Women 's Rights Of The Middle East

During this part, we saw another example of female oppression. For instance, “ ‘We would love to help you, but we can do nothing. Sultan decides,’ they say” (p. 232). This showed how little power women have in their household. Furthermore, the book also said, “In the families, tradition is all – the men decide” (pp. 89-90). Seeing all of the ways women are oppressed, we may wonder: why are women so oppressed in this society? One reason would be tradition. For example, “In the families, tradition is all – the men decide” (pp. 89-90). As a result, the women of a household were pushed aside and had no say in family decisions. Another major reason would be for the safety and purity of the females. For instance, “Women must not make it possible to attract the attention of evil people who look lustfully upon them… If women dress fashionably, wear ornamented, tight, seductive clothes to show off, they will be damned… and can never expect to go to heaven” (p. 83). Another example is “It is not good for a young girl to walk around without company. Who knows where she might be going? Maybe to meet a man, maybe to commit a sin” (p. 171). This revealed how the society was afraid of women committing sins so they decided to prevent women from going outside and dressing improperly. Lastly, the environment did not favor the evolution of women without a burka. For example the book stated, “However, the underdressed

Historically, “Women and Gender in Islam” discusses the social, political, legal, and religious discourses and structures that have shaped the experience of Muslim women

Women’s rights in Iran or the Middle East has always been an arguable issue. Although there rights have been changed throughout the centuries they were never really compared equal to men or noone really accepted them. Specially for women in Iran, they barely had any rights in culture, marriage or other aspects of their lives. In the following essay you will read about the everday lives of Middle Eastern women.

Accustomed to stereotypical depictions, Westerners are told that Middle Eastern women are passive, weak, and always veiled. It is often assumed that the severe conditions in Saudi Arabia—where women are not even allowed to drive cars—represent the norm for women throughout the Middle East and in the larger Muslim world. In reality, Saudi Arabia’s versions of both Islam and sexism are rather unique in their severities, although the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan is now emulating the sexist Saudi model. Women enjoy political and social rights in many Muslim countries, and Egypt has recently granted women the right to divorce their husbands. In Tunisia, abortion is legal, and polygamy is prohibited. Women have served as ministers in the Syrian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi, and Tunisian governments, and as Vice President in Iran.

Throughout centuries of human existence, women have been deemed as inferior to men in multiple different cultures and religions. Men have developed a norm to be the individual who carries out duties to help maintain a stable life for himself and the family in which he is providing for. Because of this fundamentalist approach towards how society should be, women’s rights have been suppressed throughout political, social, and cultural actions. The Islamic religion in particular, is fond of abusing the rights of women and empowering the rights of men in such a way that it has created a permanent existence of conflict within countries who follow Islam. In fact, in the Quran it states that women must have lesser authority than men, therefore their

“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

A common misconception is that Muslim women are oppressed all around the world, but this is a fallacy created through the use of propaganda and misinformation. The so-called "oppression of women" is not a characteristic of Islam at all and to say otherwise would be out of ignorance. Reza Aslan (2015), a scholar of all religions, makes it clear that oppression of women is not related to Islam but to particular countries. A common propaganda technique is to use Saudi Arabia as the standard of Islam. This could not be further from the truth, as many Muslim countries view women equally if not beyond that. There are dozens of Muslim countries who have had more female heads of state than the US; Algeria, Turkey, Sudan, Senegal. There are a handful of Muslim countries around the world, who mention women's equal rights in their constitution, whereas the U.S is one of 32 countries who does not include an explicit gender equality guarantee (Ravitz, 2015). Using an uneducated generalization, that holds no merit, causes inconsistencies and mistaken impressions of a particular

