Who gave men the authority to women's faith?
From social media comment sections to places of worship, women across religious communities are questioning who gets to interpret their faith and dictate how they practice it?
A simple TikTok video had turned into a public scrutiny of Samiya’s faith.
She posted the TikTok because she thought she looked good. She was dressed modestly, with her hair covered by her hijab. She did not expect her clothing to become a topic of religious debate. However, the men had other ideas. They questioned her modesty and criticized the way she practiced her faith as a whole.
Then, she came across a man’s TikTok using the same audio in the same manner. But, his comments were significantly different. His faith was not being questioned and his clothing was not scrutinized. He wasn’t expected to represent an entire religion simply because he practiced it.
The difference was difficult to ignore. They posted similar TikToks, yet, only one of them was expected to defend their relationship with God.
For Samiya, it was another reminder of the expectations placed on Muslim women simply because of their gender.
“Growing up, I felt like my voice was valued less,” says Samiya.
For Samiya, growing up Muslim meant navigating a life that felt predetermined. Women were bound to the expectations of a housewife, building their lives around a man. To young Samiya, an aspiring doctor, the idea that her life was going to revolve around a man was disheartening and confusing.
The expectations extended beyond her future as a wife. As a hijabi, Samiya recalls men commenting on her social media posts with criticism and judgment, often using religious teachings to justify themselves. Quoting Quranic verses out of context, like “33:33,” they judged her hijab for not being held to their standards. For Samiya, the experience was frustrating because the men commenting did not have to navigate the same expectations as she did. Their comments came from a place of ignorance.
“Put the hijab on for a day and then talk to me,” she says.
Across religious communities, women often navigate cultural expectations about how they should practice their faith. The interpretations come from religious texts, cultural traditions, family members and community leaders. However, when the line between religion and culture blurs, it becomes difficult to determine whose interpretations are influencing faith.
Through conversations with women in different religious backgrounds, it is evident that while experiences may differ, the women raise similar sentiments about their understanding of faith and questioning their beliefs. For some, challenging those beliefs has not meant abandoning the religion. Instead, it has become part of developing a more personal relationship with their faith.
Raised by a Muslim female scholar, Shireen Dhalla had close access to religious teachings from an early age. However, it also meant her religious and personal identity were always intertwined.
“I felt like I wasn't able to really explore and question my faith without feeling like I was letting down my family or that I was misrepresenting Islam to everybody who sees me as a hijabi woman,” she explains.
As she grew older and started to deconstruct religion, Shireen realized that there was a lack of female scholars, noting the fact that it was male scholars who were the dominant voices speaking on women’s experiences.
“It can feel very hard to hear someone who has never had the experiences you have trying to tell you something about the female experience, about women in Islam, about hijab, because they're never going to really understand that.”
She says developing an individual relationship with Islam did not require her to abandon the beliefs she grew up with.
“When I realized that religion is so deeply personal and that it really was on me, now that I was older and now that I was my own person, that I could do my own research, that I could find what makes sense to me.”
For other women, questioning religious authority has meant reconsidering their relationship with faith altogether.
For Savita Tom Yew, a Catholic-raised woman, the shift began with the words of a priest. She recalls hearing him make comments about women's dressing and behaviour, an experience that left her questioning whether Catholic beliefs reflected her values.
“Hearing that at such a young age, I think that was kind of the first thing that really made me want to move away from believing in something like that.”
However, the experience revealed that true understanding of religion did not depend on your gender. Yew’s father, her main connection to Catholicism, disagreed with the priest’s comments, supporting the idea of attending another church. The reaction showed Savita that even within the same faith, interpretations of religious teachings could differ.
Her father’s influence extended beyond that. Growing up with a Catholic father and an agnostic mother, Yew was exposed to different approaches to belief within her own household. Her father never forced Catholicism on her.
“It's always been my choice of whether or not I want to believe it,” she says.
The contradiction between the priest and Yew’s father points to a bigger question: when people understand the same teachings differently, whose interpretation is given authority?
Melany Ferreira, who grew up Protestant, recalls experiences with older men assuming the role of explaining scripture to her rather than considering her understanding.
