International Women’s Day –
A tale of two sisters
To mark International
Women’s Day (8 March), Khaled Diab reflects on the status of women in
Egypt.
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Photo:
©K. Diab |
March 2007
The tension between the traditional and modern
was almost palatable across the dinning table, which was stacked with a
sumptuous, mouth-watering array of dishes. In some ways, the two sisters couldn’t
be more different, despite their obvious similarities of education and
sociability, I reflected. One sister was dressed in trousers and light blouse,
the other was covered demurely in a conservative headscarf and dress. One
sister was a gentle, motherly housewife; the other was a tough-talking,
jet-setting feminist activist, divorcee and single mum. The traditional sister
doted over her guests with a dedication which was making the feminist sister,
myself and my wife feel a little uncomfortable, mostly because she would not
hear of us helping her.
The husband of the traditional sister dressed
in modern clothes, had a high-flying business career and had once believed in
love matches until disappointment and a broken heart led him down the road of tradition
and matchmaking. I gazed at the daughters of the two sisters, both just shy of
their teen years, both intelligent, strong-willed, charming and sensitive,
particularly the daughter of the traditional mother. I wondered what would
become of them as they matured into women and how they would handle the
familial and societal pressures to conform to an increasingly conservative
norm.
In fact, around that dinner table sat a
microcosm of Egyptian society and the challenges facing it. The tug-of-war
between the genders and the varying visions of their status in the public and
private domains. Which vision would succeed in the long-term: will the current
tugging Egypt towards conservatism eventually give way to a more progressive
egalitarian outlook for women? Would the two girls grow up in an Egypt that
gives them more room to thrive or will they find their freedom curtailed?
On International Women’s Day, such questions
are bound to arise in the minds of egalitarians. As a staunch advocate of
women’s rights, the issue of gender equality in Egypt, the Arab World and other
Muslim societies is of grave concern to me. Is the position of women today
better or worse than a generation ago? Is it improving or deteriorating? What
are the prospects for the future?
Patterns and
patchworks
In Egypt, there is an incredibly complex
patchwork of opinions and realities to contend with.
Kecia Ali, a professor of religion, makes a
similar point in her book Sexual ethics
and Islam: “Muslim women are so diverse in terms of class, geography,
ethnicity, age, marital history and education that generalisations about our
‘status’ are meaningless.”
There is a relatively small subculture of
secularised believers in complete and total gender equality. There is a larger
subculture who believe in gender equality within an Islamic context. There is
the mainstream which recognises men as the official head of the household, with
women wielding major, if more discreet, authority. Then, there is the
ultraconservative rearguard which contends that a woman should neither be seen
nor heard.
Trends can also be defined, but not
exclusively, according to socioeconomic background. The biggest spilt is
probably the urban-rural one, but with runaway urbanisation overtaking the
country, this is narrowing. Women in cities tend to be better educated and more
likely to have a job than her cousin in the countryside. Wealth is also a
factor in a women’s education level and employment. However, some conservative
and old-fashioned corners of the upper echelons pride themselves on the fact
that their educated womenfolk have no financial need to work and can stay at
home demurely raising the next generation of leaders.
The biggest successes women have scored in Egypt
over the past century have been the massive strides in their education level
and the millions who have joined the workforce. In a growing number of
specialisations at university, women are top of the class and girls tend, on
the whole, to perform better at school than boys. Women have penetrated every
profession, although they have failed to make similar headway among the
political leadership of the country, judging by the shamefully low number of
female parliamentarians and ministers.
Many Egyptian women have gone out to work out
of principle; legions more have been allowed to work out of economic necessity.
But whatever the reason, the rising profile of women in the public,
professional and political spheres has gone a long way to resting many much-deserved
rights from the jaws of the patriarchal lion. No matter what conservative
ideals some people may still profess, the presence of women in every walk of
life and their growing financial clout have created a different reality on the
ground.
However, this success has come at a price. Too
many men, finding their traditional spheres of influence gradually being
encroached upon by women, have defended their position in the home jealously.
