Status of Women in Society

WOMEN IN HISTORY AND TODAY only marginally better than in ancient times; there are still mutually exclusive divisions into male and female spheres, with the corresponding attitude very much in evidence. If this were not so, what need would there be for ‘women’s lib’? Fourteen hundred years ago, Islam launched a much-needed ‘women’s lib’ movement, whose purpose was to free women from artificial curbs and to give them the position that any normal human being should have in society. (One instance is to provide them with a share in family property). This movement increased their status without any sacrifice of femineity or traditional values and without creating any perversion in society. The fact that Islam launched its movement under the guidance of revelation, its exponents were in no doubt as to what limits should be set to societal change. The West, however, in its preoccupation with modernity, plunged headlong into experimentation with the old order of values, sweeping away traditional moral precepts and ‘restrictive’ conventions. All of this was done under the banner of ‘reason,’ ‘empiricism,’ ‘logic,’ ‘liberalism’ and so on. However, the whole ‘liberation’ movement has been so swamped in a welter of emotion that what is supposed to be acceptable in terms of normal human standards is once again becoming obscured, and the problems created in society by morally rudderless individuals are becoming legion.