Women's roles in Islamic world changing

Part one of a series looking at women of the world.\nAn Arab proverb states "every daughter is a handful of trouble," but it is one of the tenets of Islam that "whoever doeth good to girls, it will be a curtain to him from hellfire." \nThe contradiction illustrates one of the reasons for Islam's misunderstanding, which represents it as a scourge to women. According to the Koran -- the Islamic holy book -- Islam declares men and women to be equal and gives women the rights of inheritance and individual independent ownership. Despite the women's rights expressed in the Koran, integration of a region's tradition into Islamic doctrine has provided a score of different interpretations, many of which would be labeled misogyny in the Western world.\n"In all countries, there is a struggle between traditionalists and more liberal voices asking for more rights," said junior Rima Kapitan, who is active in Middle Eastern issues on campus. "There is a difference between and among countries as well. For example, Saudi Arabia does not allow women to drive, but Jordan not only allows them to drive, but has two female pilots of the Royal Jordanian Airlines."\nThe Middle East is separated into three divisions, according to the book "Women in the Middle East: Tradition and Change" by Ramsay M. Harik and Elsa Marston Harik: the Levantine states, which includes Lebanon, Syria and Iraq; the Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; and North Africa, consisting of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt. The divisions mark not only cultural dissimilarities, but differences in their treatment of women as well. \n"The Levantine states are far more modern and progressive than the Gulf states," said Marston Harik. "In Lebanon and to a somewhat lesser extent Jordan, Syria and Palestine, as well as in urban Egypt, educated women's lives are comparable to those in Europe and the U.S. in many respects."\nThe changes in behavior toward women in the more conservative fundamentalist Islamic states have not been an easy transition. The revolution is the result of more tolerant times, said Valentine M. Moghadam, director of the Women's Studies Program and associate professor of sociology at Illinois State University and author of "Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East."\n"The revival of modernist or liberal Islam and the current campaigns to reinterpret Islam are certainly reflections of the growth of a population of highly educated women with their own aspirations," Moghadam said. "Such women usually have experience with employment, activism and international travel."\nFor many women in the Middle East, education and international travel go hand-in-hand, said Mostafa Malaekah, who compiled the Web site Islam Guide: More on Women in Islam.\n"Islam makes it obligatory on every man and woman to seek knowledge, and therefore Islam encourages education," Malaekah said. "Muslim women may seek knowledge elsewhere in the world, however there is one condition if a woman (whether single or married) wishes to study in a non-Muslim country: She should be accompanied by a family member during her stay in that country...for her personal safety and protection in case of any possible risks or emergencies that she may face."\nHigher education usually means better employment, yet the concern for many women in the Middle East, as with women all over the world, is wage equity.\n"(Equal pay for women) has happened just as it has happened in the West, with some job segregation and a lot of glass ceilings," said Mary Ann Tetreault, editor of "Women and Revolution in Africa, Asia and the New World" and professor of political science at Iowa State University.\nResponsibility in the workplace raises many questions. One of the more notable ones concerns family life.\n"As more and more women work outside the home, there is bound to be an increase in family problems such as we have here (in the United States)," Marston Harik said. "In Lebanon, many women hire maids from Sri Lanka and other Asian countries with very different cultures and languages to look after their kids. (This is) not a healthy situation for kids or the family, when the children don't see much of their own mothers."\nBut Tetreault looks at the situation optimistically.\n"Perhaps the most fundamental change we can speculate about would arise from the impact of having a working mother as a role model in the family," Tetreault said.\nMany Middle Eastern women enjoy an unprecedented accession of their rights, as numerous groups speaking against domestic violence espouse.\n"Campaigns to end violence against women are growing throughout the region, especially in Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon and Iran," Moghadam said. "Such campaigns draw on international discourses and conventions, and this helps them to acquire some legitimacy."\nMarston Harik cited a demonstration in Beirut several months ago as an example of this growing legitimacy.\n"This wouldn't have been dreamed of four or five years ago," said Harik. "The movement is still too new, I think, for specific goals, other than bringing this hush-hush subject into the open, making the public aware, encouraging victims to speak up and eventually, I would imagine, to offer some sort of shelter and services for victims."\nDespite the many dissensions against conservative Islam, many women express a conservative outlook toward the religion. One of the chapters in "Women in the Middle East: Tradition and Change" speaks of the "resurgence of veiling," where women don the hijab, a moderate covering of the face.\n"A woman in hijab is proclaiming her right to be in the public space as a moral person and not be seen as a tart," Tetreault said. "Hijab also permits poor women to be appreciated on their merits rather than for their outfits, the same sort of benefit that school uniforms provide in the West"