Women: the weaker sex, as they call it!

Here’s another day in office. After checking my Outlook mails, I opened the Times of India site, as I always did. We, the slaves of technology, hardly get time to grab a newspaper and even skim through it. So we surrender ourselves to the internet, for a daily update on what’s happening around the world. Robberies, racism, DU updates, Politics…ahhh the usual!! I was about to hit the red cross on the top of the window, when something caught my attention at the corner of the screen- Sex-starved Afghans can deny food to wives, the headline said.

I couldn’t help, but open the article to have an insight into it. Don’t tell me, are they serious? Not only can the women be denied food on refusal for physical needs of men, but they can also loose their child’s custody on the pretext of the same. No, it isn’t some village created local norms we are talking about; it’s a law by Afghanistan’s new legislation, empowering men of Shia sect of Islam!!

It brings back some of the episodes from Jean Sasson’s ‘Desert Royal’, which throws light on the lives of Saudi women behind their royal veils and how these women try to conceal their desolation, drowning themselves into alcohol. Reading through such things, gives a chill down your spine. On one hand we read of women liberation and how the fair sex is competing with men in all walks of life, and here, you read news’ like this, fixating the extent of women suppression across the globe.

My curiosity gets a kick and I decide to read more about ‘Women and Islam’. I went aghast on what I read on my screen.

According to Saudi Arabia's Shariah law women's also clothing should meet the following conditions:

• Women must cover their entire body, but they are allowed to expose one or both eyes in necessity
• Women should wear abaya and naqab thick enough to conceal what is underneath, and the abaya should be loose fitting.
• Women should not wear bright colored clothes or clothes that are adorned so that they may attract men's attention.

The reasons women are forbidden to drive in Saudi are declared to be:

1. Driving a car involves uncovering the face which is considered obligatory for women to cover in Saudi.
2. Driving a car may lead women to go out of house more often.
3. Driving a car may lead women to have interaction with non-mahram males, i.e., they can be stopped by policemen at the scenes of traffic infractions.
4. Women driving cars may lead to overcrowding the streets and many young men may be deprived of the opportunity to drive.

Ridiculous!!!!!

Voting right, Employment, Legal Systems, every aspect encompasses the annihilation of a woman’s very existence. Her life is led by not herself, but by the religious police or Mutwas. According to a Taliban spokesman, "the face of a woman is a source of corruption" for men not related to them. These things are still happening around the world. If you try to research a little more, you will find that these women have actually accepted this life and do not bewail it. In fact they are proud to be born in this culture. This is obviously due to the fact that they haven’t seen a life beyond this.

It is indeed a time for Renaissance, rebirth of womanhood!!


* Inputs from Wikipedia.org