“There'll always be a man there who kind of tries to mansplain something to you rather than listen to you,” she says.
Melany also describes expectations surrounding how Christian women should present themselves.
“You have to be very feminine, almost like there's this role of delicacy that comes with being a Christian woman, but there are times where I'm like… I'm definitely not that. Like, I'm rugged and I can be rough around the edges.”
Those expectations do not always align with her understanding of religion.
“I try and do things with love and intention that I believe Jesus would also, you know, the way Jesus would do.”
For Melany, practising her faith is about following the values she believes Christianity represents, rather than conforming to a pre-described role.
Micki Marrocco, a Christian church leader, explains the line between using scripture as guidance versus using it to control another person.
“If they use it as a defence to dominate the woman, it's always wrong,” she says.
“Guiding always allows for the individual to make their own decision,” she continues.
This is reflected in Zunairah Zehra’s experience. Zunairah family has always been supportive of her religious journey, allowing her to understand Islam on her own terms. However, she notices men's comments towards women on social media, especially surrounding hijab and modesty.
“Men don't have that understanding of how hard it is for women to be modest and cover up in a Western society,” she says.
For Zunairah, wearing the hijab means navigating her commitment to Islam and the responsibility that comes with representing her faith. She explains how Muslim women often uphold the image of an entire community. Their clothing and behaviour become subject to judgement and criticism.
While she believes modesty is an important part of her faith, she also believes that wearing the headscarf is a woman's personal decision.
“It should be your own choice, because at the end of the day, you got to remind yourself who you're doing it for, and it's for the sake of Allah that you're making the sacrifice and you're doing it for him,” says Zunairah.
Religious scholar at Richmond Hill Muslim Association, Abu Alam, emphasizes women's freedom to make their own choices.
“My personal point of view is, women should have freedom and they should decide what is right [and] what is wrong,” says Alam.
“What they want to wear and what is their choice. [It] is all up to them.”
Alam also pointed to the Quranic verse in the second chapter of the Quran, “there is no compulsion in religion,” further deepening Zunairah’s belief that a woman's religious practices should be led by her own conviction.
However, understanding which expectations come from religion and which are rooted in culture is not always straightforward.
“I feel like a lot of people mix up cultural expectations as religion and they think that it's what Islam teaches us,” says Zunairah.
For Zunairah, it has meant researching teachings herself rather than accepting traditions passed down through generations.
The difficulty of separating religious beliefs from cultural expectations is not unique to Islam.
For a Tamil Hindu woman, religion is closely intertwined with her cultural identity. Hinduism was always a part of her family celebrations and traditions. She notes how women often took on the responsibility of cooking the food and organizing festivities, almost like it was expected. However, she finds it hard to differentiate whether these expectations derive from Hindu teachings or cultural traditions.
“That's definitely something that's meshed together in my experience,” she says.
Despite those uncertainties, she continues to find meaning in her faith.
“I know that my love for Hinduism doesn't depend on knowing everything,” she says.
Her experience, along with Zunairah’s, raises a broader question about how religious teachings are interpreted and how those interpretations influence women’s roles.
Micki, points to the biblical concept of submission in marriage as an example of how interpretations can shape expectations.
“The word submit in some of the old versions of the Bible, which was translated, uses the word submit,” she explains.
“But if you go to the original, it actually means respect: that a wife is expected to respect the husband, and the role of the husband is to love her unconditionally.”
Micki believes this is a common misconception surrounding women’s roles in Christianity. According to her, the relationship is rooted in respect and love rather than a woman's unquestioning obedience to her husband.
Each woman has questioned the religious expectations that have been placed upon them. Despite their differences, they all share a desire to separate their personal relationship with faith from the often misconstrued misogynistic renditions.
For Samiya, who once felt that her voice was valued less simply because of her gender, it meant questioning the future she had been taught to envision and exploring faith for herself.
It poses a greater challenge to give women space to question faith, allowing them to develop their own understanding.
After all, if faith is deeply personal, whose voice should matter more than the person practising it?
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