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.
Full Answer
Are women's rights in the Middle East really that bad?
A bitter truth, often glossed over in the name of "tradition," is the religious teachings and the responsibilities of a Muslim woman. Most glossed over is the violence that men are still allowed ...
How are women treated in the Muslim world?
· Jay Sammelmann Dr. Holzhauer UI350-01 4/24/13 Women of the Middle East The women of the Middle East are very interesting to look in to. They are not just another person or treated by the same standards like they are treated here in the United States. There is a lot of controversy and fighting for women’s rights throughout the Middle East.
Why do women have to cover up in the Middle East?
· But the issue of veiling in the Muslim world often overshadows the far more serious problems of harassment, rape, and domestic abuse. According to a UN report, 99.3 percent of Egyptian women ...
What is the feminist portrayal of woman in Iranian cinema?
· Contradictory laws and policy loopholes are perpetuating lifelong discrimination against girls and women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, new analysis by Plan International has found. Legal loopholes are impeding young women and adolescent girls from fully enjoying their rights. More than ten years after the Arab Spring, a ...
What is the history of discrimination and unequal rights for women?
History shows many instances of discrimination and unequal rights for women. Women have been looked down upon and been abused by men in many different countries and cultures. There is a history for inequity of women, especially domestic violence and abuse. These dilemmas have been going on for the many years in the past, ...
What is the history of women?
History shows many instances of discrimination and unequal rights for women. Women have been looked down upon and been abused by men in many different countries and cultures. There is a history for inequity of women, especially domestic violence and abuse. These dilemmas have been going on for the many years in the past, and are still going on today, especially in Middle Eastern countries.
What does Eltahawy say about the Middle East?
The Middle East needs to confront the issues of "sexual freedom, shame, and honor" and end what she calls an alliance of oppression between the state and the street. Eltahawy, while bravely exposing the position of women in the Middle East, also has an unfortunate tendency towards conflation in her treatment of western societies.
Why do they hate us Mona Eltahawy?
Eltahawy argued that in the Muslim world women are treated like animals by men who disdain and fear them.
What did Eltahawy argue about?
Eltahawy argued that in the Muslim world women are treated like animals by men who disdain and fear them. In the wake of the Arab Spring, she called for a shift in focus from political leaders who oppress their citizens to the men who oppress women in the streets and at home.
What does Eltahawy compare teaching in Oklahoma to?
She later compares teaching in Oklahoma to being in the Middle East where "a similar mix of religion and conservative politics prevailed.". Eltahawy is torn between pointing to the unique problems in the region and arguing that that they are no worse than limiting access to abortion or to purity balls and promise rings.
What is Eltahawy's view of the world?
Combining her own experiences growing up in Egypt with examples of injustices across numerous countries in the region, Eltahawy paints a picture of a world that is dangerous and unjust for women, and covers issues such as veiling, virginity, rape, harassment, domestic abuse, and equal representation before the law.
Which countries have laws that address domestic violence?
At the time of this writing, only Jordan, Mauritania, and Tunisia have laws that address domestic violence, although Eltahawy argues that they are rarely enforced.
Where are women pushed from public spaces?
In this way, women are pushed from public spaces into the home, allegedly for their own protection. But it is here that they often face the most danger. More than 40 percent of women from Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon—purportedly the most progressive states in the region—have reported being victims of violence in the home.
How are women treated in the Middle East?
Women all across the Middle East are treated differently depending on their country of origin. In some countries, such as Lebanon, women have equal civil rights and are able to attend any type of schooling institution they wish. If you then look next door to bordering countries such as Syria, you fall into a country deep in a civil war where women rights have declined significantly in the past years. Afghanistan is a country all too familiar to the rise and falls of gender equality. Governments are
What are the roles of women in the Middle East?
Middle Eastern women have worked in all types of fields including medicine, education, agriculture, government, private sector, and even defense. They have kept roofs over their family’s heads while their husbands were away in wars, or even in foreign countries to work in jobs that they could not find in their own countries. The roles of women in the countries
Why are women treated as lesser human beings?
Much too often women are treated as lesser human beings just because of their gender. Women and men both have the same capability to do great things in the world; it is just a matter of making it known. Throughout the years, many women have found their voice, but many have not. More specifically, women in Middle
What does the proverb "a girl possesses nothing but a veil and a tomb" mean?
