The Rise and Impact of Muslim Women Preaching Online

Abstract

Female Muslim preachers are on the rise online, including in some conservative Islamic traditions such as the Salafi movement. The prevailing wisdom is that religion is the key factor explaining the increase and impact of women’s preaching. In this view, religious ideas about gender segregation create a need for female preachers who preach about “women’s issues” to exclusively female audiences. This chapter argues instead for a social movement logic: female preachers help Islamic social movements reach new audiences of both women and men. In this view, religious ideas prohibiting gender mixing are not the cause of women’s preaching, but rather a normative constraint that female preachers circumvent by preaching online. Data from a large Islamic website show that female preachers are reaching mixed gender audiences and eliciting positive reactions, especially from men, supporting the social movement logic.