Jewish World Review March 26, 2003 / 225 Adar II 5763

Wendy McElroy

Wendy McElroy
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


Laying down 'the white woman's burden'


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | I try to look into the face of the long-suffering Muslim woman into whose world Americans have entered as soldiers. But a common complaint runs through the literature in which Muslim women describe themselves: they accuse the West of misrepresenting them. If so, who are they? What is the face of the Muslim woman?

A flood of stereotypes come to mind, from scantily-clad belly dancers to burqa-shrouded women.

But no stereotype explains the Muslim women who have become heads of contemporary nations: President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia; Prime Minister Tansu Ciller of Turkey; Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and Sheik Hasina Wazed of Bangladesh; Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. The list could scroll on.

Clearly, the characterization of Muslim women is flawed if only by being incomplete.

The most recent stereotype to bombard the American psyche is of the Muslim woman who lives veiled and in fear of all men who, by virtue of their maleness, are her oppressors. This is the Afghan woman under the Taliban regime. The image is a snapshot of one truth in one context.

But is it true in general of Arab-Muslim women who have become the focus of world attention?

The first step in answering this question is to distinguish between Muslim and Arab-Muslim women.

An Arab is defined as "a member of a Semitic people originally inhabiting Arabia, who spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain during the seventh and eighth centuries a.d." The modern Arab League consists of 22 states. With geographical distance and other differences separating those who call themselves Arabs, being Arab has come to be considered as much a matter of culture as it is of ethnicity.

A Muslim is simply anyone who adheres to the Islamic religion. One in four human beings is Muslim with most adherents living in Asia or Africa. Only about 12 percent of Muslims are Arab. The Arab-Muslim woman is a minority within Islam and seems to be more defined by being Arab than by being Muslim.

Indeed, many Arab women are Christian. The Arab-American Institute estimates that 54 percent of the 3 million Arab Americans in the United States are Catholic or Protestant; 23 percent are Muslim. And, yet, such women are often lumped together with the Arab-Muslims beside whom they live.

This is especially true of the women in Arab nations who often look identical to the Western eye, whether or not they are Muslim. And, yet, even the faces of these women change dramatically depending on the culture of the country in which they live.

Consider the veil, which has become a symbol of the Arab-Muslim woman to Westerners. Many Muslims argue that hijab (head cover) does not come from the Koran but from the later interpretation of Islamic law. The scholar Sanusi Lamido Sanusi writes, "Even a cursory student of Islamic history knows that all the trappings of gender inequality present in the Muslim society have socio-economic and cultural, as opposed to religious roots."

In Saudi Arabia, Islamic religious law, known as Shariah governs virtually every aspect of life. This includes a strict code of dress, which virtually inflicts the hijab upon women.

By contrast, Tunisia has legally banned women from wearing the veil. In 1997, President Ben Ali was quoted as saying, "We have been concerned to ensure an equality of opportunity between men and women and to renew legislation regulating the sphere of women." The political circumstances of Tunisia created local traditions that denied women choice.

In other Arab nations, such as Egypt, hijab is a personal decision. In Lebanon "it is not uncommon to see two girls in Beirut, one in complete hijab, the other in heavy make-up and tight dress, walking hand-in-hand. Lebanon's diversity is reflected in strange ways."

The freedom women experience in any particular Arab nation seems to derive from local tradition rather than from the Koran.

I stare through a glass darkly at an exotic culture and my analysis may be flawed. But one point I am certain. To understand the Arab-Muslim woman, I must lay down "the white woman's burden."

This is the feminist version of the "white man's burden" — a theory that was used to justify colonialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In essence, the theory said that white people had a moral obligation to civilize brown people. The Rudyard Kipling poem in which the term originated was written to justify the British colonization of India.

Western feminists seem to believe they have a moral obligation to save the Arab-Muslim woman by molding her into their own image. But if the oppression of Arab-Muslim women results from local traditions and not from religion or ethnicity, then it is possible to respect Islam and Arabs without disrespecting her.

By abandoning the assumption of superiority, Western feminists can say to the Arab-Muslim woman, "we don't disparage your religion or your ethnic origins. We only want you to have choice."

Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.



JWR contributor Wendy McElroy is the editor of Ifeminists.com. She also edited Freedom, Feminism, and the State (Independent Institute, 1999) and Sexual Correctness: The Gender Feminist Attack on Women (McFarland, 1996). She lives with her husband in Canada. Comment by clicking here.

Up

03/19/03: Iraq War may kill feminism as we know it
03/13/03: A woman to replace Saddam
02/19/03: Elder abuse demands family solutions
02/13/03: Iraqi women brutalized by Saddam
01/29/03: There ought not to be a law
01/22/03: Gambling with race and gender cards
01/02/03: The future of fatherhood
12/26/02: U.N. complicit in forced sterilizations
12/20/02: Compassion, kindness killed by fear, paranoia
12/11/02: Affirmative action insults immigrant contributions
12/04/02: Stand up for yourself
11/27/02: Feminist fighting: Aren't we all women?
11/20/02: Rights & responsibilities
11/14/02: Feminist "urban legends"
11/06/02: Equal access does not guarantee equal outcome
10/24/02: Battered Women's Syndrome: Science or sham?
10/17/02: I demand a civil society that respects the individual and acknowledges the existence of honest disagreement between human beings of good will
10/09/02: Abortion debate is about to be ratcheted up yet again
10/02/02: 'Restorative justice' offers battered women more options
09/25/02: Why is prez promising to embrace UN radical social engineering programs?
09/18/02: Dirty dealings kill men's panel
09/11/02: Taking back your power
09/05/02: Calm down, Hootie!
08/21/02: Will Congress empower a group of radical feminists to oversee money slated for Afghan women?
08/14/02: Empower the U.N. with power to sculpt American laws and institutions into the image of gender feminism!?
08/01/02: Practicing 'intellectual virtue'
07/24/02: All male, bad. All female, good: Your tax dollars at work
07/11/02: Put Up or Shut Up
07/03/02: NOW they've done it, again!
06/19/02: A dark cloud shades U.N. Women's Treaty
06/10/02: This Father's Day, send justice
05/31/02: When good women do nothing
05/28/02: Feminists claiming motherhood as liberal cause
05/20/02: Wounds in health care system are self-inflicted: Or, why "my son the lawyer" makes more sense
05/10/02: Are parents boycotting public schools?
05/03/02: Women can't be gun-shy about defense
04/25/02: The Bill of Intellectual Rights
04/19/02: World Bank or World Government?: The World Bank is blackmailing impoverished nations
04/12/02: Victims From Birth: Engineering Defects in Helpless Children Crosses the Line
04/05/02: The professor made me cry, now I will make him pay!
03/31/02: Doctors and teens --- parents be on guard
03/22/02: I was born, now I'm suing you!
03/15/02: The 21st Century is knocking at the barricaded door of feminism
03/08/02: Fun and games at the Ms mag Bulletin Board
03/01/02: Andrea Yates, NOW, and Feminist Jurisprudence
02/22/02: Lady, Your Slip is Showing
02/14/02: 'Abusing' Valentine's Day
02/11/02: Is NOW Pro-Choice or Pro-Abortion?
02/01/02: Are 'fathers' rights' a factor in male suicide?
01/25/02: Is the U.N. Running Brothels in Bosnia?
01/18/02: 'Freedom' at another's (moral) expense
01/11/02: Feminists hit Ground Zero with WTC funds grab
01/04/02: Males winning "diversity discrimination" cases is good?
12/21/01: Good will toward men
12/14/01: "Boss Tweed" feminism
12/07/01: Call me 'anti-woman'

© 2001, Wendy McElroy