Yet another problem in the Middle East
Arab women are suffering, says a UN report
It is not an easy time to be an Arab criticising the Arab world on the international stage. The authors of the hard-hitting series of Arab Human Development Reports sponsored by the UNDP—a frank, self-critical analysis by Arabs, for Arabs, of the wellbeing and the ills of the Arab world—have taken on a brave task. This is especially so since they have broadened the notion of human development from traditional areas of health, education and per-capita income to include political freedom, good governance and what they have called the Arab world's knowledge deficit.
Previous reports have been selectively invoked by outside commentators as evidence of the defects of Arab culture, in turn leading Arab critics to accuse the reports' authors of pursuing a "Western" agenda. And in 2004, the authors said, the US administration, displeased by sections that strongly criticised its presence in Iraq, threatened to cut its funding of the UNDP unless the language was toned down (a charge that US officials have denied). The fourth report in the series deals with perhaps its most controversial subject yet—the empowerment of women in the Arab world. Its broad scope includes some of the most marginalised groups in the region, from foreign prostitutes in the Gulf to unemployed female squatters and rural Arab women rendered into "neoslavery" as household servants.
Women lag behind in health and education
Tangled as it is with the sensitive areas of religion and culture, at a time when many Arabs and Muslims feel under attack, the issue of the status of women is a political minefield. The idea of women's empowerment is all part of a Western agenda, the conservative argument goes: Western-style feminism turns women into bikini-clad anorexics, idealising models rather than motherhood; and its misguided individualism undermines the family, the fundamental building block of society.
Rather ingeniously, the report's authors have chosen to begin their assessment of women's inequality with the issue of health—an area where it is particularly difficult to argue for cultural relativism. According to the report, women in the Arab world lose more years of their life to disease than their male counterparts, even in countries with higher standards of living, which, it says, "is attributable to general lifestyles that discriminate against women". Women between the ages of 15 and 24 are twice as likely as their male counterparts to contract AIDS.
The report notes that half the women in the Arab world are illiterate, compared to one-third of men. Across the region as a whole, girls make up less than 50% of students at school and university, though they account for more than 50% of the top-scoring secondary-school-leavers in all countries for which data is available. Only one in three Arab women over the age of 15 works, compared to more than two out of three in East Asia, reflecting both conservative social attitudes and the slow growth of employment opportunities for either sex in much of the Arab world.
These conservative social attitudes also mean no one has bothered or been able to collect much information on gender disparities in the workplace in the Arab world. But, intriguingly, the report says that, in the few areas for which details are available, there is no great divergence in pay for salaried workers of either sex. However, the report unfortunately does not publish the actual figures that its claim is based on. Meanwhile, many women work as part-time or informal employees rather than receiving salaries.
Perhaps most daringly of all, the report argues than in much of the region, the family "has been transformed from a place of safety and security into a place where any type of violence against women may be practiced". It cites World Health Organisaiton statistics from 2000 saying that in Egypt, 97% of women have been circumcised, even though the practice was banned in 1997. (A major Egyptian feature film, Dunia, recently tackled this issue but few Arab cinemas have been willing to show it.)
Islamic inspiration
So what to do? A detailed set of recommendations includes prescriptions for improving women's access to healthcare and education, wiping out Arab female illiteracy by 2015, and introducing quotas for women's representation in parliament.
But none of this will be achieved without a major shift in attitudes. The battle needs to be fought in the realm of ideas. Much of the report is dedicated to arguing for an Arab model of women's empowerment, drawing in particular on Islam--on the basis that it is not Islam itself, but conservative interpretation of Islam, combined with local cultures, that has retarded women's progress.
In particular, the report calls for a revival of ijtihad, the independent interpretation of the sources of Islamic law (the Quran and the Sunna) as opposed to reliance on the existing interpretations produced by the established schools of Islamic jurisprudence. This advice is explicitly aimed at the region's Islamist opposition movements, suggesting a sense that in the long term, these may become the real powers in the region.
Window dressing
Indeed, a central theme of the report is that women's empowerment is only sustainable if it has a popular base, involves the broad mass of Arab women, and comes as part of an overall drive for freedom and representation. It warns that "pro-women" policies imposed by undemocratic governments may risk a popular backlash (as was seen, for instance, in Bahrain last year when thousands of women demonstrated against government plans for a codified family law).
In particular, the authors are highly sceptical about the utility of moves by authoritarian governments to elevate a few elite women to high office. Female cabinet ministers rarely hold key portfolios, with the notable exception of the UAE's Sheikha Lubna al-Qasimi, the region's only female economy minister. Having women in parliament does not mean much if parliament itself is toothless. Compared with the threatening business of democratisation or freer expression, the report argues, making women more equal is one of the easier ways to address Western pressure for reform.
But is there any hope for popular moves to empower women? The report cites a survey conducted in four Arab states, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Lebanon, which found that strong majorities in each country answered "yes" to questions from, "Does gender equality relate to the total concept of freedom?" to, "Should women have an equal right to work?". This is arguably a less than representative selection of countries, especially with no Gulf state included, but the results are more encouraging than many would have predicted.
The report is also sharply critical of "foreign powers" that seek to "liberate" Arab women, saying that this leads some Arabs to associate all women's movements with external intervention. In a cutting critique, author Haifa Zangana argues that most Iraqi women have no interest in the women's organisations that the US has set up on their behalf, because these groups avoid dealing with broader issues of national sovereignty and independence.
Moreover, the report says, continued infringements on national sovereignty have contributed to "a renewed emphasis on male-centred notions of honour and glory arising from an overwhelming feeling of humiliation".
