These two issues speak to the misogynistic attitudes of many Islamic men that must be improved before child-marriages, female genital mutilation, and child sex abuse can come even close to being eliminated.
Jeddah: It seems
in male-dominated Muslim countries, women may not be entitled to mirth.
First,
a top Turkish official last month reproached women for laughing in public, deeming such expressions
immodest and a sign of the country’s moral erosion.
Now a Saudi social research centre reports that
80 per cent of people questioned in a national survey blame the scourge of sexual harassment plaguing the country on the “deliberate flirtatious behaviour” of women.
Feminist advocates in both countries dismissed the judgments as
age-old reactions to changing social behaviour and
a tendency in conservative cultures to accuse the victim of provoking her mistreatment.
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Turkish women laugh during a yoga session in a public garden in Ankara in
protest against Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, who equated
public laughter by women with immorality. |
In Turkey, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc spurred scorn and mockery when he described
the ideal woman as one who “will not laugh in front of everyone and she will not display her attractiveness.”
Hundreds of Turkish women flocked to the internet to post pictures and videos of themselves grinning and guffawing in defiance of Arinc’s admonitions in a speech marking the end of Ramadan.
The sexual harassment survey
in Saudi Arabia by the King Abdul Aziz Centre for National Dialogue in Riyadh stirred
a more muted reaction in the kingdom,
where women remain more socially marginalised than in purportedly secular Turkey.
“This report reflects an ongoing cycle within our community that blames any negative connotation within our society on
the weakness of one’s religious beliefs, and on women,” activist Yara Wazir told Al Arabiya news agency.
“Our society is not built on mutual respect or accepting differences,” she said, “even when it comes to something as God-given as gender.”
Yara attributed the tendency to accuse women of inviting harassment to a lack of exposure to the opposite sex, which “encourages
over-analsing of simple actions such as a smile, suggesting that
is flirtation,” she told the news agency.
Muna Abu Sulaiman, a prominent media personality in the Arab world, called the survey results indicative of
a conservative society’s difficulty in adjusting to “the novelty of a mixed-gender work environment.”
Only about 16 per cent of Saudi women are employed, and most of them work in segregated offices to prevent their interaction with men to whom they are not related. But as the leadership seeks to diversify the economy from its heavy dependence on oil trade, more women are being drawn into the workforce and in some cases working alongside unrelated men.
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| Is there any point to a selfie when you're 99% covered? |
Saudi women aren’t allowed to drive, and
in most regions are discouraged from appearing in public without a male relative or the abaya, hijab and niqab. Women were granted the
right to vote and run for local office only three years ago — freedoms they will be able to exercise in elections next year.
The World Economic Forum global gender gap map places
the kingdom 131st out of 134 countries evaluated for gender equality —
Turkey ranked 124th — and said it was
the only country to score zero on the Davos forum’s measure of women’s political empowerment.
Change Afoot in the Kingdom?
Now, a man needs his wife's approval before he can marry a second wife from Morocco. Any other country - she has no say, but from Morocco, she can veto. Of course her husband can beat the life out of her if she doesn't sign the permission slip, but it's sort of a step forward, maybe.
Dubai: Saudi men need to have their Saudi wives’ consent in case they are planning to take a second wife from Morocco.
The new regulations, which came along with other rules, were
attributed to a Saudi security official. Shortly after newspapers carried the news last week, they became
a talking point on social media. Some, mainly
men, were against it. But most
women were for the “unusual” rule.
“
It is because of its bizarreness,” commented Tamador Alyami, a Saudi writer and blogger. “I don’t get the scope of the new rules and the reasons behind them,” she told Gulf News.
Last week, a newspaper quoted
Makkah Police Director Major General Assaf Al Qurashi as saying that
Saudi men planning to marry foreign women should submit marriage applications through official channels.
He listed several conditions, including
a minimum age of 25 years for applicants, attaching identification documents signed by the local district mayor as well as other identity papers, including a copy of the man’s family card.
“If the applicant is already married, he should attach
a report from a hospital proving that his wife is either disabled, suffering from a chronic disease or is sterile,” Al Qurashi was quoted as saying by Saudi papers.
Disabled, sick or sterile - that's sufficient reason for taking another wife in SA.
Al Qurashi said
divorced men would not be allowed to apply within six months of their divorce, adding that
men are not allowed to marry expatriate women from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chad and Myanmar.
Also,
married men planning to take a second wife from Morocco need to provide written approval from their first wives, the official said.
Already, authorities request men and women who want to marry foreigners to obtain the approval of the government. On an average, the consent of the interior ministry takes a few months before issuance.
Some women wrote on Twitter that
they were satisfied with the new restrictions. But others expressed their discontent with the fact that
a husband of a cancer patient is allowed to take a second wife and described it as “unfaithfulness”.
“I am willing to agree [to husband taking a second wife] on the condition that he gives me a luxury villa, a one-million cheque and a monthly salary of 20,000 Saudi riyals,” said one Saudi woman in a tweet.
I'll bet!
“What a pity! You ask your wife whether to take a second wife or not? Where is the manhood? Marry a second wife and don’t worry,” said a Saudi man in a tweet. Obviously, the Islamic male ego is struggling with having to ask a woman's permission for anything.
“It is fine for men to take
a second wife from Egypt or Syria, and no need for the approval of the first wife,
unlike the Moroccan wife. What is wisdom behind it?” asked a second man in a tweet.
“I believe no government has the right to interfere in the choice of any man or woman for their spouse, especially the Saudi government because it applies the Islamic law,” said Tamador Alyami.
“Islamic law doesn’t limit the nationality of a wife or a husband. On the contrary, the Quran encourages marriage among people from different places,” she noted.
As for the
marriage ban from four countries, Tamador said the reasons are vague. However, she noted that according to unofficial figures, the
number of people from the four countries living in Saudi Arabia is estimated at half a million, and it is unclear whether this number is of women only or both men and women.
Most probably, the condition of getting a second wife from Morocco with the approval of the first Saudi wife
was initiated by the Moroccan authorities, she noted.
In Morocco, many activists noted,
the approval of the first wife is necessary to complete the marriage contract of the man’s second marriage.
Morocco is, therefore, much more wife-friendly than Saudi Arabia. Not only giving Morrocan wives a say in whether Moroccan husbands can take a second wife, but ensuring that Moroccan women who become second wives to foreign men are wanted in their new family. What an inherently sane concept from a Muslim nation.
Madeleine McCann MADELEINE MCCANN HANDOUT
