Exploratory Response

“Women and Gender in Islam” by Leila Ahmed was published in 1992, at a time when research on Arab women was a young, newly emerging field of study. Leila Ahmed is an Egyptian American writer and feminist. Her text “Women and Gender in Islam” targets proclaimed feminists, both western and non-western, as the intended audience. The text is involved with the discourse of gender, the discourses of women, the discourses of feminist, and colonial and post-colonial discourses.

Women's rights in the Middle East have always been a controversial issue. Although the rights of women have changed over the years, they have never really been equal to the rights of a man. This poses a threat on Iran because women have very limited options when it comes to labor, marriage and other aspects of their culture. I believe that equal treatment for women and men is a fundamental principal of international human rights standards. Yet, in some places like Iran, discriminatory practices against women are not only prevalent, but in some cases, required by law. In this essay I will explain to you the every day life of an every day Islamic woman living in Iran. You will be astonished by what these women have endured through the

“Life is full of unhappiness and most of it caused by women (Harik and Marston 11)”. For women in the Middle East life is faced with great and unequal odds, as their human rights are limited, due to Islamic beliefs and that of patriarchy. From their daily actions at home to their physical appearance, Middle Eastern women are portrayed as quiet, faceless women veiled from head to toe. While this image is just another stereotype, women in the middle do face many obstacles and challenges of creating their own identity as they are frequently denied a voice in their rights. Living in a society dominated by men life is not, but regardless women in the Middle East, predominantly Muslims, continue to fight for

Growing up and living in Afghanistan as a woman has its challenges. Parents choose who can marry you and they choose everything for you. In this book, Laila and Mariam both show the struggles it is to be a girl, and how much disrespect they get in Afghanistan. Both Mariam and Laila are married to the same man, and he is abusive to both of them. They also live under Taliban rule, and the rules that they set are very unfair for women. In Khaled Hosseni’s novel, he has many different themes but the most prevalent one is of woman inequality, and that is shown through multiple accounts of abuse, disrespect, and unfairness.

Through its ethnocentric tales and family based beliefs, Elizabeth Warnock Fernea’s Guests of the Sheik suggests that to find the true representation of Islamic culture, one must leave ethnocentrism behind. Not only will we discuss ethnocentrism and the cultural differences between Western and Middle Eastern societies, we will also take a look at the women of El Nahra and family within the differing societies.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic novel that provides insight into a young girl living in Iran during the hardship of war. Persepolis takes place during the childhood of Marjane Satrapi. It gives a background of the Islamic Revolution and the war in Iran. Satrapi attempts to guide herself in a corrupted world filled with propaganda. She tries to develop her own morality concerning religion, politics, and humanity. Satrapi was blessed enough to have high class status and parents who had an open mindset about the world around them. Thanks to her slightly alternative lifestyle, she is able to reconstruct gender norms that society has set by depicting the different ways women resist them. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others” by Lila Abu-Lughod is an essay detailing the misconceptions surrounding the veil. Through this essay we can see how colonial feminism, the form of feminism in which western women push for a western way of living on their third world counterparts, has shined a negative light on cultures all around the world - particularly Islamic women. The essay shows how women who don’t conform to American societal structures are labeled as women who urgently require saving. Through this essay one can develop a thorough understanding of the veil itself and the many representations it holds to different entities. Although in Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood Satrapi

-A.4.b. – Personal values (counselors are aware of own values and do not impose their values onto a client)

Throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the reader observes many injustices committed due to the presence of the Taliban and cultural conflict in Afghanistan. One of the most concerning issues in Afghanistan is the mistreatment and inequality that women face on a daily basis due to Taliban mandates. Women in Afghanistan are treated as inferior beings to men and are unable to stand up for themselves due the laws the Taliban enforces. Hosseini uses the wives of Amir and Hassan, Soraya and Farzana, to represent the injustices to which women in Afghanistan are subjected.

1) You are in the midst of the first interview with Mr. K., a recently divorced 55-year-old man. You have introduced yourself and have addressed the other aspects of the beginning phase of practice. You are now ready for an initial exploratory question. At this point, you know only that Mr. K.’s concern relates in some way to the divorce. Therefore, you want to encourage him to explore that topic in depth. Write the words you would say in asking this first question. Once written, specify whether the question is open- or closed-ended. Outline your rationale for choosing this particular question and anticipate how Mr. K. might respond.

The Romance of resistance is an article which is written by Lila Abu-Lughod in regard with the different forms of resistance among the Bedouin women and the traditional structure of power among the Bedouin Community in the Egypt's Western Desert. She arrived in late 1970 to begin a fieldwork, and she discovered different forms of resistance among the Bedouin women. In this Article she emphasis on how the Bedouin women resisted the decision of their fathers, uncles, and older brother, how the resisted the sexually segregation, and sexually irreverent discourse. Furthermore, it also talk about how local communities are being incorporated into modern states and integrated into a wider economy.

The fictional accounts of women’s experiences in Fadia Faqir’s, Pillars of Salt, illustrate issues articulated by women’s rights activists in the Middle East. Traditional roles of women and men and a mythology of femininity and masculinity are juxtaposed with the disparate realities of the characters. The damaging forces of colonial rule, war, and Westernization are also exposed.

The book, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, by author and anthropologist, Lila Abu-Lughod, who is best known for her work on women's issues in the middle east, presents two years of fieldwork in Egypt among the Awlad' Ali Bedouin community who have gone from living a nomadic lifestyle , a farming system where animals are transported from one area to another in search for fresh grazing land, to living in villages where smuggling, raising animals, and doing odd jobs are ways of supporting themselves. In the book, Abu-Lughod brings together the concepts of structure, hierarchy, ideology, and discourse to illustrate the Bedouin culture, and how the

The main objective of this poem is to illustrate how woman within middle eastern countries (possibly more of the world) are kept down by certain aspects of society such as cultural aspects or religious aspects, Dharker wanted to bring this issue into the light through means of poetry. A concept which most people around the world want to have is patriotism as it shows loyalty to a country and also represents a home, however a rather large perception throughout the poem is a sense of wanting to strip away the patriotism. The first time Dharker represents the notion of wanting to be rid of a society’s expectations is in the line “I’m taking off this veil, this black veil of a faith” The woman who is speaking here is describing taking off her veil which in some middle eastern countries can be an offence to religious beliefs; the poem shows that women within these countries feel like they are being forced into situations which aren’t fair to them, for example honour killings. The way Dharker writes is to inform the audience of serious issues which are more than relevant in modern society, she wants to make the reader see how women are treated differently and how they need to strip away at their own beliefs just to feel like they can fit in when they should be able to fit in no matter where they are living. Individuality also plays a role in what

This is a significant aspect of the course because the article examines the strengths and weaknesses of femininity through a cultural Muslim perspective and the reading is a prime example of how ideologies regarding race affect those involved. In class we have discussed the significances of social constructs and how assumptions are made on the basis of physical characteristics. In this situation, identity is related to gender as Muslim women are categorized as both good/respectful and rebellious/evil individuals because they are apart of a culture where they are both oppressed and liberated simultaneously.

In the Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Saih portrays the heavy issues of sexism and colonialism through the role of women. The book not only informs its readers of the stereotypical gender roles, but it also illustrates the truth behind colonialism as a conquest of a people often enslaving them mentally and leaving them empty. According to this lens, the gender roles of men like Mustafa Sa’eed and Wad Rayyes represent the colonizers who ravish the colonized (personified by the female characters). Salih’s men are primarily sexual beings who see women as theirs to conquer while the women are meant to be subservient to sexual conquest.