<p>Like most Americans, I am distressed by what has happened with our involvement in Iraq and the wider Middle East. Part of my personal angst as I watch what is going on other there involves the women in these Muslim societies (Sunni and Shia alike). I have done some reading about the history of the area and have traveled to some of these countries, but I remain befuddled at how the women in those societies are treated historically and today. They seem to have very little voice in the decisions being made either politically or culturally. Can someone with a better understanding of the region help me understand the role of women in Islamic societies and how/if this might change or evolve over the next several decades to a more Western societal model?</p>
<p>I am a senior who’s very interested in international politics but also understanding various cultures. To do this, i have to wipe the slate clean. don’t ask how their society will evolve to be like ours, but ask how their society can improve. it is perfectly ok for women in another country to live lives very different from those in america. and don’t generalize-don’t say muslim society bc their are so many countries with a muslim majority- some more extreme than others- some with different denominations. some are islamist while others are secular. is your questions about Iraq in particular?</p>
<p>Rafiqah: You are biased. I can’t think of any muslim-majority country where women have all the right, other then turkey. [And that’s because Turkey is a Secular country]</p>
<p>I don’t care if i get flamed for this but: The problem lies with Islam itself. They have locked themselves in belief. You can’t help someone when he himself doesn’t wants to be helped.
I don’t think their status will change significantly during the next few decades.</p>
<p>I would recommend Beyond Belief by V.S. Naipaul if you want to get a deeper understanding of the matter.</p>
<p>The role of women in Islamic societies is roughly the same as that of most women for most of history. The freedoms modern Western women enjoy is unusual.</p>
<p>You might enjoy a book called, “Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years.”</p>
<p>When South Africa was engaged in apartheid, the world condemned it for what it was -blantant racism. When women are treated equally poorly in the middle east, the rest of the world dismisses this horrible treatment as merely cultural differences. Most women in the middle east are the property of their husbands. Yes, they are loved; just like the way we love our family dogs here in America. This poor treatment of women in the middle east today can be traced to Islam. The spread of Islam means the spread of mistreatment of women.</p>
<p>Interesting book on this topic:</p>
<p>Fatima Mernissi, “The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Veil-Male-Elite-Feminist-Interpretation/dp/0201632217/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-8340530-7763323?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173058209&sr=8-3[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Veil-Male-Elite-Feminist-Interpretation/dp/0201632217/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-8340530-7763323?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173058209&sr=8-3</a></p>
<p>Pakistan had an elected Muslim woman head of state 30 years before the U.S. even seriously considered electing a Christian one (and then only the husband of a well-loved one.) Bangladesh has had two (in three consecutive terms) for the past 16 years, Indonesia has had one, as has secular Turkey. Taken together these countries have populations far, far larger than the United States.</p>
<p>(But we have locked ourselves in our beliefs, so it is very easy to forget.)</p>
<p>I don’t think it is racist to call human rights abuses where I see them.</p>
<p>Honor killings, stonings, covering women from head to toe, often not allowing them to go to school,work, drive, leave the house with any man but their husband or brother, be allowed no inheritance, etcetcetc are unquestionably human rights abuses.</p>
<p>I think we are wrong to turn our back and call these “cultural differences”. Female genital mutilation is also an accepted cultural practice. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t horribly wrong and a terrible human rights abuse.</p>
<p>I think these are all horrible, horrible things! And I think none of them rises to the level of murdering a million people, half of them children, through destroying their wastewater treatment systems and hospital infrastructure, preventing shipment of the most basic antiobiotic and anti-diarrheal medicines, and then going on tv before the entire world and saying “we think it is acceptable.”</p>
<p>(I think that rises to a level a little above “abuse”, even if it was committed by a Christian.)</p>
<p>I totally agree with this as well.</p>
<p>If we are comparing abuses, yes. </p>
<p>However, if we are simply looking at treatment of women, I don’t think it is fair to give Muslim societies a pass, simply in lieu of cultural differences. That was my only point.</p>
<p>Thanks for the many comments and the reading recommendations. I will try to pick up a few of these and get myself further informed. Presently, I really struggle with this as I have many feelings similar to those that razorsharp mentioned. I think that the treatment of women in many of these countries (and my apologies to rafiqah for painting all Muslims with the same brush) is pretty shocking. I am torn between the idea that we act outraged (as we did with apartheid) and actively promote the idea of better rights for women versus the rights of those societies to make their own rules. I lean to the former (agitate for change) as, in my gut, I just think that what is going on is just plain wrong and somebody needs to say something. But I need to think about this some more and listen and learn from others like you. Please keep the comments coming. Thanks.</p>
<p>“However, if we are simply looking at treatment of women, I don’t think it is fair to give Muslim societies a pass, simply in lieu of cultural differences. That was my only point.”</p>
<p>Agreed. Half a million dead Iraqi females, half of them under the age of five.</p>
<p>This is sadly amusing: a Saudi friend of mine told me that some villagers, when going on a family visit, they typically take a present in a form of a goat to the hosts, making their women ride in the back of the pick-up and the goat in the cab since “at the least it’s a man” not just a “male”. Fathers force their daughters to get married to someone they don’t even know or forcing them to work and not get married then take all but little of her income.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Just few scattered thoughts interrupted by my need to sleep:</p>
