“The Courage to Express Myself”: Muslim women's narrative of self-empowerment and personal development through university studies

•Awareness of gender regulation.•Moral resistance.•Self-empowerment through university studies.

The purpose of this research is to understand the process of self-empowerment that religious and non-religious Muslim women living in Israel experienced during their university studies. The principal results indicate a narrative of self-empowerment which develops through three stages: (a) awareness of gender regulation; (b) moral resistance; and (c) self-empowerment through university studies. Major study findings reveal that women do indeed undergo a deeply personal process of self-empowerment, which then encourages a growing awareness to their own inner strengths and ability to draw on such power in other aspects of life.