The key words, "veil" and "tomb" lend evidence to the fact that many Middle Eastern women lack identity symbolized by the “veil” and lack the right of ownership except for their veil and the tomb. This statement further enforces the notion that many women in the Middle East are expected to serve and tolerate the oppression of the men in their lives throughout
Who wrote the Diverse Roles and Aspirations of Middle Eastern Women?
“The Diverse Roles and Aspirations of Middle Eastern Women,” written by Barbara Petzen, a major contributor to global education.
Why are Muslim women oppressed?
Some Americans believe that Muslim women are oppressed by their religion, forced to cover themselves completely, and denied education and other basic rights. It is true that Muslim women, like women all over the world, have struggled against inequality and restrictive practices in education, work force participation, and family roles. Many of these oppressive practices, however, do not come from Islam itself, but are part of local cultural traditions. (To think about the difference between religion and culture, ask yourself if the high rate of domestic violence in the United States is related to Christianity, the predominant religion.)
What does the Quran say about women?
The Quran explicitly states that men and women are equal in the eyes of God. Furthermore, the Quran: forbids female infanticide (practiced in pre-Islamic Arabia and other parts of the world) instructs Muslims to educate daughters as well as sons. insists that women have the right to refuse a prospective husband.
Why did Neda join the protests?
A student of philosophy taking underground singing lessons, Neda joined the protests not out of curiosity but because the universal demands for freedom moved her to do so. Her sacrifice for the defense of her country gave the protests a personal story that drew the attention of viewers worldwide. Read more here.
What are the taboo issues in Iranian cinema?
Iranian cinema is renowned for its ability to make public, delicate taboo issues such as identity, relationships, divorce, infertility, drug use, and domestic abuse that are generally understood to be private, family issues. Filmmakers depict the daily struggles women endure as a result of a patriarchal, conservative and traditional society. Women’s lives are constrained, Iranian films tell us, but the female protagonist faces her challenges with a quiet tenacity, and a dignified and stalwart resignation to the inevitable. Viewers’ feel compassion for the female characters as the filmmakers present gender inequality and unfairness overtly. The taboo topics explored in films vocalize the social injustices experienced in everyday life in Iran. “The Feminist Portrayal of Woman in Iranian Cinema, The Works of Bahram Beyzai and Tahmine Milani” takes a closer look at the phenomenon of film’s use as a tool for self-reflection and acknowledgement of Iran’s social forces at work.
When covering a charged subject like gender in the Middle East, it is important to consider context?
When covering a charged subject like gender in the Middle East, it is important to consider context: the progression of rights over time, the value of the family network, the variation in family or personal status laws across states, or the role of Sharia (Islamic law) or indigenous religious practices in shaping cultural norms, for example. Rather than viewing gender in isolation, it can be helpful to compare and contrast a Middle Eastern country’s gender practices with those of your own students’ cultures. How long did it take to achieve women’s suffrage after independence in Oman, for example, as compared to the United States? What are the priorities of Saudi women besides driving? How do Muslim girls and women feel about covering their hair? With significant attention paid to the plight of girls and women, what are we missing by not looking more deeply at the lives of boys and men?
Who was the first female hip hop artist in Iran?
Salome is recognized as the first female hip-hop artist in Iran. In a genre dominated by men irrespective of national borders, and known for its blatantly misogynistic messages, Salome has naturally turned a few heads.
What is Mona Eltahawy's demand for readers?
What stands out, however, is her simple demand for readers to recognise that men, in the Arab world, hate women.
Do Saudi women drive?
Yes, in Saudi Arabia women cannot drive, but men cannot elect their government, instead they are ruled over by a religiously opportunistic dynasty. In Egypt, it's true that women were subjected to virginity tests, but men were sodomised. In Sudan women are lashed for wearing trousers, but ethnic minorities are also marginalised and under assault. We must not belittle the issues women face, or relegate them to second place, but we must place them in a wider context where wholesale reform is needed. One cannot reduce a much more universal and complicated problem merely to gender.
What is the problem of misogyny in the Arab world?
