Throughout history, women in general had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than their counterparts, men. What was regarded as a womans most important profession included motherhood and wifehood. They were also regarded as inferior beings compared to their male counterparts. This is exhibited in the words of Thomas Aquinas a scholar of the 13th century who once commented that the main reason why a woman was created was to be mans helper and her only unique role lies in conception as in any other roles, a man is better assisted by his fellow men (Guity Tucker, 1999).
In the 20th century, this turned around and most women in the world now had voting rights, and opportunities for both education and subsequent jobs. Perhaps what our analysis would be looking at should be to what degree has a society advanced from the traditional roles to non-oppressive, equal opportunities
This paper shall in essence analyze and compare the role of women in the Middle East with their counterparts in America. It is important to note that in this paper, the role of women in the Middle East is associated with the Islam religion while that of America is intrinsic to Christianity or Paganism (which some scholars would like to refer as modernism).
Comparison of Women in the Middle East and in America
Islam bears a major responsibility for the inferior status of women in the Middle East. However, it is not entirely responsible the role of culture also is significant. An adequate example is the practice of female genital mutilation. This is a practice that is al practiced not only in Muslim countries but also in some Christian parts of Africa. In comparison to America, Female Genital Mutilation is a practice that has never been part of this society and women are generally deemed equal and perfect, at least biologically during birth.
Polygamy and divorce play an important part in the lives of women in the Middle East. A man is allowed, by religion to marry up to four wives if he capable of supporting them. Reasons why a man should seek another wife include infertility and financial stability that gives him all the right to do so. Divorce is permitted if the result of a marriage is just failure and misery although iddah, a duration that is meant for a woman to be outside the home has to be adhered to for the divorce to be effective.
Contrastingly, the institution of marriage in America is designed to foster a sound relationship between one husband and one wife. This in turn becomes the basis for a healthy and happy family atmosphere. Polygamy is illegal in all states of the United States.
However, divorce is allowed if both parties produce sufficient evidence in court to prove that one of them is making life unbearable to the other, and marital possessions are divided among them.
It is important to note that in America, unlike the Middle East, other forms of marriages apart from straight ones are legal in some states. The marriage of two lesbian women would not have a shocking reception in America as it would in the Middle East (Guity Tucker, 1999).
The practice of polygyny, marriage of one woman to many husbands is permissible in the Islam religion but is discouraged in many countries in the Middle East.
More importantly, women in the Middle East are expected to hold marriage and children as their primary goals in society. She puts these as her first priority in life. In contrast, an American woman will want to achieve what a man is achieving and may make decisions like completing her education or advancing her career to a certain level before getting marriage. She may even want to live life alone with no marriage partner.
Veiling rules in the Middle East vary from country to country. However, the overall picture is that women are supposed to wear the hijab to cover their head as part of the Islamic dress, the zayy Islami. The head covering ranges from loose scarves to veils and full-length coverings (example is the one worn by Afghan women, the burqa). The covering of the face was more common in the past than it is today and varies with countries.
Some countries view it as illegal to be seen in public without the hijab while in others women are allowed not to wear the veil in public offices or university as an identification of a countrys commitment to a secular identity. Women from wealthy families have more restriction in their clothing and appearance in public as the covering and the seclusion from the public is a way to demonstrate status.
On the other hand, American women are quite liberal in their dressing. Their dressing code varies from trousers, miniskirts and sleeveless tops and they tend to wear jewelry and make up and put on high heels. One has the right to dress the way they feel like and are under no obligation to dress in a particular way. We can conclude that they typically dress with the norms of social correctness of their society. Some women dress according to the laid ethics in their work place (MacRae, 2005).
In some parts of the Middle East for example Egypt, women do not typically live outside of their parents homes, not until they are married. Living away from home while unmarried is regarded setting up a place for prostitution (Moracco, 2004). This idea of dependency is quite away from American norms where a woman after school is expected to have her own place and live an independent life away from her parents. The decision to get married is entirely hers.
Family laws in the Middle East countries are based on the Muslim Sharia. These laws require that women obtain a male relatives permission before undertaking certain activities that are supposed to be theirs by right. This dependency on males cuts across the economic, social and legal aspects. A woman for example, needs to permission from father, husband or brother to obtain a passport, start a business, open a bank account or even to get married.
This is exactly the opposite in America where certain issues like the ones mentioned above are primarily personal and just like the men, women in America can obtain or conduct activities without permission from any male.
It is also true to say that women in the Middle East are treated as second class citizens in various aspects. The state is used to strengthen Islamic and cultural control over women. Women are denied to marry foreigners and are denied to extend their citizenship to their husbands. It is also a fact that only a man can pass his citizenship to his children and not a woman (Moracco, 2004). In cases where a woman is divorced, widowed or her husband is not a national of their residing country, her children are denied basic rights including education, healthcare and inheritance.
This view is quite unlike America where all citizens are treated as equal. A woman can extend her citizenship to either her foreigner husband or her children. A woman enjoys all the rights in the constitution equal as the man.
Another important point lies in the conducting of religious activities. Muslim women have their own secluded place at the mosque and are not supposed to mix with the men during prayers. This is contrary to their fellow Americans where there are even women leaders in the church who deliver sermons to the whole congregation.
Conclusion
It is a fact to conclude that historically, wherever Islam has held political influence, it has resisted womens rights, secularism, modernism and human values. Significant differences between the East and the West emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries. Forces that favored the improvement of the womens status in the Middle East were brought about by economic and social changes and also the influence of the Western culture. Unfortunately, these improvements were only in education but not in the legal aspects (Moracco, 2004).
Islamic law is therein viewed as oppressive and backward to the interests of the modern woman as the Middle East vow to follow the Quran to the letter, without intellectual insight to changes and varied interpretations of the teachings.
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