The 8th
March 2010 saw the 100th anniversary of International women's day in
which women come together globally to celebrate the political, social and
economic inroads that women have made in the last century. It is an official
holiday in China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The UN gave it official recognition in 1975.
At the turn of the 20th
century women began to see the fruits of their battle to gain the right to
vote; and following a conference for working women in 1910 in Copenhagen, Clara Zetkin, (leader of
the Women's Office for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) spearheaded the
launch of a day for the recognition of women's rights.
Women globally have
made some progress since the industrial revolution when scores of women entered
the work place. The discussion of women's rights began to take shape in
the early 1800s when women were denied the right to vote, denied the right to
own property, they were denied entitled entitlement to inheritance, denied
education and were generally employed as home helps and paid a meagre wage.
The Enlightenment saw
the ‘rights for women' movement become political. John Stuart Mills the
political theorist wrote: "We
are continually told that civilization and Christianity have resorted to the
woman her just rights. Meanwhile the wife is the actual bondservant of her
husband; no less so, as far as the legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly
so called."
By 1915 most European
states had given women the right to vote. The United States and Britain had had
passed laws which protected the property of women from their husbands and their
husband's creditors. The fight for education for women saw the emergence of the
first university for women in the US in 1821, in 1841 women were formally
allowed to teach at universities. In 1873 mothers were granted
guardianship for children in cases of divorce.
In the 1970's Equal Pay
Act's and the Sex Discrimination Act's were passed across the Western world.
The National Organisation for Women was founded in 1966 in the US. The
organisation lobbied aggressively to secure equal pay for women. Women now make
up 50% of the degrees earned at college, compared to the figure of less than
20% at the turn of the 20th Century. Also in the US, 36% of all
doctors are women.
It is these successes
many around the world come out and celebrate every March 8th.
However, a closer scrutiny at the real situation draws a much dimmer picture.
Richard H. Robbins in his award winning book Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism,
he noted: "the informal
slogan of the Decree of Woman became: women do two thirds of the world's work,
receive ten per cent of the world's income and own 1 per cent of the means of
production."
Globally the statistics
and facts released every year about the emancipation of women suggest that
women have regressed to the position that they were in prior to the
Enlightenment era. Two thirds of all children denied school are girls around
the world and of the world's 876 million illiterate adults, 75% are women.
Domestic violence is
the biggest cause of injury and death of women worldwide, ironically the UN
officially commemorates an International Day for the Elimination of Violence
against Women on the 25th November each year. In the US only nearly
45% of domestic violence is reported to the police. The FBI estimates that only
37% of all rapes are reported to the police. Of these, 21.6% were younger than
the age of 12.
In the workplace, a
recent survey by the Fawcett Society found that of the 2,742 board seats
available in the top 350 companies listed on the London stock exchange, only
242 were occupied by women, and most of those were non-executive directorships.
Those who have entered London's prestige’s City have found they are
potentially only an object of desire for men and not much else. A survey by the
BBC News Online (Laddism in the City, 10/4/2001) showed the plight of many women
working in the city; many say they are "touched
up by both colleagues, contacts or competitors...and think objecting could be
bad for business". ‘Team building' meetings and ‘client
facing' often take place in strip clubs or seedy bars and, as one women put it,
opting out is not an option; "You
had to be part of the gang... they see it as seriously affecting their profits
(if you miss these events.)"
In the Muslim world
women in Bangladesh suffer from acid battery attacks at an alarming rate; women
in Pakistan are raped for daring to make an allegation of rape. Tribal laws saw
Mukhtar Mai in 2002 gang-raped on orders of a tribal council for acts allegedly
committed by her brother.
The feminist movement
has gone full circle. German writer and TV newsreader Eva Herman recently wrote that "Let's just say it loud, we
women have overburdened
ourselves - we allowed ourselves to be too easily seduced by career
opportunities." She recommends women exchange the cold sphere
of work for the "colourful
world of children" and discover their "destiny of nurturing the home
environment."
Regardless of the
introduction of laws and global women's organisations, women remain
disadvantaged. Some argue that the Gender Equality movement has further
entrenched the problems that women suffer since they are now expect to be equal
to a man, work as hard as a man, and commit as much as a man. This notion is
contradictory since "gender" points to the biological differences between
men and women, "gender equality" eliminates gender from the
discussion entirely. A research paper by Professor Jacqueline Adhiambo-Oduol
concluded that: "A
built-in tension exists between this concept of equality, which presupposes
sameness, and this concept of sex which presupposes difference. Sex equality
becomes a contradiction in terms, something of an oxymoron."
(Adhiambo-Oduol. J. ‘The socio-cultural aspects of the gender question, US
International University-Africa, Dec 2001)
Islam on the other hand
is not gender based. It came as a mercy to mankind and not to cause a battle of
the sexes, which will always bring about an imbalance. Whilst women were
struggling with the right to vote, women in Madina during the time of the
Messenger (saw) and subsequently were entitled to vote and had an obligation to
assume a political voice. It was a woman who accounted Umar ibn Khattab (the
second rightly guided khaleefah) when he attempted to set a limit on the dowry
that women could request. Aisha (ra) was revered for her extensive knowledge,
often giving rulings to the shahabah when there was a dispute.
Women are permitted to
be employees and employers. She can trade, be a teacher, nuclear physicist, own
and sell property and enter into various economic transactions. Annemarie
Schimmel, the influential German Orientalist and scholar stated: "Islamic progress meant an enormous
progress; the woman has the right, at least according to the letter of the law,
to administer the wealth she has brought into the family or has earned by her
own work."
It was Fatima al Fihri
under the Khilafah that built the first university in 841 CE. A well educated
woman herself, she opened the al-Qarawiyin in Fez, Morocco. Amongst other
subjects, the sciences were also taught at the university.
Women faced the
protection of their honour under the khilafah. It was khaleefah Mutassim who
sent an entire army to the Roman Empire upon hearing that a Muslim woman had
been dishonoured by a Roman soldier.
Upon understanding the
real protection and nurturing that a Khilafah state would bring men and women
alike, is it any wonder that there is an overwhelming call for its return. The
vast majority of those polled in a Gallup survey in 2005 said that they would
want to see Shari'ah as the sole source of legislation. It is only the Khilafah
that will ensure the rights of all citizens, men and women, Muslim and non-
Muslim. History pertains to that fact. Islam is as applicable today as it was
before the destruction of the Khilafah in 1924. Allah (swt) tells us as much in
the Holy Qur'an:
"This day I have
perfected your deen for you and completed my favour upon you and chosen Islam
as your deen." (Al-Maidah: 3)
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