“A country is like a bird with two wings. If one wing is cut off, then society will not function.”1 In this case, women’s rights, who comprise a large portion of the Middle East. In this region, the presiding image in these countries is that of suppressed, confined, undereducated women who require assistance in order to take the first endeavors in the direction of emancipation. To change this also means to change many issues, including varied social classes, existing religious customs, and the punishment of educated women; which is an unrealistic change. One may argue that countries would not be able to survive without the authority that allows unequal women’s rights however, it is exceedingly possible that if equal women’s rights were implemented into the Middle East then the political climate would be positively affected.
If women were to gain equal women’s rights in the Middle East, it will undoubtedly affect the political climate in a positive manner. Historically, it is easy to find examples of human rights atrocities against women in a society that does not afford them the same social status as men. On March 11, 2002 in Saudi Arabia, religious authorities prohibited 14 girls from escaping a school fire because they were not wearing traditional “hijabs”2 and their male counterparts were not in the area to retrieve them. They also prevented rescuers from assisting the victims because they were of the opposite sex, and therefore not qualified to contact and rescue the female victims. Because of the current religious laws which place women in a subjective role, women in the Middle East undergo violence in the forms of domestic and sexual assaults to child marriages and female circumcision. Not only is this a colossal, current ...
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...limate can be assured it will have a positive change from the intermittence of human right laws; due to the fact that the government cannot and will not intervene.
For decades, women in the Middle East, have received few human rights due to the fact that the governments believe violence inflicted upon them is a private matter. Furthermore, the current status quo amongst women is supported by the male population, and women in the Middle East currently lack the education or power to change it. Fortunately, organizations that advocate human rights issues in the Middle East are emerging all over the region, changing the government’s opinion, and assuring progress made by the women themselves. Finally, the UN’s interferences in the Middle East are positively affecting the region, making room for a hopeful future in the Middle East in regards to their political climate.
...made. “Their domain of activities has extended, if not in the formal market, to the informal sector of the economy and to social affairs. The remarkable indices of these reforms are that urban and rural women volunteers participate in most important political institutions (i.e., parliament and Islamic councils) or in the establishment of NGOs.”21 This is a very large improvement, furthermore, women are gaining access to and “empowerment through higher education”21. Higher education leads to many positives, higher paying jobs, greater social standing, are just some of the advantages that will be accelerated over time as the gender gap becomes less prominent. However, “in Iranian society, men still are perceived to be more important than women”21 though this idea is decreasing at an increasing rate, it illustrates how pervasive and damaging a negative ideology can be.
Through the article “Saving Amina” the writer Alison M. Jaggar has tried to address the issue that when it comes to violation of rights of women only culture cannot be blamed as root cause rather there are other factors as well. She has tried to identify those factors by raising following issues:
Yahyaoui Krivenko, Ekaterina. Women, Islam And International Law : Within The Context Of The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2009. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 4 Nov. 2013.
Trofin, Liliana and Madalina Tomescu. “Women’s Rights in the Middle East”. Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice Vol. 2(1). 1948-9137 (2010): 152-157.
We should be able to work with equal pay, be given a choice on how to control everything about our bodies, and let our personal beliefs dictate our choices—not politicians. The United States was created for the very reason women want to stop oppression today—to be able to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without the pressure of a tyrannical regime. I believe that, even though only one country in the world was said to have 100% equality between men and women, women will overcome in even the most hopeless of places. For example, Libya is a country ranked number fifty-one out of all the countries for quality of women’s rights in 2011 and where many outside reporters and media often right off the actions of the women’s rights activists there and project negative images of what is happening there. But the author of an article on the website The Libya Herald called “Opinion: Women’s rights in Libya – a positive viewpoint” knows and believes that there is progress happening with the rights of Libyan women. Despite popular belief, the women of Libya are being granted hope and are standing up for their equal rights through programs and campaigns. They believe that equality can be achieved through hard work and having a passion to do it, no matter who they are, or how unorthodox to their culture it is. Women, just like our founding fathers, my Black slave ancestors and Civil Rights
There seems to be a question of what resources are given to women in the Middle East and North Africa for them to have social change and be given the rights that they declare. Based upon their age, sexual orientation, class, religion, ethnicity, and race this identifies someone’s social status which results in the ge...
