As a mother of two girls, I'm constantly anxious that they don't suffer from the gender penalty as they grow up. This is the penalty that props up the glass ceiling, that restricts their access to the corridors of power, that makes their pay packet lighter, or that reduces them to their body and looks, and continues to disproportionately burden them with childcare and household chores.
But as a Muslim mother I also worry that my daughters live in a society that does not see them for the people they are or give them the space to flourish as individuals. Instead, they are on a perilous slope towards being seen as part of a homogenous group of oppressed, dehumanised creatures. Front page headlines today proclaimed that "Muslims are not like us". It's yet another example of the constant hostility faced by Muslims – especially Muslim women – in the UK.
My heart sank last week when I woke up to the news that the Prime Minister had said Muslim women must do more to integrate. I mean, I love queueing, I can talk at length about traffic and weather, and I'm on Mumsnet. What more does he want?
His aim is to get more Muslim women to speak English and he announced a £20 million fund for English lessons. I've always been an advocate of how important it is to speak the main language of social engagement, and I've been involved in running workshops encouraging women to better express their voices and opinions. So I'm all for English lessons for those struggling with the language. But this was the same Prime Minister who cut £45 million funding for English lessons this summer.
His clumsy and lazy characterisation of the 'Muslim women problem' stitched together ideas of Muslim women as segregated from society and responsible for extremism, and led to the all-too-familiar headlines casting Muslim women as isolated, illiterate and oppressed. However, he admitted that there was no causal connection between not speaking English and extremism. But the damage is done. The misleading portrayal of Muslim women undoubtedly exacerbates an increasingly hostile environment; attacks against Muslims are up 275% since the Paris attacks and Muslim women make up 60% of the victims.
If I wasn't already angered enough at this, I nearly spat out my morning coffee when I read reports that the Prime Minister had privately suggested that a major reason young men are vulnerable to radicalisation is the "traditional submissiveness" of Muslim women.
I responded in the most British way possible – with sarcasm. After all, we are always being told to adopt British values.
"Actually, my husband runs my Twitter feed because I can't speak English #TraditionallySubmissive" I mocked on Twitter, adding "I bought a sports car and published a book (in English and eight other languages). I must be doing this wrong."
I wasn't the only one to feel incensed. Other Muslim women took up the hashtag. Dr Sukaina Hirji, a GP based in London, posted on her Facebook page "I and many others have been extremely hurt by David Cameron's article in The Times earlier this week, specifically (and incorrectly) targeting Muslim women's apparent inability to speak the English language and loosely linking this to radicalisation (multifactorial causes) and Female Genital Mutilation (cultural practice)."
She made a public call to Muslim women to "show solidarity and speak out against this discrimination" by tweeting and posting selfies during a coordinated period to create a Twitter storm with the hashtag #TraditionallySubmissive.
On Sunday evening, the hashtag was quickly trending in the UK and continued to trend until Monday morning, with over thirty thousand tweets sent so far. These ranged from pictures of Muslim women graduating, hiking, fundraising, skiing and boxing, to others holding placards listing their achievements - including speaking multiple languages.
Coverage of the Twitter storm has been global – and this is important, because women's voices must be taken seriously, and Muslim women are part of the 50% of our population that is consistently under-represented and under-served. Muslim women are vibrant, diverse, funny and yes, opinionated. And that's a good thing. We want to make things better for ourselves and for those around us. And we hope you will support us in challenging the idea that we are submissive, pathetic little flowers.