Late blooming of women’s rights

Source: http://www.arabnews.com/news/497021

Islam has given women their rights to be educated, inherit, and to have a voice in domestic as well as public life 1,400 years ago when the rest of the world did not even consider women’s rights to be an issue. 

Ironically, the same religion is practiced nowadays in Saudi Arabia, which is the land of the birth of Islam, as a tool to justify violations of women’s rights. Unfortunately, some of the Arab or should one say tribal traditions and customs, which even predated Islam, have crept into our lives and got confused with Islamic teachings. As a result, many women have not only been oppressed, but they have been convinced that true gender equality is against their Islamic beliefs. This connotation has delayed the demand for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia in comparison with the rest of the world mainly because many people would question the piety of any woman who would demand true gender equality.

Accordingly, the recent emerge of women’s movement in Saudi Arabia has not been based on “secular feminism,” but is rather characterized by “Islamic feminism,” which is based on the belief that there is a possibility of having different interpretations of Islamic sacred texts, in which true gender equality can be found within the framework of Islam. Of course, conservative elements oppose this movement claiming that if it were true, great Muslim scholars would have thought of them earlier. Unfortunately, the claim asserts the sad reality of the patriarchal society we live in, where men cannot even fathom the idea that women can participate in a field that has been monopolized by men for so long. In addition, Islam is supposed to fit every age and place and this cannot happen if we refuse to allow the interpretations to evolve and change over time in order to reflect people’s educational, intellectual, and cultural backgrounds. 

The late modernization of Saudi Arabia has also contributed to the delay in the Saudi women’s movement. This has led women to stay preoccupied with strenuous domestic chores in addition to taking care of their kids, who used to have a high mortality rate up to the 1970s. Even when the country was modernized, modernity was “imported” from the West. 

This “importation” interfered with the normal transformation a society undergoes when it develops and evolves at its own rate creating intellectual gaps between people who come from diverse backgrounds in the first place. The “sudden” change also led conservatives to cling more to their old ways of life and to fear modernity, while others, especially women, found liberation and power in education. 

Another problem is that many legislations in Saudi Arabia reinforces men’s supremacist attitude toward women. For example, women of all ages need a male guardian even if her “guardian” himself believes that she is a capable, independent woman who should be allowed to travel, for example, without taking his permission. According to these legislations, a woman is so incapable of taking care of herself that if she is not married and her father passes away, her son could be assigned as her guardian. In this case, it seems that being a woman even precedes the honor of being a mother whom the Prophet (pbuh) asserts that heaven is under her feet, while she is obliged to take her son’s permission to take many legal and personal decisions.

In Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s reign, the development rate of women’s rights seems to have gathered pace, which include increasing female participation in the workforce and even allowing women to participate in the Shoura Council. 

The problem is that with the rapid increase of development, contradictions in women’s rights started to emerge as well. For example, women who live in Saudi Arabia are still not allowed to drive cars, which seems like one of the most basic rights women should have before holding any official position. 

However, the progress seems to start with the relatively least controversial issues to conservatives while at the same time it appears like a huge development to those who demand change. This means that the progress is not necessarily logically gradual, but rather “safely” gradual.

The progress of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia was late in comparison with their counterparts around the world not because Saudi women are weak or incapable because when given the chance they have proved to be strong and accomplished individuals in all areas of life. 

Saudi women who demand change are proud of their Islamic heritage and Arabic identity, but they are calling for the respect and the appreciation that they deserve. 

Therefore, legislations need to be changed and sometimes created in order to further empower women in Saudi Arabia. More importantly, culture should be differentiated from religion and oppressive actions should not be justified as part of our noble Islamic teachings.

As Women's Rights Movement Hits 50, There's More Work to be Done

Source
Fifty years ago, a book by Betty Friedan sparked a national conversation about gender roles, launching a movement to empower women both at home and in the workplace.

Over the past five decades, The Feminine Mystique sold more than 3 million copies, and inspired millions of women to fight for their rights.

The spark
In 1957, Friedan conducted a survey of her college classmates for their fifteenth reunion.

Many of these well-educated and well-off women said they were unhappy being housewives, even though many had homes in the suburbs, children and bread-winning husbands.

Friedan went on to talk with other women about their lives, and how they were portrayed in media.

She originally intended to publish an article, but no magazine accepted it. So she published a book instead: The Feminine Mystique.

Breaking ground
Stephanie Ortoleva, a feminist and human right activist, read the book in the 1970s, when she was in law school. She still remembers Friedan’s words, “...why should women accept this picture of half-life, instead of a share in the whole of human destiny?”

“It broke ground that hadn’t broken before," Ortoleva said. "It also really raised very important issues about objectification of women and dressing us up, making us become sort of playthings as oppose to presenting images of women as strong and powerful people.”

She feels Friedan’s arguments spoke to her generation, especially when she was studying law.

“Even though my law school was somewhat progressive and that we had a very large class of women," Ortoleva said, "but still, most of our professors were men and that’s why we all decided to sit in the front row of the classroom so no professor could ignore us.”

Ortoleva belives the women’s movement has made significant strides since then.

“Women are being involved in some professions that were barred from being engaged in previously," she said. "We’re making some political progress. We're making progress on reproductive health. Economic equality is getting better.”

Younger generation
Susan Mottet is president of the Washington D.C. chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which Friedan helped found in 1966. She says the younger generation of feminists has made its own contribution.

“We still use the political process, getting the right people elected," Mottet said. "But certainly, and this is something the younger generation of men and women within the movement have helped with, is new ways to engage media, really engaging social media to get your perspective out there.”

Although Mottet believes there is still a ways to go before women are truly treated equally in America, many in the younger generation don't feel the need to get involved.

Katayoun Kishi, a 23-year-old graduate student, and her friends don't consider themselves feminists, although they are aware of what the women’s movement has achieved.

“I think that we are resting on the laurels of the feminists that came before us, that we’re living the lifestyles that we’ve been afforded by them," Kishi said. "That's maybe why we don't feel the need to be out there marching, because we're not feeling the same discrimination they felt before us.”

Equality and justice
For Ortoleva, that doesn't mean the women’s movement is no longer relevant, in the U.S. or around the world.

“I work with a feminist in Colombia. I work with feminists in Egypt, Japan, South Korea," she said. "I think it’s very much of a global movement. There are serious challenges, whether it’s the persistent rapes in India,whether it’s the forced sterilization of either women with disabilities or Romani women in Eastern Europe. That’s why we talk about global feminism.”

There are different concerns, but the goal remains the same: equality and justice for women and men.