Women's Status in Egypt

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): for Allah is Most High, Great (above you all) (Koran 4.34).

Islam is strongly implicated in the generally inferior and subordinate social position of women. Particularly among the rural and lower socioeconomic classes--largely illiterate--an ethos of patriarchy predicated of Islamic law, or the sharia, has long been standard custom and practice. Over the course of the 20th century Egyptian women achieved education and s

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es of individual lives may offer possibilities to women that contradict or transgress the boundaries they appear to set. Texts may prescribe a certain kind of modernity--whether nationalist or Islamist--but can they regulate?" (Booth 309). This kind of confusion helps explain the record of instability and indecisiveness of family law in Egypt. Marriage laws were liberalized in 1979, giving wives the right to divorce husbands who took a second wife, to petition a court to consider a case irrespective of the interests of an extended family, and to obtain custody of the children of the marriage. In 1985, under Islamist pressure, those provisions were formally reversed. In 1994, a feminist named Nawal Sa'adawi "left the country after the Egyptian government shut down her women's association and an Islamic group put her on its hit list" (Lief 39). In Egypt, the Sudan, and Somalia, the practice of female circumcision is enforced routinely (Library). In 2000, owing to pressure from persistent feminist efforts, women regained many--but not all--divorce rights, and rights they do have are not exactly equivalent to those of men (Schneider A16). As for female circumcision, also called female genital mutilation (FGM), an estimated 97% of al
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Approximate Word count = 2133
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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