Tudung Girls: Unveiling Muslim Women’s Identity in Singapore
May 8, 2018
The tudung, a piece of cloth worn over women’s heads, can be seen as a signifier of Malay Muslim women identity. Wearing tudung has been a way of life for Malay Muslim women. However, when Dr Suriani Suratman (Senior Lecturer, Department of Malay Studies) discovered that a few Malay female students in her class had stopped wearing it, it triggered her curiosity as to what might have prompted their decision and the kinds of experiences they would have gone through in removing it.
Dr Suratman conducted a study with five Malay Muslim women to explore how these women situate the tudung in their everyday lives as they search for a distinctive self. The research revealed that although these five women identify tudung as their identity of being Malay Muslim women, they find tudung worn over the head “inhibiting”.
Dr Suratman also argues that the experiences of the women in the study show that expressions of Malay Muslim identity in Singapore are not necessarily shared by all members of the ethnic community. The social positioning of the informants in the study as women has generated contexts where these women faced conflicts and chose to assert their self-identity rather than their collective Malay Muslim identity. A collective identity is vulnerable. No matter how strong a marker of identity the tudung has assumed over the years, there will always be categories of women within the collective who have contrary views and interests. What is not certain is whether the foundation of Malayness hinged upon an Islamic identity is being loosened in Singapore.
Dr Suratman’s research was published in 2011 in Melayu: The Politics, Poetics and Paradoxes of Malayness (NUS Press), edited by A/P Maznah Mohamad (NUS Southeast Asian Studies and Malay Studies) and A/P Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied (NUS Malay Studies), which is available here.
Learn more about the study here.