Abstract
This chapter explains how various attempts aiming to uplift women’s status over the last century have not been able to significantly close the gender gap. The role of education, regulatory changes, and the quota system are analyzed. Why education has not resulted in increased economic and political participation is revisited and explained. The limits of regulatory changes and the quota system are also addressed. The chapter closes by asserting that the blame game engulfing Arab societies has not helped the cause of women. The need of various groups, even when coming from disparate starting points, to come together and work on a common agenda would contribute to the betterment of women all across the region.
Oppression as a habit of life blocks the oppressor’s own advancement and freedom
(M.S. Fish)
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Notes
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Lebanon is still in need of better freedom of press as it ranks 99 among 180 countries along the 2017 World Press Freedom index. Yet, its ranking is considered high compared to other Arab countries (second only to Tunisia which ranks 97).
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Sidani, Y. (2005). Women, work, and Islam in Arab societies. Women in Management Review, 20(7), 498–512.
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Golley notes that “Islam has always been the pot within which the subject of Arab women has been cooked. The West has a generalized view that Arab women are Muslims and that Islam, viewed as monolithic religion, oppresses women” (p. 17). While one is inclined to agree with such a statement regarding the prevalence of such a perspective, it needs to be noted again that such a generalized view is not restricted to some Western scholars. This view is shared by some Arab authors, activists, and feminists; Golley, N. A. H. (2010). Reading Arab women’s autobiographies: Shahrazad tells her story. University of Texas Press.
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Fisher, Max. (April 25, 2012). The Real Roots of Sexism in the Middle East (It’s Not Islam, Race, or ‘Hate’), The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/the-real-roots-of-sexism-in-the-middle-east-its-not-islam-race-or-hate/256362/
- 34.
As an example of blaming the “religious right,” the famous Al-Hilal Egyptian cultural periodical published in March 2017 a special issue under the title; “The Arab Woman…Before the Spring and after the storm”. The interesting thing from the title is that it relabels the Arab Spring as storm as the spring is yet to come, thus discrediting the—now failing—Arab Spring. In one of the articles, Farida Nakkash talks about the “religious right” which aims to besiege the female body through the usage of two types of discourse that lead to the same outcome. The first discourse views the female body as a sex symbol, which is a source of seduction and sin. That’s why it needs to be hidden and secluded. The second discourse looks at the body as a valuable jewel, a symbol of motherhood and fertility, which needs to be protected. She concludes by noting that the religious right takes texts out of context leading in both cases to one outcome: the marginalization and seclusion of women. In the same issue Hussam Haddad, an expert on Islamic movements, throws a blanket condemnation of schools of Islamic jurisprudence including those affiliated with the official Azhar institution.
- 35.
Fish, M. S. (2002). Islam and authoritarianism. World politics, 55(1), 4–37.
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Sidani, Y.M. (2018). The Way Forward. In: Muslim Women at Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63221-6_6
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