movement.

We focus on England as a case study to see how bitterly women fought a decades long battle to be granted voting and other very basic social rights.

Throughout our overview and analysis of this period at the end of the 19th century and up to the years between the two world wars, we compare how the revelation of Islam granted women the same and more rights than British women were fighting for, without even asking for them!

We propose a shift in thinking about ourselves as Muslim women and our rights enshrined in the Divine law (Shari'ah), and question the authority and validity of a western feminist paradigm through which it is assumed that we will understand and theorize ourselves both currently and historically.