Women are denied many basic human rights, along with the ability to partake in many activities that us as Westerners would consider to be rights, simply because of their gender. The most infamous example is Saudi’s ban on women driving cars. This takes away a woman’s independence and therefore makes her further dependent on males. The stratification doesn’t stop there however; the enrollment in academic institutions is strictly contingent on the approval of the male guardians. This means women can be denied the basic right to an education if their male guardian so chooses, with no ability to protest. Women are then further marginalized in the work force. According to the Saudi labor code, “women shall work in all fields suitable to their nature.” Although this law is vague in terms of what these fields are, it is clear that this piece of legislation further restricts women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Women also have severe restrictions on their legal rights. Females in Saudi Arabia must be granted permission from their male guardian in order to sue or take a case to court. This makes it virtually impossible to prevent domestic abuse, as the perpetrator is the one who must grant permission to get the legal procedures started. This puts women at a seriously compromised and defensively position creating further stratification between males and

There are many political, religious, and cultural factors that shape the lives of Islamic women many of them are completely different than factors in the lives of American women. Islam is one of the world’s fastest growing religions; however, Brooks argues that “Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify the repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of this once liberating faith.” The book also shows these factors have slowly been taking away women’s rights, rather than furthering them.

In her memoir the princess Sultana expresses how she was looked down upon by the men of her country and how she was never loved by her father due to the lack of a male organ. She also describes that men are taught from an early age that they are superior to women in every way. They grow up witnessing their fathers abuse the women of the family, which leads them to scorn all females. By the time an Arab man marries he treats his wife as a virtual slave who must obey his every command. Throughout her life she witnesses many events that demonstrate these beliefs. Some of her earliest memories are of her older brother Ali and the abuses she suffered because of him (Sasson ch.1). The worst tragedy that occurred in the book was the marrying of Sultana’s sixteen year old sister to a man of sixty-eight. After five weeks of marriage her sister tried to commit suicide. Her husband was a sadistic who subjected her sister to horrible sexual

People are fighting because they don’t want to be a slave or they want to have woman’s rights. Slaves should be free and women should have rights they should have equal pay than men and men shouldn’t get more opportunities than women, they should be equal they don’t get enough pay than other men they should have more opportunities just like men. Slaves should be set free and not have to work every day and not get a break or get whooped to death or not get to eat or drink anything they have to starve. Women and slaves don’t have the freedom they are compared to different people women get judged or they think that women can’t do it but we prove them wrong.

For a long time, Arabic’s women have been seen as downtrodden people on a male chauvinist community, but not always were like that. In pre-Islamic Arabia, women's status varied widely according to laws and cultural norms of the tribes in which they lived. For example, in the prosperous southern region of the Arabian Peninsula the religious edicts of Christianity and Judaism held sway among the Sabians and Himyarites. In other places such as the city of Makkah (Mecca) -- where the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, was born—a tribal set of rights was in place. The Qur’an, which is from century VII, is highly specific as to women’s rights and men’s rights as an unbroken human, independent and believer of freedom.

The rise and expansion of Islam has had a significant impact on the role and rights of women throughout history. Since its origin in the seventh century until modern times, the Muslim faith has somewhat broadened, but has mostly restricted women’s rights in numerous Islamic communities. The history of Muslim women is complex, as it involves many advances and declines in numerous locations, such as Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, concerning several subjects, including both civil and social rights. Thus, in general, the rights of Islamic women did not improve significantly over time, instead, conditions remained the same or became worse for women as Islam evolved and spread as a world religion.

Unfortunately, the era of men and women being equal was hasty. Briefly after Mohammed’s death Islamic society changed, so did the interpretations of the Quran to meet different circumstances. Almost simultaneously women became inferior almost being viewed as possessions and property. Having choices was no longer an option for women, whatever the man said became the law. Girls at birth could be killed by their father’s because boys carried the name of the family while girls usually were concubines, workers, or sold. Most significantly women’s roles depended largely on what the husband’s economic status was. If the husband was a farmer the wife had to help in the fields or if the husband worked in the city she had to help run the business.

Women in Islam are free and have same or equivalent rights as any other woman. As Souhelia states in her article, many women that come from Islamic upbringing are free and others are working on bringing more change into their lifestyles (Souhelia, 2006). Although the process of change does not measure up to how far Western women got, cultural differences and geographical positioning and distribution of Islam law - better known as sharia - studies have shown that education, political participation and social reforms made considerable