<p>Quran is the Muslims’ divine text, as well as the ‘authentic’ traditions and sayings of the Muslim prophet Mohammad. These texts exist in Arabic and - because they’re “divine” and , unlike the Gospels, “are DIRECT inspiration from the creator” - they are impossible to translate to other languages–only their meaning/interpretation can be presented in a different language. (Islamic theologians wiould fight about this all night and day: Team X claims that this is ethnocentric & unfair, since non-arabic-scholars wouldn’t be able to deal with the text, and non-Arabic speakers would become “second class citizens” in Islam. Team Z replys by asking team X what would be fair, and if team X makes a suggestion, team Z says “Okey, since you have the wisdom and knowledge to know what things are fair and what are not why didn’t create the universe?”. Team X then concludes that team Z are “extremists”, “fundementalists”, and, consequently, “barberians” and even “terrorists”. Team Z concludes that team X “have had too much secular education in secular institutions” and they’re trying to “dilute the religion and mutate the techings of Allah and his messenger”)</p>
<p>Scholars/leaders in Islam have mostly come from societies that, presently, don’t use Arabic as an official language, such as Khurassan (I think this refered to Turkey, Iran, Afganistan and mid-asia) and the land of Hind (Pakistan, Bangladish, and India), though Arabic was the official language in these places until relativly recently. This continued until the collapse of the ottman empire and the rise of the modren secular Turkey on the hands of Mustafa Attaturk (1881-1938), hence the name Turkey. This helps us understand the infleunce of the small (~ 14%), diverse, and vocal Arab-Muslim population on the rest of the Islamic world in the last century or so. Since the official languages in Indenosia, India, Pakistan and even Iran are not “the language of the Quran”, most contemprory Islamic religious leaders have been from Arabic countries.</p>
<p>Isalm does apear to be a significant component of ALL contemprory Arab societies, but with little investigation, we find that the predominant cultural/sociopolitical elements composing Arab societies are pre-Islamic nationalism and, in some places, even tribalism, which were revived by the Turkish-Yemni-Seryian philosipher Satea’ Alhusari (1880-1968) who was greatly infleunced by the writing of the two German-Jew philosiphers Max Mulo & Max Nurdu (spelling?). He wrote more than 50 books most of them advocating arabic origin, history, and language as “identifiers” as oppose to “common Islamic idealogy” that isn’t bound by race or ethnicity. irony is that Alhusari lived and died without being able to speak or write comprehendable Arabic (He was educated in Istanbul. Turkish was his mother-tongue)</p>
<p>He couldn’t possibly have succeding in doing so without resorting to facilitating and encouraging, not only an awareness of Arabs’ pre- and non-Islamic history and culture, but also an advocation of it in every way he could (he held high positions in seriyan ministry of education, then was assigned a simillar position in the Arab Nations’ League or whatever.</p>
<p>Anyhoo…Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), the controversial revolutionary Egyption leader, also did some mighty work and a great job advancing Arabism, in the folds of Nasserism, which goes hand in hand with practices and traditions of pre-islamic societies. The influence of Nasser and his followers has been so strong it is still relatively popular even among the Arab young who lived 9/11, invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and, of course the palestinian-Israeli never-ending conflict. The popularity of such a “dead” idealogy is due to the activism of several thinkers, writers, and bookhouse owners (mostly from Egypt) who are die-hard admirers of Nasser’s revolution and rebellion.</p>
<p>I have many Muslim friends who are quite textual about their religion (they got their beards, dresses and everything. their women would never show even their faces to other than their husbands and immediate family) and according to my understanding, orthodox/textual Islam definitely rejects the word “equal” as understood in America and W. EU when describing the rights and obligations of men and women. Rather, it introduces what is similar to what we know as social functionalism: men and women have certain rights and obligations assigned to them based on their different physical and emotional capabilities and talents. What textual Muslim scholars would add is that this does not mean, by any measure, that men’s role is superior to women’s or women’s is superior to men. There are many modern and progressive Islamic websites out there that apologize for this horrifying “lack of equality” which we “westerners” regard so badly due to our history and background (think: Catholic church—>Women & voting).</p>
<p>gotta sleep</p>
<p>I find it extermely interesting how, suddenly, Americans are completely outraged at our plight - at the precise moment their government and right-wing media finds it appropriate to wage war on our culture. I am not saying you do not truly care, I am saying that while women in your own country are being raped, assaulted and objectified every day, the exact same voices and commentators that are OPPOSED to women’s rights take a peculiar interest in “saving” the women of the “barbaric and backwards” cultures (conveniently, cultures tied to current material and ideological conflicts). I cannot take this condescending and patronizing concern seriously when it so clearly comes from the need to justify aggression and prejudice.</p>
<p>Yes, there are a host of problems with womens status in Islamic society, just as there are here in the West. Certainly it is our own problem and prerogative to define, address and battle it! It is a recurring theme in colonialist history to justify intervention and aggression on the pretense of “liberation” and “enlightenment” - a great mirror image of what is going on with the veiling debate today can be seen in the Brittish colonialist discourse on the Hindu practice of sati.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Islamic Feminism does exist, and I amongst many scholars would call it far more radical and unwilling to compromise with patriarchy than mainstream Western liberal feminism is. ADad’s tips on Mernissi is great, as are authors such as Barlas, Ahmed and Wadud.</p>
<p>Couldn’t sleep. I have some horrible typos, pleas overlook.</p>
<p>There are also many Islamic thinkers, authors and scholars who don’t take a weak defensive apologetic stance on the subject and those are normally deemed not so modren nor progressive.</p>
<p>Some orthodox Muslims will also add that modernism and progressivness are so attractive to us in the west since our history is so “dark” (they use this very word) and anything new = good</p>
<p>It’s an ethnocentric fallacy to think “modernity”, “progress” and “enlightenment” as defined in the West are some sort of universal model ALL cultures can and should follow. It hasn’t worked out that great in the Middle East, now has it.</p>
<p>Two interesting books on this topic:</p>
<p>My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices (Paperback) by Lila Azam Zanganeh (Editor)</p>
<p>Reading Lolita in Teheran</p>
<p>Allmusic - Speaking of genital mutilation, what do you call circumcision?</p>