Saving Muslim Women Analysis

In the novel ‘Boy Overboard’ written by Morris Gleitzman, female characters were disadvantaged by the oppression. Females suffer from sexual abuses, prostitution, child labor, rape and struggle to win attention and voice from the society. In the time period of the domination of the Taliban, female's voice and rights start to diminish. They had to start covering themselves with long layers of garment and be more aware of their surrounding community as that they might harm them. With the disturbs of the taliban which is an islamic fundamentalist group that is still ruling parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries around, it makes it hard for a women to have freedom. In the following paragraphs, I will be discussing in deeper details providing evidence from the novel “Boy Overboard” of how and why female face gender inequality.

It is universally acknowledged that society is made up of two parts—the men and the women. The Ottoman empire was no exception. From the 13th century to the early 20th, the Ottoman empire held a central role in the world of global politics, commerce, and culture. They conquered vast lands, spread Islam, and created a rich and glimmering culture. But, one must recognize that women, because they make up half of the population, played an important role in Ottoman society as romantic partners and financial agent; however, women were also dealt the role of being subservient to men.

When Farah and her mom traveled to Pakistan to get away from the Taliban, they attempted to rent a house, but were rejected. “But at first no one would rent to us. ‘You are two women alone,’ they said. ‘We can’t rent to you unless you have a man with you’” (120). The statement “you have to have a man with you” illustrates that women had no rights of their own. Without a man, women were limited in what they could do, which made life difficult for Farah and her mom. These restrictions needed to change in order to give women more personal freedoms, so they could become more independent. The Taliban policies were so restrictive, after their departure life became more tolerable for women. One of the freedoms they gained was the right to own land. “The 2004 Constitution provides that women cannot be precluded from owning or acquiring land or non-land assets” (Afghanistan). This law allowed women to provide shelter for themselves if there were no men in their lives. Right of land ownership increased their level of

In Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Nana tells Mariam that a man always finds a way to blame a woman. This mistreatment of women is depicted in the novel by utilizing multiple examples. Throughout the novel, men were able to use women as scapegoats in the Afghani society that deemed women as unequal to men. Hosseini portrays how this treatment of women was accepted in Afghani culture because men’s superiority was derived from tradition. He depicts a culture in Afghanistan where wives were seen as mere possessions, so their husbands found fault with them for the inconveniences they experienced. Hosseini demonstrates the mistreatment of women in Afghanistan through the multiple examples he provides where men laid blame with women for circumstances beyond the women’s control or for which were not solely to blame for, just as Nana had warned Mariam that they were prone to do.

In many Muslim countries, the “f” word (feminism) has sparked tensions, conjuring images of domineering, family-hating woman; similar to other labels such as “Muslim” conjuring images of subjugated woman in the mind of the West. Although these stereotypes are true in a specific historical context, these may not be so when compared to a larger reality. Thus, this does not justify the hostility that follows. In fact, the term Islamic feminism becomes a global phenomenon during 1990s and is a contrast to secular

Women have been treated as an evil creature in the countries of Islam; men cannot control their sexual desires at any sight of the seductresses. That is why they were required to cover every piece of skin if they were to venture out of their prison (home). They would also suffer from physical violence if they were in the streets and this happened. The women of old China were oppressed as well, however not as severely as the Islamic women were oppressed. If they were to have a child out of wedlock, they were demoted to the “outcast table”; if they had homes, they were ransacked. However, advertising in America has been trying to teach us, sex sells and the American woman is encouraged to show more and more of her body. They are learning the power of their sexuality and the power of it over men. American women enjoy the human rights that the Islamic and Chinese women we read about do not. Islamic women are treated like a slave in their own home, once they marry; their primary duty was to be obedient to their husband, until the day they die. If they received the full approval of her husband, she would find her place in paradise. American women are considered a partner in marriage, they are not slaves, and they are encouraged to seek out equal rights. One of which is the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. It empowers women and gives them a sense of equality if they are threatened by a larger force. Girls in America have been encouraged to excel in everything they do, the famous “you go girl” saying. They are encouraged to stand up for themselves, to learn as much as they can, and to excel at everything they do. Islamic women are beginning to experience the rights and freedoms that American women have been experiencing since the late 1960s. They are infiltrating the typical male roles interpreting and reading the Koran. Their opinion is becoming more

Throughout this course, numerous examples of Muslim women who have expresses self-determination, when it comes to wearing the veil. Afshar introduces the story of a woman named, BLAH BALH, who explains her decision to start wearing the scarf at the age of 21. She explains how, for her, the decision to wear the scarf was political, as she was serving as president of the United Nations Students’ Association at her university, and wanted to claim her identity as a Muslim woman, and challenge the typical stereotypes that Muslim women hold. Her goal was to demonstrate how a woman who wears a hijab is not necessarily the weak minded, severely oppressed woman that the world often depicts her to be, and that she can instead be an educated and engaged professional.

“Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have” (19). In a tale told through the life of two Afghan women, Laila and Mariam learn the cost of being a woman in a society that favors men. As these two live a journey of suffering and hope, they begin to understand the difficulties that their parents face while living with an abusive husband and facing the wrath of the Taliban. Throughout A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini uses external conflict, internal conflict, and characterization to reveal how a woman in a patriarchal Afghan society endures more struggles and hardships than a man does.

Islam is a religion, so how do you think it came about. Well because of trade, military conquest, and political order. All of these subjects are why Islam spread so quickly.

For example, Stephens quotes Pamela K. Taylor (a Muslim woman) as saying, “the veil…is ‘a clear statement that I did not want to be judged by my body…but as an individual… (Stephens pg. 5).” On the other hand, for Amish women, the veil “by design minimizes individuality, creating belonging to the larger group… (Stephens pg. 5).” This idea of the Muslim veil as empowering could be a dialectical adoption by American Islam from the larger American culture in which it exists, and evidence to the “melting-pot” idea of multiculturalism in the United States. While the Amish resist modern society by a “theological mandate (Stephens pg. 7),” they refuse any conformity to the larger society, and, thus, remain “in the past.” As American Muslim women “live in and among a larger non-Muslim community (Stephens pg. 7),” not only do they bring their cultural ideas into the larger American culture, they also adopt American ideals into their own culture. As a result, the United States (which, to a degree, values individuality and feminism), though seemingly resistant to Islam at times, actually allows for the idea of a female empowering veil, and, perhaps, even the Islamic ideas of modesty can influence American culture as

This highlights the importance of how these acts of cruelty Mariam and Laila faced; ‘fear of the goat, released in the tiger’s cage’ is what ultimately defines their inner feminist strength, ‘over the years/learned to harden’ which shows that Mariam and Laila’s past indirectly prepares them for The Taliban’s arrival. The Taliban take away the basic rights of Mariam and Laila ‘jewellery is forbidden’, but they fail to do so. Ironically, it is the society itself that gives them the strength and platform to strike back against Rasheed, who is a cruel, male-dominating character who symbolised and reinforced everything the term ‘anti-feminist’ stands

There are various forms of religious oppression, particularly within our seemingly Christian-dominated culture. To explain this, let’s look at a Muslim-practicing individual. An example of individual/interpersonal oppression is someone calling this person’s religion “strange” or ostracizing them because they do not understand their practices, spouting off religious slurs or even viewing this person as more so of a “threat” simply due to their religion. Comedian JusReign, a Sikh practicing comedian, has often made humorous videos explaining how one does not understand his religion or its practices. He joked in one video that he was asked if, during sex or using the bathroom, he kept his turban on. Another had someone asking what he kept under his turban and when JusReign asked what the individual in question thought he kept under there, he answered, “I don’t know, grenades?” (Youtube).

It is essential for governments to continue the fight against the Taliban and other extremist groups that are preying on women. The attack on women’s rights began immediately after the group took control when “the Taliban closed the women’s university and forced nearly all women to quit their jobs” (“Report on the Taliban’s”). Before the rise of the Taliban in 1994, Afghanistan was making steady progress towards equality. Women could vote by 1920, gendered separation was abolished in the 1950s, and in the

Russia invading Afghanistan in 1979 marked the beginning of the end for all the new freedoms the earlier decades had brought. (The Week UK) As Afghanistan has no doubt been known to be connected to war, these women have suffered the consequences. Over the last several decades, the country has been inhabited by U.S troops as well as communist soviet troops. As Afghanistan is dominated by militant groups and the Islamic Taliban, women’s rights have been more often than not taken advantage of for political gain. (Amnesty

Fatima Mernissi was born into Middle- Class family is Fes, Morocco of 1940. She earned her doctorate in 1957 studying political science at Sorbonne and at Brandeis University. Afterwards she returned to work at the Mohammed V University where she then had taught at the Faculte’ des letteres between the years 1974 and 1981 mainly on subjects such as methodology, family sociology as well as psych sociology. She earned her title as a well-known Islamic feminist that was greatly concerned with Islam and women’s role in it. Fatima Mernissi had conducted thorough investigation of the nature of the succession of Mohammed in order to verify what was written in the hadith. Fatima Mernissi’s works include: Dreams of trespass: Tales of a harem Girlhood, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, and the well-known as well as her first Monograph, Beyond the Veil, which was published in 1975. It has become popular book in fields such as sociology and anthropology of the women in the Arab World.