SOCIALPOSITION OFWESTERNWOMEN’ TODAY

Now that women conceiveto be in charge of their own affairs, does this mean that they havereachedthe pinnacle of gender equality? Has the “new woman” of today overcomethe oppression and subjugation of the “bad old days”? Does theliberationof women signal the advent of a new, morally correct world? Hasliberationachieved real emancipation and freed women from injustice? Have we seenthe last of oppression, infanticide, prostitution, rape, divorce andsingleparent (usually single mother) families? The answer, according to thefeministshould have been an emphatic yes, but is sadly, a dismal no!The old customspracticedby the supposedly “uncivilized” peoples of ancient Rome, Persia, Arabiaand Judaea are alive and well but under a new guise. In this modernadvancedage, instead of killing innocent girls at birth, we are aborting theminthe womb and discarding their mutilated corpses like offal. Abortion ismurder, and it has never been heard of a woman’s “right to choose”beingaccepted as defense in a homicide case! Doctors and other abortionistsare finding ever more gruesome ways to kill unwanted babies. Thelatest,which goes by the grotesque name of “partial-birth abortion” involvesthepartial removal of the foetus from the womb; the head is left insidethemother, and the abortionist (does he or she deserve the title ofDoctor?)pierces the back of the skull with a sharp instrument, inserts acatheter,and removes the brains. Then the remains of the murdered child arefullyremoved. This horrific procedure was devised as a way to get aroundU.S.laws which state that any child born alive has human rights, and itsdeathwould be viewed as murder by the courts. What sort of sick, twistedmindcan dream up something like this? Why should a living child in the wombbe deserving of fewer rights than one which is already-born?Women with children arestillcasually abandoned, as in former centuries. Now the phenomenon is knownas “single parent families”. Instead of going to market to purchase awoman,men now resort to prostitution, or even rape. In by-gone times, menmurderedwomen they had no more use for (consider the blood lust of Henry VIII,founder of the Church of England, and how he disposed of some of hiswives);nowadays women are driven towards drugs and alcohol, and ultimatelykillthemselves. This is labelled as “suicide”, and saves men from doing thedirty deed themselves. The old Spartan way of having women”inseminated”by strong men, is now replaced by genetic engineering and artificialinseminationvia the sperm banks, which achieve the same thing under the auspices ofscience and technology, the “gods” of their modern age. All of this isregarded as Progress.Women’s equality in theWestis a charade. For how long can the world continue to ignore women’smiseryand the disaster towards which all are heading? The only way to a just,fair and secure future for all is through the pristine teachings ofIslam.Muslims have the awesome responsibility of conveying this messagecorrectlyand effectively to the people of the world.According to popularbelief,the twentieth century has seen the greatest advancement in equality forwomen. In particular, the period after the Second World War, from thelate1940s until the present, is hailed as a golden era. But during thisperiod,atrocities of all kinds against women have increased by more than 25%.A survey into the world of government statistics reflect a true pictureof the plight of women in today’s world.ABORTIONIn Britain, registeredabortionshave increased almost ten fold since abortion was “legalized” in 1968.In that year, there were nearly 22,000 registered abortions, comparedwithnearly 180,000 in 1991. Since records began, there has been a steadyincreasein the numbers of abortions performed each year. Of the 180,000abortionsthat took place in 1991, 1lo,ooo were carried out on unmarried women.Only1% were done for medical reasons. In 1993, 819,000 women in England andWales had abortions. The results of population surveys indicate that athird of all conceptions that occurred outside of marriage wereterminatedby abortion in 1993.Over 3,000 abortionswerecarried out on girls aged 15 and under (16 is the “age of consent” inBritain);and over 31,000 termination’s were carried out on girls aged 19 andunder.The figures for USA areevenmore horrific. Abortion rates have increased since records began andtherewere over one million ‘recorded legal abortions’ carried out in 1994.TheAlan Guttmacher Institute, a research organization affiliated withPlannedParenthood (America’s leading abortion provider – it is rather likecallinga butcher a lamb’s confidant) estimate the total number of abortionsaretypically 10 to 20% higher than the official government statistics.In Canada where thewombis considered to be a safe place for the unborn by the Westernstandardshas nearly half the abortion rate of USA. However, for 1992, thisequatesto 25% of all pregnancies being terminated by abortion.In Japan, the ‘mostadvanced’industrial country of the World, where time is money and money is thesubstanceof life, has abortion rates twice that of USA. The nation suffers fromover 2 million abortion each year.The most stupendousbloodbath of the innocent unborn life has been carried out in the FormerSovietUnion. The Soviet Union suffered an incredible 12.8 million abortionsin1965 out of a total population 233 million. At present almost threequartersof all Soviet women’s pregnancies end in abortion.The trivial natureabortion,human life and women’s sentiments are held in the Western world wasbroughtto the forefront when a Charity organisation ‘Marie StopesInternational’opened