Glitter and Gold
"And among His signs is
that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell
in tranquility with them and He has put love and mercy between your
hearts: verily in that are signs for those who reflect." [The Holy
Quran, Al-Rum, 30:21]
"Blessed be God King of the Universe that Thou has not made me a woman."
[Jewish Man's Prayer]
"What is the difference whether it is in a wife or mother, it is still
Eve the temptress that we must be aware of in any woman." [St.
Augustine]
Not too long ago, the media spotlight was on the "plight" of women in
Saudi Arabia. Here was yet another glaring example of suppression of
women's rights in Islam: women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.
Embarrassed, Muslims rushed to point out the fact that in the rest of
the Muslim world women can indeed drive.
Everyone missed the central issue. Is driving a right or a privilege?
Rights are inalienable. They can be demanded. Not privileges. Now one
does not need to search beyond his driving license to realize that
throughout the world driving is considered a privilege, to be granted or
revoked by a state agency at its discretion. In the U.S., for example,
one's driving license can be revoked, for no fault of his own, if
someone else hits him and he did not carry insurance when hit. The rule
cannot be challenged because driving is not a right. Case dismissed.
The incident highlighted the difficulty of objectively discussing the
issue of status of women in today's highly charged atmosphere. On
probably no other issue is the evangelism of Western civilization more
self-assured. The gold standard for women's status in the society has
been developed by the West. And everyone must now comply. The history of
women's struggle and eventual victory in the West has to be the guiding
light for the entire humanity.
It is true that there has been a lot in the history of the West for the
women to revolt against. In the 1860s, a married Englishwoman did not
exist as a legal person. Upon marriage she entered a condition called "converture",
effectively making her a possession of her husband. Her name was changed
to indicate the new ownership, a practice that continues to date. She
could not own property, make a contract or will, or get custody rights
for her own children. The 1632 English law declared: "That which the
husband hath is his own. That which the wife hath is the husband's."
Worse, she had no rights to get out of a miserable marriage. Until 1857,
divorce was obtainable through the passage of an Act of Parliament.
Her second-class status was widely believed. :"[man] is the image and
glory of God; but woman is the glory of man" [I Cor. 11:7]. So we see no
respectable leader in the West in the 15th through the 18th centuries
challenging these ideas. Here, for example, is the great reformer Martin
Luther: "If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let
them die in childbirth, that's why they are there."
The works of Mary Wollstonecroft (1792) and John Staurt Mill (1869) are
presented as the first voices of revolt. But these were controversial
people who were rejected and ignored by their contemporaries. Both would
be re-discovered in the second half of the 20th century because they
provided a justification for the later developments.
The scene begins to change in the 19th century, not under the force of
any moral argument, but because of pressures generated by the industrial
revolution. The juggernaut of industrial revolution destroyed the old
handicraft based economy and forced the workers to move to the sweat
shops in big cities. They demanded, in vain, "family wages" so a man
could support his family on his income. The capitalists would rather
have the family also come to his service if it wanted to eat. There was
no option but to send the women (and children) to the factory to make
ends meet.
Later, the opening of clerical jobs needed millions of other women to
come out of their homes and become sales girls, typists, secretaries,
waitresses. Cheap labor. The process was given a moral purpose by the
language of the feminist movement. It measured their "progress" by how
many had been driven out of their homes. It labeled the social upheavals
caused by the industrial revolution as women's emancipation. According
to its convoluted logic if a woman serves food to her husband and
children, it is slavery. If she provides the same service to total
strangers in a hotel or aircraft, risking their never ending advances,
that is emancipation!
The ancient Greek philosophers argued whether or not woman had a soul.
But the civilized West has settled the question once for all. The woman
is nothing but body. That is why we see her semi-clad and nude pictures
on every square inch at a time when the West is busy congratulating
itself for the remarkable progress of its women.
A recent L.A. Times report on pornography on the internet highlights the
moral abyss this value system creates. The nudity may be degrading, it
says, but the positive side is that "the Web has allowed some of these
women to become entrepreneurs by marketing their own physical assets."
Is it any wonder that despite the fact that he had been accused and
generally believed to have performed indecent acts against women, the
President of the U.S. received more votes from the women? Probably
nobody cares as sexual harassment in all segments of society has become
everyday news.
The destruction of the home is a direct result of this progress. In
1994, 1.2 million divorces took place in the U.S. And experts predicted
that half of all new marriages would end in divorce.
An unjust system has only changed the forms of exploitation. They could
not improve things at home. So they "freed" the woman from it.
Islam, on the other hand, gives her her God-given rights without forcing
her out of the home. She has rights of property ownership, and
inheritance, She has rights in her marriage similar to the rights of the
husband. Far from the non-adult she is depicted to be, she is
responsible for effective management of the home and the upbringing of
the children, a most challenging job.
The paradise of her children lies at her feet; the righteousness of her
husband is to be judged by his kind treatment to her; to bring her up in
a loving caring manner, assures her father protection from hell fire.
While the feminist model depends on friction, here the relationship is
one of love and respect, leading to peace and harmony.
This is real gold. Why should any body trade it for glitter?
Taken from Albalagh |