The first is to think of it as an Arab problem, an issue of what Arab societies and people are doing wrong.
Who were the architects of misogyny in the Middle East?
These foreigners ruled Arabs for centuries, twisting the cultures to accommodate their dominance. One of their favorite tricks was to buy the submission of men by offering them absolute power over women. The foreign overlords ruled the public sphere, local men ruled the private sphere, and women got nothing; academic Deniz Kandiyoti called this the "patriarchal bargain." Colonial powers employed it in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and in South Asia, promoting misogynist ideas and misogynist men who might have otherwise stayed on the margins, slowly but surely ingraining these ideas into the societies.
Why did misogyny start?
Some say that it's simply because men are bigger and could fight their way to dominance; some that men seek to control women, and particularly female sexuality, out of a subconscious fear being of cuckolded and raising another man's child; others that the rise of the nation-state promoted the role of warfare in society, which meant the physically stronger gender took on more power. You don't hear these, or any of the other evolutionary theories, cited much. What you do hear cited is religion.
Is misogyny a problem in Arab society?
As the above rankings show, culturally engrained sexism is not particular to Arab societies. In other words, it's a problem that Arab societies have, but it's not a distinctly Arab problem. The actual, root causes are disputed, complicated, and often controversial.
When did women not vote?
Just in the U.S., for example, women could not vote until 1920; even today, their access to basic reproductive health care is backsliding. We don't think about this as an issue of American men, white men, or Christian men innately and irreducibly hating women.
Who fumed at the monolithic representation of women in the region?
Samia Errazzouki fumed at "the monolithic representation of women in the region.". Roqayah Chamseddine wrote, "Not only has Eltahawy demonized the men of the Middle East and confined them into one role, that of eternal tormentors, as her Western audience claps and cheers, she has not provided a way forward for these men.".
Where do women pray in Cairo?
Women pray at Hussein mosque in the old city of Cairo. Reuters.
What are the problems in the Middle East?
Although there are many problems in the “Middle East,” such as wars, legal traditions, women’s rights, environmental rights and employee treatment, we must recognize that the “Middle East” is much more than what Western media shows the world; even the West has a host of issues it needs to solve. The "Middle East" is diverse in languages, economies, governments, religions, traditions and issues. It is important to look forward to the progress of these states and their diversity. It is also important to look at the historical constructs of such states, and the negative connotation behind the simplified term "The Middle East," rather than perpetuating the idea that "The Middle East" is only a troubled region.
Who created the Middle East?
The term “Middle East” was coined in 1901 by American geo-strategist and imperialist Alfred Thayer Mahan who strongly supported the naval capacities of the United States of America, and, in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, Mahan stated his wish for its enterprises to expand in the world. His ideas in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History lead to a global naval arms race. In the late 1910’s the government of Britain separated Ottoman regions, while Russia had been planning on setting an imperative in India. The British government did not want “Muslim states” to turn against them via Russian rule--thus Britain eventually promised Jewish-Israelites a homeland in Palestine, creating “Middle Eastern” allies (as Britain had a significant zionist population).
What is the mantra of a lawyer?
It is meant to be their mantra, "My client is innocent until proven guilty."
What is the reputation of Oman?
Oman has a fantastic reputation for trade relations. There are several merchants aligned in its sea districts selling incense, sandalwood, crafts and foods. It has beautiful beaches, mountain regions and villages, and is generally a comforting tourist location with a strong Portuguese influence.
Is Turkey a secular country?
Turkey is a secular state that incorporates the diversity of religion into its monuments, such as Hagia Sophia--both a Christian and Muslim basilica. Being dual-continental, there is a mixture of European and Asian influence. Turkey is a land of mystical theories--such as the idea of fairies creating the caves of Cappadocia’s desert chimneys. Turkey is also home to beautiful tourist destinations such as Istanbul and Ankara. Turkish youth are known to be progressive and participatory in government affairs, with women's rights and environmental issues being investigated in the region’s policies.
Is Saudi Arabia a conservative country?
Although Saudi Arabia is seen as a conservative Islamic nation and home of the Mecca, there are several ways for the youth to enjoy themselves. Saudi Arabia considers education and health care of great importance. Both are free to the public and education makes up a huge amount of the nation’s funds.