Egyptian family law, despite some recent reforms, has failed to keep up with
the times. While men can divorce with apparent impunity, women need to go
through lengthy court proceeding before they stand a chance of ridding
themselves of an unwanted husband. The controversial Khula’a law
– whereby a woman gives up any financial claims in return for a divorce – has
done little to redress this problem. In addition, women still need their
husband’s permission to receive a passport and husbands can force their wives
to return to the marital home with a court order.
Sexual revolution?
The academic and professional liberation of
Egyptian women has not been matched with an equivalent amount of sexual
liberation. Although consent in marriage is a generally accepted principle and
rape a crime, female virginity is still valued in many circles and this means
that premarital sex carries a fairly heavy price tag. However, the
old-fashioned practice of holding out a bloodied white cloth does not occur in
Egypt anymore, except perhaps in remote villages. However, Katleen, my wife,
discovered, during a visit to Algiers, that this practice is still common, even
among educated urbanites in Algeria.
Of course, there is a yawning gap of unknown
size between societal ideals as espoused in moralistic soap operas and reality.
Legions of Egyptian women will have had sex by the time they get married: some
through a belief in their sexual liberation, but most in simple response to a
natural biological need. A small group will go out and procure a hymen
restoration, gift-wrapping the illusion of virginity for people who entertain
the stupid belief that a non-virgin is ‘damaged goods’! Most will find a
partner who is privately sympathetic and a few will find someone who openly does
not give a flying fuck about virginity.
This imagery of a wife as some kind of
merchandise echoes the old Islamic view of marriage as some kind of exchange of
property. “In Islamic jurisprudence… dower [mahr]
constitutes compensation paid by the husband for exclusive legitimate sexual
access to his wife,” Ali writes in her book. In fact, several classical ulema refer to the payment as ‘thaman al-bud’a’, i.e. ‘the price of the
vulva’. Nevertheless, there has always been an emphasis on the woman’s right to
sexual gratification.
It seems to me that it is this ancient idea
that a woman ‘sells’ her sex to her husband that has, at least subconsciously,
held back the sexual liberation of women by attaching a value to the sexual act
that does not exist for men. (That is, of course, in addition to the higher
potential biological price of sex for women in the pre-contraceptive pill era).
Although I have evolved a secular outlook on
life, I have often wondered, coming as I do from a society where religion is
still important, how much of the sexual and marital status of women has a basis
in Islam and how much of it is tradition and social custom. Female genital
mutilation is a clear-cut case which is unfounded in Islam and derives from
ancient Egyptian and African practices.
However, premarital sex is a far more complex
issue – both for men and women. The Quran prohibits zina (however, it is not illegal in Egypt and many Muslim
countries), i.e. sex outside of the
legal framework of marriage – which is a real spanner in the works for those
Egyptians awaiting the sexual revolution.
This suggests that sexual liberation will probably have to take a secular,
non-theological path. However, for those in search of a theological way out,
the enormous burden of proof required under classical Islamic jurisprudence
could illuminate a possible route: the act of ‘illicit’ sex needs to have been
seen by four eyewitnesses, each of whom must have witnessed the actual act of
penetration!! In addition, any accuser lacking such compelling evidence, could
themselves be found guilty of the serious crime of qadhf, or slander.
Just like some reformists have argued that the
strict rules of equality set for polygamy are a subtle way of phasing out this
pre-Islamic practice which was popular in the classical world, the same could
perhaps be argued for zina – which
carried a heavy penalty in pre-Islamic Arabia, Greece and other parts of the
Mediterranean.
More plausibly, as Kecia Ali argues, marriage
as we know it was not the only ‘licit’ form of relationship known to Islam. The
idea of a lifelong, unbreakable bond is a Christian belief. And, in order to
overcome that, western society drifted away from the institution of marriage.
However, Islam has had a far more pragmatic view of human relationships. A
quiet, Islamic sexual revolution is occurring in the gradual emergence or
re-emergence of temporary marriages. The Shia’a have mut’a, a time-limited marriage contract, and zawaj al-misyar (‘marriage in transit) is emerging in some Sunni
countries, including Saudi Arabia. Egypt has been hit by a tidal wave of urfi or informal marriages, often
entered into between boyfriends and girlfriends to give their sexual
relationships a sheen of legitimacy.
ã2007 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.