Women In Islam

For the Women in Islam group we had two guest speakers. The first one was Gulnar Husain. She gave a very interesting power point presentation about women today in the Middle East. What I thought was interesting was how she introduced the class to all of these quotes from the Quran that specified that women should be treated equally to men. However, just because the Quran states it many islamic men do not treat women with equality. She made a good point in saying that today women are treated much better then they used to be and even mentioned some examples of women in power and other notable muslim women. Gulnar also talked a little bit about the 'Hijab' or the head covering that some Middle Eastern women choose to wear. She explained that the Hijab was a symbol of modesty, morality and respect. Even though she chooses to wear it she thinks that it should be an option for women to wear it if they want. For example when her daughter wanted to wear one she did not think it was the proper time for her to start wearing one. Upon researching the Hijab, I found that it is not required in many places anymore that women wear them. It is actually an option for women to choose to wear them if they want to or not. Many times when the women is being pressured to wear the Hijab it is by other women or non-governmental enforcers. Today with Middle Eastern countries becoming more westernized some countries are encouraging women to take off their head scarves. However, some women see the head scarf as part of their religion and tradition, but by refusing to take them off the government is viewing the hijab as a symbol of resistance. It is interesting because we just learned that in certain countries such as Turkey the government strongly encourages women not to wear the hijab and states that it is illegal for women in government positions or women attending college to wear the Hijab. However today in places in the Middle East such as Gaza women and told to wear the Hijab or any place that is under the influence of the socio-political organization of 'Hamas'.