“She Needs to Be Shy!”: Gender, Culture, and Nonparticipation Among Saudi Arabian Female Students

Abstract

This article examines Saudi female students’ socialization process in mixed‐gender interactions during their study abroad, focusing on how they negotiate culture‐specific gender expectations of women's deference and modesty. Findings reveal that Saudi women's deference to maintaining an ideal image of Saudi womanhood makes shyness and fear of judgment predominant aspects of their gender identity. Saudi women's adherence to these norms often leads to their nonparticipation in classroom and social interactions, and a deeper ambivalence is indicated when they seek social and academic opportunities through active participation. Findings also demonstrate that Saudi women use religion to both justify and challenge gender identity norms. Women who comply with Saudi gender norms assert that these norms are prescribed by the tenets of Islam; those who resist these norms argue their irrelevance with respect to Islam. Saudi women's religious interpretations serve to empower their own sense of gender identity, which signifies their agency founded on ideological and cultural constraints in the context of religion. This study offers implications for second language learners’ nonparticipation in relation to gender, highlighting how gender norms intersect with other discursive categories, particularly ethnicity, culture, and its central aspect here, religion.