It is not an easy time to be an Arab criticising the Arab world on the international stage. The authors of the hard-hitting series of Arab Human Development Reports sponsored by the UNDP—a frank, self-critical analysis by Arabs, for Arabs, of the wellbeing and the ills of the Arab world—have taken on a brave task. This is especially so since they have broadened the notion of human development from traditional areas of health, education and per-capita income to include political freedom, good governance and what they have called the Arab world's knowledge deficit.
Previous reports have been selectively invoked by outside commentators as evidence of the defects of Arab culture, in turn leading Arab critics to accuse the reports' authors of pursuing a "Western" agenda. And in 2004, the authors said, the US administration, displeased by sections that strongly criticised its presence in Iraq, threatened to cut its funding of the UNDP unless the language was toned down (a charge that US officials have denied). The fourth report in the series deals with perhaps its most controversial subject yet—the empowerment of women in the Arab world. Its broad scope includes some of the most marginalised groups in the region, from foreign prostitutes in the Gulf to unemployed female squatters and rural Arab women rendered into "neoslavery" as household servants.
Women lag behind in health and education
Tangled as it is with the sensitive areas of religion and culture, at a time when many Arabs and Muslims feel under attack, the issue of the status of women is a political minefield. The idea of women's empowerment is all part of a Western agenda, the conservative argument goes: Western-style feminism turns women into bikini-clad anorexics, idealising models rather than motherhood; and its misguided individualism undermines the family, the fundamental building block of society.
Rather ingeniously, the report's authors have chosen to begin their assessment of women's inequality with the issue of health—an area where it is particularly difficult to argue for cultural relativism. According to the report, women in the Arab world lose more years of their life to disease than their male counterparts, even in countries with higher standards of living, which, it says, "is attributable to general lifestyles that discriminate against women". Women between the ages of 15 and 24 are twice as likely as their male counterparts to contract AIDS.
The report notes that half the women in the Arab world are illiterate, compared to one-third of men. Across the region as a whole, girls make up less than 50% of students at school and university, though they account for more than 50% of the top-scoring secondary-school-leavers in all countries for which data is available. Only one in three Arab women over the age of 15 works, compared to more than two out of three in East Asia, reflecting both conservative social attitudes and the slow growth of employment opportunities for either sex in much of the Arab world.
These conservative social attitudes also mean no one has bothered or been able to collect much information on gender disparities in the workplace in the Arab world. But, intriguingly, the report says that, in the few areas for which details are available, there is no great divergence in pay for salaried workers of either sex. However, the report unfortunately does not publish the actual figures that its claim is based on. Meanwhile, many women work as part-time or informal employees rather than receiving salaries.
Perhaps most daringly of all, the report argues than in much of the region, the family "has been transformed from a place of safety and security into a place where any type of violence against women may be practiced". It cites World Health Organisaiton statistics from 2000 saying that in Egypt, 97% of women have been circumcised, even though the practice was banned in 1997. (A major Egyptian feature film, Dunia, recently tackled this issue but few Arab cinemas have been willing to show it.)
Islamic inspiration
So what to do? A detailed set of recommendations includes prescriptions for improving women's access to healthcare and education, wiping out Arab female illiteracy by 2015, and introducing quotas for women's representation in parliament.
But none of this will be achieved without a major shift in attitudes. The battle needs to be fought in the realm of ideas. Much of the report is dedicated to arguing for an Arab model of women's empowerment, drawing in particular on Islam--on the basis that it is not Islam itself, but conservative interpretation of Islam, combined with local cultures, that has retarded women's progress.
In particular, the report calls for a revival of ijtihad, the independent interpretation of the sources of Islamic law (the Quran and the Sunna) as opposed to reliance on the existing interpretations produced by the established schools of Islamic jurisprudence. This advice is explicitly aimed at the region's Islamist opposition movements, suggesting a sense that in the long term, these may become the real powers in the region.
Window dressing
Indeed, a central theme of the report is that women's empowerment is only sustainable if it has a popular base, involves the broad mass of Arab women, and comes as part of an overall drive for freedom and representation. It warns that "pro-women" policies imposed by undemocratic governments may risk a popular backlash (as was seen, for instance, in Bahrain last year when thousands of women demonstrated against government plans for a codified family law).
In particular, the authors are highly sceptical about the utility of moves by authoritarian governments to elevate a few elite women to high office. Female cabinet ministers rarely hold key portfolios, with the notable exception of the UAE's Sheikha Lubna al-Qasimi, the region's only female economy minister. Having women in parliament does not mean much if parliament itself is toothless. Compared with the threatening business of democratisation or freer expression, the report argues, making women more equal is one of the easier ways to address Western pressure for reform.
But is there any hope for popular moves to empower women? The report cites a survey conducted in four Arab states, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Lebanon, which found that strong majorities in each country answered "yes" to questions from, "Does gender equality relate to the total concept of freedom?" to, "Should women have an equal right to work?". This is arguably a less than representative selection of countries, especially with no Gulf state included, but the results are more encouraging than many would have predicted.
The report is also sharply critical of "foreign powers" that seek to "liberate" Arab women, saying that this leads some Arabs to associate all women's movements with external intervention. In a cutting critique, author Haifa Zangana argues that most Iraqi women have no interest in the women's organisations that the US has set up on their behalf, because these groups avoid dealing with broader issues of national sovereignty and independence.
Moreover, the report says, continued infringements on national sovereignty have contributed to "a renewed emphasis on male-centred notions of honour and glory arising from an overwhelming feeling of humiliation".
Labels: Arab, Middle East, UN, women
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