ABSTRACT
Drawing upon narratives of Muslim parents, this chapter attempts to nuance the discussion around gender and the place of women, especially adolescent girls, in the Muslim community. It discusses enactments of respectable femininity in the field of education, expected of Muslim girls, in order to reproduce or challenge the class status of Muslim families. By paying attention to two concepts – bhal suwali (good girlhood) and bhal ghor (good family) – articulated by parents in my study, this chapter connects the performances of certain types of gender practices by Muslim families with the pursuit of class interests. Following Radhakrishnan (2009) this chapter shows that good girlhood works as symbolic capital and helps Muslim parents to culturally authorise their daughters as legitimate actors in the field of education, while legitimising themselves as good family. This paper draws attention to three practices of respectable femininity through which good girlhoods are enacted in the field of education, namely: (a) negotiating poverty respectably, (b) prioritising gendered discipline, and (c) merging career aspirations with marital prospects.