six day centres across England. They provided a ‘walking, walkout’abortion ‘that could easily be completed during a working woman’slunchtimebreak. Their leading abortionist ‘Dr’ Tim Black horrified the nationwhenhe disdainfully described the method of abortion by Suction as the’minimalservice interception’ a ‘seamless service without medical drama ormoralcensure’ and a ‘quantum leap in service delivery’. Abortion, atraumatic,sorrowful and a grievous moment for every unfortunate woman has beenreducedto the language of shopping.’It is worth taking sometimeto ponder over these figures. Although it is easy to be blinded by suchlarge numbers, we should not forget that each of them is much more thana statistic. Each number represents the murder of an innocent, helplessbaby by supposedly “civilized” human beings.The freedom of choiceunderthe guise of first World civilisation has allowed the hideous slaughterof unborn children which has claimed over ONE BILLION lives throughoutthe world over the past 25 years.In the “barbaric” past,infantgirls were killed for economic reasons. Now children are killed todestroythe evidence of adultery, fornication and mischief! These figuresaccountonly for those abortions which were registered. As for illegalabortionsand those carried out in private clinics, only Allah knows exactly howmany babies were killed.RAPEIt is not easy to findaccuratefigures on rape. Many incidents are not reported, and the policestatisticsdo not include cases where the allegations have been withdrawn. It issafeto assume, therefore, that the official figures are an underestimate.According to theBritishpolice, in 1984 there were over 20,000 cases of indecent assault andnearly1,500 rape cases in Britain. The London Rape Crisis Centre estimatesthatthere are between 5,000 – 6,000 rapes per year; the true figure may bemuch higher. Since 1984, the number of recorded sexual offences hasrisenat a slightly higher rate than recorded crime in general. By 1994, thenumber of recorded sexual offences had risen to 32,000. If we acceptthehigher figures, we may say that, on average, one rape occurs every hourin England. In other words, by the time you finish reading thischapter,someone, somewhere in the country, will have become yet another rapestatistic.The USA, a countryproclaimingthe greatest freedom of rights has the World’s highest rape rate. It is4 times higher than Germany, 18 times higher than England and almost 20times higher than Japan. In one state of Utah alone the rape rate is44.6per 100,000. In 1995, 2,071 Utah children under the age of 18 weresexuallyabused: 633 of these children were under the age of 6.In the USA, 1.3 womenareraped every minute. That equates to 78 rapes each hour, 1,872 rapeseachday, and 683,280 rapes each year.Looking at suchfigures,the question springs to mind: who is committing these barbaric actsagainstwomen? Are these the acts of mentally disturbed characters roaming thestreets? The popular stereotype could not be further from the truth. In1980, only 2% of men convicted of rape were referred for psychiatrictreatment.The reality is shocking and disturbing: over 75% of women who are rapedhave had some prior contact with the man who raped them.3 They arerapedby acquaintances, people they know and probably trusted. A close friendor relative rapes 16%.A study carried out bytheNational Council for Civil Liberties showed that 38% of men use theirpowerand position at work to rape women. A Retook survey found that88%of respondents had experienced sexual harassment at work. In the UK,86%of managers and 66% of employers had experienced such problems. TheBritishCivil Service found that 70% of those surveyed had experienced sexualharassment.In Britain, even inthatbastion of law and order, the Police service, the problem of sexualharassmentis serious. Female officers with twenty-five years’ service in theforcemay be subjected to harassment. Examples of offensive incidents includebeing spied on while in police stations showers, being “casually” shownpornographic pictures, and being physically groped. One female officersaid, “You go into a room and three or four men will run their handsoveryou to see if you are wearing the ‘full tackle,’ i.e., suspenders. Ithappensfrequently”.’Rape has a devastatingemotional,mental and psychological impact on the victims and their families. USAcensus reports, 1.3 million currently have a mental disorder due torape,called Rape Related Post Traumatic Disorder (RR-PTSD). 3.8 million inUSAhave previously had RR-PTSD, and roughly 211,000 women will developRR-PTSDeach year.MARRIAGE AND DIVORCEThe latter part of thetwentiethcentury has seen an increase in cohabitation i.e., couples “livingtogether”before marriage. Nearly half of women born in the 1960s said that theyhad cohabited at some time. This social trend is supposed to iron outanydifference between partners and ensure that they are compatible beforethey tie the knot and make the commitment of marriage. This “trial run”is meant to increase the chances of a successful marriage, but thetruthis that the increase in cohabitation has been accompanied by anincreasein the divorce rate. Britain now has the highest divorce rate in theEuropeanUnion. In 1983 there were over 147,000 divorces granted by the courts.By 1994, this number had increased to 165,000.In USA the divorce ratehasincreased from 708,000 in 1970 to 1,175,000 in 1990. Whereas during thesame period the marriage rates have remained virtually static, despitethe rise in ‘marriageable age’ populationsTables of divorcestatisticsdo not convey the suffering of partners whose marriage breaks down, orof their children