St.LouisPublicRadio: by Camille Philips —

In Western media, we hear reports that Muslim women are relegated to a second class, largely powerless status and are denied education, independence and employment. We hear stories of women brutalized and abused.

But says, Professor Mehnza Afridi, that picture is painted with too wide a brush. She teaches courses on Islam, Judaism, Women and Religion, world religions, genocide studies, and Arab and Israeli literature at Manhattan College, with a special interest in contemporary Islam and gender issues in the Islamic world.  She’s here for a presentation this evening for the Lee Institute Speakers Series.

While the stories of oppression and violence against Muslim women are true, they don’t represent the full diversity of experiences of Muslim women, and fail to distinguish cultural structures from religious principles, said Afridi.

“These are all different women living in different patriarchal structures,” she said. “A woman in Pakistan has different rights than a woman in Morocco. A woman in Morocco has different rights than a woman in Saudi Arabia. A woman in Saudi Arabia has different rights than a woman in Yemen…and we are quite wide spread. We are 1.5 billion people in the world today.”

More: http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/discussion-muslim-women-islamic-world