Imagine waking up every day and having to cover your entire face and body, to avoid punishment, then serving the men in the community rather than working or going to school. Then, picture women as subservient and inadequate to men in society on every level. This is the impertinence that women in the Middle East face every single day of their life; it is how they are born and raised and it is all they know. In Malala Yousafzai’s factual autobiography, I Am Malala, the Taliban target Malala for empowering girls to go to school and they shoot her in the head; however, somehow, Malala lives to continue the battle for women’s right to an education. The book was published in October 2013 by Little, Brown and Company and it gives a first-hand portrayal of what life is like for women in Malala’s home town of Swat Valley, Pakistan (Lamb and Yousafzai 3). The issue is that women do not have the opportunity to educate themselves or exercise what many consider natural freedoms. This is predominating in many Middle Eastern Countries. Women in the Middle East should have equal rights as men and they need help gaining their freedoms.
With the limitations of women's rights in the middle east there are people who a for women and think they deserve the same rights. For example, a document that was pro women was document 1 because it was about how an Afghan woman was abused by her husbands and other men, but she never let that bring her down because in the end she said “But i am woman, woman, a woman a
Middle Eastern women need to stand up for their rights and get educated to reverse the notion that they are servants and properties of their men. Furthermore, they need to rise up to their potentials and prove beyond doubt that they are equal to men. This practice would lead the path for future generations to follow and protect the inalienable rights of women. Finally, these women need to break the cycle of oppression by addressing these deeply rooted beliefs, gaining the tools to fight back, and joining forces to make lifelong changes.
The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 created a lasting affect on the societal role of women through modern day Iran. Women in Iran before the revolution were not entirely treated equal to men, but despite some cultural perceptions of women being inferior to men, they had made progress to become socially equal under the Shah. Several misconceptions and theories have been published and studied to show the inequality of women versus men because of Islam. However, contrasting theories have also been made to show that inequality has little to do with the religion, but instead with the forceful nature upon which it was implemented in the revolution. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the Islamic and political history of Iran and its social implications over Iranian women.
The Arab world is traditionally and originally a male-dominated culture, where male authority is the norm throughout most Arab countries. Subsequently, even with the introduction of Islam and the acknowledgement of women’s rights coming about in the early 20th century, as will later be described, there still remain those traditional components that affect male-female interactions and relationships in Arab societies. Gender and gender inequality are present in Arab societies still today and are at the forefront of Arab societies. Aspects of gender inequality, for the most part, appear with respect to those of employment and education opportunities, political rights, and justices in marriage. As a starting point, one can stress that there is a general view, on a large global scale that Arab society is one where gender issues and gender relations exist despite the recent protests/riots.
The Women of the Middle East have played substantial roles for their corresponding countries since the advent of colonialism in the region. 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 of Yemen and Oman are no exception, but while they still find ways to contribute to their country, they care constantly stereotyped, discriminated, and ridiculed by men who are known and unknown to them. This paper will discuss the individual contributions of the women living in Yemen and Oman, and will discuss in further state laws and cultural norms that are affecting the women living in these countries today.
Women in the Middle East, especially Iran, have struggled to gain access to human rights and are often oppressed by their government. However, this has not always been the case. Pre 1979 Iran was very westernized, and state and religion were separated. But from 1979 to the current day, Iran has been run by using an Islamic republic which means the government is ruled using Sharia, the Islamic law code. This has created tension between citizens along with governing forces, for some believe the law needs to be modernized to fit today's ideas and standards. The current issue of women fighting for their rights has gone on for years and through various protest tactics, the support of other countries, and through strong female leaders women hope
For many centuries, women in all parts of the world had struggled to have the same rights as men. People from different cultures believed that women should obey men because women tend to be characterized as the “weak and emotional” sex. Even in modern times, some countries, especially ones of the Middle East of Islamic and Hindu religion, women are considered property of their father or of their husband. Those women are often sold, brutally beaten and even murdered without any equitable reasons. Females are considered second-class citizens, which lead to conflicts between the two genders. According to Robert Max Jackson, in his article, “Why is it So Hard to Explain Gender Inequality,” gender conflicts usually occur because men have more freedom,
“Women’s human security rights in the Arab world: on nobody's agenda.” 50.50 Inclusive Democracy, 2 Dec. 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.