whose world is torn apart by the parents’ separation.The number of marriages in Britain has decreased, from 389,000 in 1983to 341,000 in 1994. Of those, nearly one-third end in divorce, and themost common grounds for divorce is adultery.The silent sufferers indivorcefamilies are no doubt the children but even the partners are not savedfrom the trauma. Divorce now ranks as the number one factor linked withsuicide rates in USA, outstripping other important social and economicpredictors. Divorced people are three times more likely to commitsuicidethan people who are married.The more human beingsrelyon their own intellectual reasoning and abandon the guidance of theirCreator,the greater their suffering.SINGLE PARENTSThere is yet anothersetof depressing statistics that has been increasing since the advent ofsocalled “women’s liberation”. In the past ten years, the number ofbirthsto unmarried mothers has risen from nearly 90,000 in 1982 to 215,000 in1992. Of all the babies born in 1992, 31% were born to unwed mothers.Nearly2,500 girls under the age of 15 gave birth, and over 23,000 new mothersin that year were aged under 20.As the number ofillegitimatebirths has increased, the number of babies born within marriage hasdecreased,from 890,000 in 1961 to 511,000 in 1994. The reality behind thesestatisticsis that women are bearing most, if not all, of the responsibility forraisingthese children. This form of oppression of women should not be ignored;men must be made to shoulder the responsibility and be accountable forthe children they produce.An official survey hasdemonstratedthat the number of families with children headed by a lone parent hasrisento more than one in five (over 20%); in the North West of England, thefigure is closer to 30%, or one in three. The same survey shows thatfewerthan 60% of women aged 18 49 are married. Even more alarmingly, growingnumbers of single mothers are typically trying to cope on very littlemoney:42% of them had a gross weekly income of less than £100. Theimpactof poverty on educational achievement, crime rates, health, moral valueand self esteem has been well documented and has led to reports inBritainand elsewhere of an “emerging underclass” whose future is indescribablybleak.The burden of familycareon the Western women has been escalating and in 1994, the USA had 9.9millionsingle mothers having to maintain and take care of their childrencomparedwith only 1.6 million single fathers. The ‘normal house’ with a father,mother and children has become an illusion in the Western world and isreaping havoc. The USA – In 1970, 40% of household were made up ofmarriedcouples. In 1995, only 25% of households are made up of marriedcouples.The social impact of single parenting on children is devastating. 75%ofchildren in chemical dependency hospitals are from single parentfamilies.20% of children in single parent families have a learning, emotional orbehavioral problem. 63% of suicides are committed by individuals fromsingleparent families.The burden on womancreatedby ‘single parenting’ is one of the most brutal forms of oppression.HEALTHWhen it comes to healthmatters,women fare less well than men, especially when it comes to mentalhealth.Single mothers, in particular, suffer poorer health than women in twoparenthouseholds. General Health Survey data indicate that lone mothers aremorelikely to have both long standing and recent illness, and are lesslikelyto assess their health over the last twelve months as good. In thissurvey,only 43% of single mothers described their health as “good” and nearly39% reported a long standing illness.Women also sufferpoorerpsychological health than men. They see their GPs (family doctors) moreoften for mental health problems, and are more frequently prescribeddrugsfor anxiety and depression. Women are more unwell and unhappy than menbecause of the work they do and the conditions in which they do itcreatedby the capitalist system for the acquiring of profit margins.If you were to questionarandomly picked sample of the population and ask them, “Who suffersmorefrom mentally-related disorders” The majority will reply: women.However,this has not always been the case. Studies from 1850 until the SecondWorldWar show that men used to be more prone to mental disorders than women.In the majority of studies prior to 1950 or the Second World War, theoverallrates were higher for men.In the case of women’smentalhealth, the findings differ sharply from the 1950s onwards, with theadventof so called equal status. A report by B P Dohrenwend in the AmericanJournal of Sociology shows that while prior to 1950, for every 7mendiagnosed as mentally ill, only 2 women were similarly diagnosed, after1950, the ratio changed to 22 women for every 2 men. This catastrophicreversal in mental illness statistics accompanied the rise of “women’sliberation” in the West.This increasedincidenceof mental illness among Western women since the Second World War hasoccurredbecause “… women find their position in society to be morefrustratingand less rewarding than do men ..”5 The reason for this greater senseoffrustration may be found in the unfair burden which is placed on the”liberated”women She is expected to display masculine traits in the workplace, butis also supposed to maintain her “femininity” – a dual burden that istooheavy for many women, who may eventually break down.Mental illnessresearchershave also discovered that single persons are more prone to mentalillnessthan those who are married, and their prognosis is not as good. Asearlyas the turn of the century, Durkheim noted that the severing of themaritaltie is particularly dangerous for mental