From Europe to North America to Asia, social groups align with political parties along polarising stances to battle over a range of hot-button culture war issues related to gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, national identity, and religion in the political sphere. Differences are typically about moral authority, beliefs and values that perceived by both sides of a cultural divide to be irreconcilable and rooted in non-intersecting spheres of the sacred and the secular. Such divides erode social trust. This thesis contributes insights to a neglected research area on the question of trust building between women’s groups as means to mitigate polarisation. Specifically, the thesis examines trust and Malay women’s groups of differing ideological orientations (secular multiracial feminism, Islamic feminism, Islamic revivalism) in Malaysia. One contributing factor to polarisation in Malaysia is the emotive trope of a secular-versus- religious clash over issues involving Islamic law, women, and gender, which is reinforced through ethnic politics, civil society activism, and media frames. Malay women’s groups have in the recent past adopted oppositional stances that contributed to polarising public contention. The thesis interrogates the prospects for different Malay women’s groups to build trust and form cross cutting feminist solidarity despite their ideological differences and history of being on oppositional sides
