Women in the Middle East are fighting a revolution of their own. While American females have made large strides since passing the 19th Amendment in 1920, which allowed them to vote, there has been little option for others outside of that sphere.
Saudi Arabia is widely known for its stringent laws against the secularization of society. Allowing women in the workplace is such an anomaly that other requirements that subdue women in their homeland, such as the wearing of the niqab, or veil, aren’t even broached.
The lack of women’s rights throughout that region of the world is derived from the religion and culture. Multiple translations and interpretations of the Quran bring about dissent on how far Sharia should extend to Muslims in everyday society, causing rifts.
Clerics throughout the Middle East will claim that women are subordinate to men, as outlined in holy texts, particularly the Quran. Others, including women, take a more broad-minded approach, perusing for textual specifics that spell out whether women should be able to drive a car in Saudi Arabia, for example.
Unsurprisingly, the Quran does not blatantly state that a woman is excluded from the right to operate a motor vehicle. Despite that, women are banned from doing so.
Women, rather than accepting their fate, have begun to notice the contradictions within their society.
Isobel Coleman, a Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, made women’s rights a focal point in her studies of the Middle East and Asia.
She spoke at ASU this past Thursday about the steadfast progression of women and their ability to now see past the ambiguities.
During the lecture she noted that 63 percent of college graduates in Saudi Arabia were women. In Egypt, the rate is astronomically high at 70 percent.
Amply equipped with an education, rather than getting married at an early age — the legal age to marry is 16 years old in Pakistan — women are getting married as late as 27, or not at all, Coleman noted in her lecture.
Although slow going, women stand alongside men in their protests against the regime. However, the answer lies in the acceptance of the different views that can be drawn from Islamic holy texts, and incorporating those into law. The paradox lies in the fact that acceptance works to our benefit and demise.
Slowly, we gain a plainer view, and we practice humility. The more acceptances though, allows also for more judgment.
Coleman put it plainly, “None of this is done without controversy and women’s rights is a very sensitive fault line. But we are increasingly diverging from narrow conservative ideology. This is a battle in the long run that opponents of women cannot win.”
Reach Brittany at brittany.morris@asu.edu
