ALL Muslims know that Islam has honored women, given them rights, uplifted their positions, protected their dignity and given them the liberty to earn money and spend in any way they like.
Muslims also know that Islam has given men and women equal rights and duties, as well as punishments and rewards. Islam has gone further by giving women the extra privilege of making it a duty on men to treat them well.
With Islam giving all of this to women, there are still among us some people who look down on women; they consider them as commodities whose value goes up with their usefulness.
Such men do not feel there is any value in a woman’s mind, intellect, thought or education. They do not look at them as equals with feelings and senses. To these men, women are just puppets, not partners in life.
The fact that some men in our society do not consider women to be complete and as such not their equals further consolidates this view. I am not the only one who talks about male chauvinism and the widening gap between men and women. Suhaila Zeinul Abideen Hammad wrote several weekly articles about this.
She mentioned several instances, especially in the literary and media fields, where there is disparity in the treatment of Saudi women.
She wrote that Saudi women writers are kept away from becoming members of literary clubs and not invited to participate in conferences organized by such clubs. She added that Saudi women journalists are kept away from training courses and workshops organized by press establishments, and are not allowed to supervise the printing of their stories and the opportunity to cover conferences and seminars.
Hammad believes the cause of this is men who consider women inferior and incomplete. “This would further widen the gap between males and females in this country, and would consolidate the culture of disparity between them,” she said.
To this I say yes. Women are incomplete in our society. They will remain incomplete and will always be considered inferior. Their participation in literary clubs, journalism training courses, conferences and seminars would lead to them mixing with men.
This would open the door for seduction, a source of corruption. Women would then become shameless and coveted by men.
