Source: The Guardian
Author: Martin Chulov, Eileen Byrne, and Abdel-Rahman Hussein
An explosive call for a sexual revolution across the Arab world in which the author argues that Arab men “hate” Arab women has provoked a fierce debate about the subjugation of women in countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
Women are deeply divided over the article, entitled “Why do they hate us?”, by the prominent American-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy, which fulminates against “the pulsating heart of misogyny in the Middle East” and builds to an early crescendo by stating: “We have no freedoms because they hate us … Yes: They hate us. It must be said.”
Eltahawy is not alone in stressing that a revolution has come and gone, but done little for Arab women. There are only eight women in Egypt’s new 500-seat parliament – and not one female presidential candidate. Domestic violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation are still part of the status quo across a region covering more than 20 countries and 350 million people.
“Even after these ‘revolutions,’ all is more or less considered well with the world as long as women are covered up, anchored to the home, denied the simple mobility of getting into their own cars, forced to get permission from men to travel, and unable to marry without a male guardian’s blessing – or divorce either,” Eltahawy argues in Foreign Policy. “An entire political and economic system – one that treats half of humanity like animals – must be destroyed along with the other more obvious tyrannies choking off the region from its future. Until the rage shifts from the oppressors in our presidential palaces to the oppressors on our streets and in our homes, our revolution has not even begun.”
Eltahawy draws on anecdotal and empirical evidence for her tirade: 90% of women who have ever been married in Egypt “have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty”; not one Arab country is in the top 100 nations as ranked by gender equality; Saudi women have been prosecuted for daring to drive a car. Eltahawy nails the paradox that it is women who must cover up – because of the sexual impulses of Arab men.
But plenty of women across the Arab world have taken objection to Eltahawy’s blanket condemnation of men.
Categories: Behaviour, Belief, Crisis, Culture and Traditions, Discrimination, Egypt, gender, Human Rights, Lebanon, Middle East, Morality/moral values, Morocco, Politics, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Society, Socioeconomics, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Universal Brotherhood, Women, Women Rights
From the Article:
“Eltahawy draws on anecdotal and empirical evidence for her tirade: 90% of women who have ever been married in Egypt “have had their genitals cut in the name of modesty”; not one Arab country is in the top 100 nations as ranked by gender equality; Saudi women have been prosecuted for daring to drive a car.”
The writer does not make clear which is the empirical evidence and which is the anecdotal. It would be foolish to consider an informational tidbit as fact simply because it is accompanied by a numerical entity. Even when the source for such an entity is cited, that source itself requires assessment. But when no source is cited at all: Beware. For such a “fact” occupies a whole other realm of dodgy and dangerous.
I do not mean to belittle the plight of oppressed women, but it seems to me that articles on women’s plight in the Middle East are peppered more with anecdotes than with empirical data. And I understand that this may simply be a result of circumstance: a system that wilfully denies and suppresses women’s rights cannot be expected to effectively record events of exploitation, small or large. But the natural concern arises in the mind of any astute observer: how much of anecdotal evidence is exploited by a seemingly compassionate party or parties, not for the purpose of emanancipating the victim, but for the purpose of perpetuating a political purpose.
I am a man, and let me just say that as far as my experience goes, women are superior to men in many ways.