DR SUS A N
CARLAND
CHARITY & COMMUNITY
“I’m asked about [gender] constantly,” says Dr Susan Carland.
“Not just asked but harangued, criticised and abused about the
so-called treatment of women in Islam, so I realised I needed to
become an expert pretty quickly.” Having converted to Islam
when she was 19 years old, Dr Carland has since built her career
challenging “assumptions people make about what it is to be
a Muslim woman, or what Muslims believe, or what Islam
teaches about women”, she says.
Completing her doctoral studies at Monash University’s
School of Social Sciences with a focus on “the lives of Muslim
women who are changing their communities and changing the
world through their tireless fight against sexism”, Dr Carland,
37, has become a high profile voice in discussions around gender,
equality and the contemporary Muslim experience. “I’m
interested in the way women fight back against sexism and
particularly the way Muslim women fight back against sexism,”
she says. Now a lecturer at Monash University, Dr Carland says itwas her mother who instilled her sense of social justice and taught
her the value of serving others. “She never did it for accolades, but
just went about it quietly because it was the right thing to do,” she
says. “Her mother, my grandmother, was the same and that left
a strong impression on me.” Dr Carland has taught undergraduate
classes on topics including Men and Masculinity, the Sociolog y of
Gender, and Islam in Contemporary Australia, and says her own
children’s future fuels her desire for societal change: “I would like
[to live] in a society where my son and my daughter have equal
opportunities and are treated with the same level of integrity.
We [all] need to be prepared to have really honest conversations.”
Though she’s quoted often and regularly appears on television
panel discussions, Dr Carland is resistant to the notion that she’s
a role model. “I feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea that I would
be an inspiration,” she says. “I guess I try to do my thing and if that
encourages other people, that’s great.” In addition to her ongoing
research and public influence, she is an ambassador for Possible
Dreams International (“a beautiful charity for AIDS orphans in
Swaziland”) and an advocate for the Asylum Seeker Resource
Centre, which she calls “the most tireless, well-organised group
of people I know working with and for refugees in Australia”.
Next generation: “W hile I am aware that I have done or appeared
in places that not many other Muslim women in hijab appear or
work, my goal isn’t so much to be a trailblazer for my own sake,
but to make it easier for the young women who come behind me.”
Social responsibility: “I have to do what I can to try and change
things—I have no right to sit here and complain about the way
society is if I am not participating in trying to make it better.”
—FAITH CAMPBELLJUNE 2017 In STYLE 89“I’M PASSIONATE
ABOUT SERVICE
TO OTHERS— I TRY TO
LIVE THAT IN EVERY
FACET OF MY LIFE”
Women of Style