I have been thinking a lot about shame recently. But before ‘thinking’ about it, it appeared in my body. In my stomach to be precise.I was thinking about what I wanted to wear to a festival I was going to, planning my outfits, and getting excited about my ‘look’ for the 5 days I would be there.And then it came, rising up out of nowhere. Deep shame. A feeling of ‘wrongness’. It’s different from guilt in that it is totally visceral. Guilt lives more in the mind. Shame lives in the body.Shame is so hidden, so deep, so buried that we do not always know it’s there - that’s what makes it so dangerous.I certainly didn’t know I had shame living in my body. But when I gave myself permission to sit with it, to witness it, to acknowledge its presence, to get curious about it, and then to breathe and cry through it - instead of running from it, distracting myself or pushing it down - I was shocked at what it revealed.I have been carrying huge, monumental shame about being a feminine woman. A woman who loves beauty above all else (hello Libra rising). I am drawn to pretty things, I like to beautify places, I love to adorn myself, and yes, I absolutely LOVE beauty, fashion, hair, makeup, jewellery, skincare…all that gorgeous stuff.And my whole adult life, I have been shamed for it. Made to feel shallow, or vain, or worst of all - fitna.That me expressing myself through my appearance is disliked by God, a punishable sin, and going fundamentally against what it means to be a good Muslim women, for whom modesty (invisibility?) is the name of the game. The shame game.Looking back, the shame around my beauty, my body and my femininity started young. As soon as I turned 11, it stopped being ‘cute’ to want to wear high heels or curl my hair, and it became ‘inappropriate’.That’s where it all starts really isn’t it? When we first transition from being girls into women, and someone tells us that our bodies are no longer acceptable, and that doing anything to draw attention to them is shameful. That we have to hide, be smaller, be less…female. Do not be a woman. Even though that is exactly what our body is becoming through our biological maturation - something natural and unstoppable and totally out of our control.This is the moment when we become aware of our shame over our femininity, and therefore our womanhood. To exist as a woman is to have shame.Do boys go through this erasure when they become ‘men’? No, they are overtly proud of the fuzz showing up on their faces, of their shoulders broadening and their voices deepening. For boys, ‘becoming a man’ is something to be proud of, not something to hide, be embarrassed about or pretend isn’t happening. And it certainly isn’t a cue for them to drastically modify their appearance or behaviour in public.But for girls…well, we know what happens. You suddenly can’t play with your cousin brothers anymore. You are given dirty looks and rough tellings off if you look too pretty, or your clothes are too tight. Clothes that were perfectly acceptable a few months ago are now fitna. And no-one explains this kindly - well at least not to me and the hundreds of women I’ve spoken to about this. It’s almost like what is happening to our body, and the perceived attention we might get for it, is…our fault. We did something wrong. Immoral. Bad.And if you don’t modify your clothes or behaviour quickly enough, then you are being bad. Not making a mistake, or a committing a folly of youth and naivety, but sin. You are doing it on purpose. Being an attention seeker. Disgusting. Cheap.Shameless.Society teaches us very quickly that we will be punished - sometimes severely - for being too visibly female. We learn it is a man’s world, and there may not be space for us in it. And so we learn to hunch our shoulders so our growing breasts won’t show. We wear long tops to cover our bum, and always tie our hair up. We look down and speak quietly so as not to draw unwanted attention from boys. Because if an Aunty catches a boy looking at us, we will be told off, never the boy.I know I’m not alone in this experience, because whenever I talk about this in my <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.we-rise.co.uk/events">Women’s Circles,</a> this experience seems to be almost universal. Regardless of the exact age or context, there was a certain point in our adolescence when we became acutely aware of our sex, and became ashamed of it.A bit like how when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden and became aware of their nakedness, and felt shame for the first time. All girls have a moment (probably long forgotten and buried in the unconscious - and therefore highly influential in our thinking) when they ‘realised’ they were a female, and that femaleness was wrong. And because this memory has remained in the unconscious, it has never been questioned or uprooted from our psyche. It has been allowed to remain an uninvited guest, shaping our self-concept and beliefs about womanhood, sexuality and gender relations.To clear this imprint, we must bring it into the conscious mind. Consciousness- or awareness - is the key to liberating ourselves from the heavy burden of shame. If we can remember what happened to us, we can name the thoughts and feelings that came with those experiences, and see how they shaped us. We can finally let go of our limiting beliefs and painful stories that keep us small, hiding, invisible and ashamed of our very existence as women.We can start to exist freely, seeing ourselves as Whole and Holy too. We can finally embody - not just know intellectually - our equality, worth and Divinity.May you know yourself as perfectly created by the One.May you be at peace with your femininity - however you choose to express it.May you be free from shame.

Explore the deep roots of shame around femininity, beauty, and womanhood in this raw and reflective blog post. Discover how societal expectations shape our self-perception and learn ways to release shame, embrace your divine femininity, and reclaim your authentic, unapologetic self.

The Shame We Carry: The Heavy Burden of Being a 'Feminine' Muslim Woman without Shame

The Shame We Carry: The Heavy Burden of Being a 'Feminine' Muslim Woman without Shame

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