Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia

by Shenila Khoja-Moolji

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In Forging the Ideal Educated Girl, Shenila Khoja-Moolji traces the figure of the ‘educated girl’ to examine the evolving politics of educational reform and development campaigns in colonial India and Pakistan. She challenges the prevailing common sense associated with calls for women’s and girls’ education and argues that such advocacy is not simply about access to education but, more crucially, concerned with producing ideal Muslim woman-/girl-subjects with specific relationships to the patriarchal family, paid work, Islam, and the nation-state. Thus, discourses on girls’/ women’s education are sites for the construction of not only gender but also class relations, religion, and the nation.  

Genres: History, Feminism, Politics, Pakistan, Nonfiction

218 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2018

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite academic , it surveys the efforts of social reformers , popular literary and religious figures to create the concept of an ideal sharif women. These sharif women belonged mostly to Ashraf, the lower class women i-e Ajlaf were exempted from the reformation because they were not needed to be reformed. The purpose of education system designed by colonial powers was to create work force suitable for their purpose. They needed administrators, managers and clerks to handle their vast empire. They wanted to inculcate hatred of local culture , people and values.

The Elites adopted this education system and started to reap its benefits. But the middle class muslims (Ashraf) were in deep insecurity and identity crisis. Their patriarchal values and social fabric would disintegrate by accepting the wishes of colonial powers. Most importantly they want to protect their women and family structure from the evils of modernity.So they created the concept of ideal Muslim girl through educational reforms and literature. Miratul Uroos , sughar larki, and Behishti zewar were some of its examples.

After partition these efforts were intensified and the enthusiasm of the newly liberated government was also added to it, Now it was time to create ideal sharif girls for the requirement of new nation. Girls who were educated, knew child psychology, pious, thoroughly eastern, knew cooking, sewing, managing the household etc.. Every successive government continued to amend the definition of ideal girl according to its needs.

The main concept is majority faction of the society was/is conservative and wanted to maintain patriarchal structure at all cost. The fear of equal, liberated, independent, and thinking women is too great . This liberated women is dangerous and can disrupt the stability of the home and society. Its necessary to confine it under the bottle of ideal sharif women.

[Nausheen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "We Were Eight Years In Power," Coates explains why he wrote the book: "I did not do this in the hope of convincing any of the disciples of raw myth that they were wrong, at least not in any critical numbers. I did it to know that I was not crazy, that what I felt in my bones, what I saw in my people, was real."

Shenila Khoja-Moolji strings together, in an academic way, how patriarchy, the Washington Consensus, gender norms, colonialism-based foreign policy, and differing notions of education's purpose, have worked together to limit girls' and women's choices when it comes to education, and how the consequences of that are working today to advance the agendas of corporations and Western foreign policy, all while using the brown girl as a figure to be rescued. It is satisfying and terrifying to have words for what all brown women can likely sense: that their educations are approved of and applauded...within limits.

[SanaM · Rating 5 out of 5]

A unique book, clear and easy to read. Tells us about how our imaginations of educated girls have changed over time. A must read for those interested in girls education, Malala, etc.

[Michael Skora · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Forging the Ideal Educated Girl” brilliantly and rightfully forces you to question the hyper-attention given to girl’s education in the foreign aid industry and the celebritization of individual figures such as Malala Yousafzai. Khoja-Moolji also refuses to relegate women and girls as defenseless objects to broader structural forces without minimizing the hierarchies of gender, race, religion, and class that they lived and negotiated with.

[Gita Swasti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the discourse on girls' education as a site for the construction of not only gender but also class, religion, and nation. By examining the figure of the "educated girl" genealogically, we can understand why Muslim girls' and women have occupied the roles that they have, and begin to imagine alternatives for both feminine subjectivity and educational opportunity.

Tulisannya komprehensif. Insightful, tapi sebaiknya dibaca ketika memang benar-benar ingin saja, bukan untuk pengantar tidur.

[Amna Ashraf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative!

[DM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting and accessible take on the topic. Only wished the empirical chapter (based on interviews/focus groups) had been longer with more interrogation of how women today interact with the discourse of education.