health, as indicated by a highsuicide rate among the widowed and divorced. Since that time, allstudies’comparing the mental health of those who are widowed or divorced withthatof those who are married have also found that the rates of mentalillnessare higher among the former. With the rise of the divorce rate, theprospectof women’s mental health looks particularly poor.ALCOHOL AND SMOKINGThe Western developmentofthe equality of the sexes has been accompanied by an increase in thevicesthat were previously thought to be a male preserve, namely theconsumptionof alcohol and tobacco. According to a recent report published in theSundayTimes, the number of women drinking more than the “recommended limit”isrising. The survey shows that the number of men exceeding this limithasfallen to 26%, whilst the number of women doing so has risen to 12%.Smoking used to be amen’svice, as for a long time it was deemed improper for women to smoke.However,the number of women who smoke is now more or less the same as thenumberof men who do so. Although anti-smoking campaigns have led to manyadultsquitting the habit, tobacco companies have responded by targetingyoungerpeople, on the premise that if they can get teenagers or children”hooked”they will continue to have a ready market for their product. Reportsindicatethat more young women than young men are starting to smoke, whichindicatesthat in the near future the majority of smokers will be women.PORNOGRAPHYThe rapid growth of thepornographicindustry since the 1950s has, again, mirrored the progress of”equality”in the West. Pornography does not present women as human beings withfeelingsand needs, but as mere available commodities to be used and cast aside.Women are led to believe that by selling their bodies, they areachievingequality, but in fact they become subordinate to men who use the ideaofequality to exploit women for their own desires and financial gain.In the 1980s, a furtherstepin the manipulation of women appeared. Sheila Jeffreys, a feminist,wrote:”When the campaign against pornography first got underway, it waspossibleto attack pornography as a male product designed for male consumption.This is not true in the 1980s. Women are being told – by libertariantheoriststhat because ‘women are equal now,’ it is all right for women to enjoypornography. This ideology serves more to defeat women’s emancipationthanto pander to it. The idea of selling pornography to women from the1980shas become a more sophisticated and effective way of bolstering malepower”.Pornography is thebiggestmedia category world wide. It enters our homes via television andmagazines,as well as video, film and satellite media. Globally, pornographygenerates$7 billion annually, more than the legitimate film and music industriescombined. In the US, pornographic films gross $1 million daily, andoutnumberfilms of other genres by 30%. In Britain, 20 million copies ofpornographicmagazines are sold each year, producing an annual revenue of over£500million. In Sweden, a large “sex shop” may offer over 500 titles ofpornographicmagazines, and a corner shop can offer up to 50 titles. It is estimatedthat 18 million American men buy a pornographic magazine each month.Pornographythroughout the world is becoming ever more violent and gruesome, and isspreading further via the new technology: pornography on the Internet,including “hard-core” and child pornography, is a growing problemworldwide.The Western world is also exporting this deviant trend, which exploitswomen in the most abhorrent fashion, to the so-called third world.This is the state ofaffairsto which Western “civilization” and its Progress” and “equality” havebroughthumankind, where women are victimised in ever increasing numbers tovicesand mistreatment that any sane person would abhor and seek to eliminate.To summarise, withinthelast hour the following have taken place in England: one woman wasraped,eighteen people got divorced, 20 women had abortions, and 24 childrenwereborn to women without husbands. These same events will be repeated inthenext hour, and in the hour after that. As you go through your dailyroutineof sleeping and waking, this sorry state of events will continue, andthenumber of victims will continue to escalate.What possible answercanthere be? How can these barbaric crimes against women be reduced, ifnoteliminated altogether? The path of supposed equality between the sexesis only making the problem worse, and any sane person can see that theworld is moving away from a civilized state towards a position ofbarbarityand ignorance (jahiliyyah). Very much like that whichprevailedbefore the advent of Islam. In a society which considers itself to beatthe forefront of civility and human concerns, how can the low standardsof morality that prevail nowadays be accepted?What are the solutionstothese problems? For the people who are blessed with sincerity andunderstanding,there is no need to search far afield. Who better to guide, than theCreatorof men and women, Allah Himself? When comparing Western practices tothevalues of Islam, it will soon be apparent where people have gone wrongand how Islam may steer people back on to the right path.The single most commoncauseof the problems discussed above is the fact that Western societyencouragesthe free mixing of men and women. The natural modesty of one sextowardsthe other is regarded as backward, unfashionable and uncivilized. Anyeffortto retain a sense of modesty is immediately labelled as “oppressive” or”repressive”. Yet considering the disastrous consequences of freemixing,from the above statistics, the appropriate course of behaviour to beundertakenis clear.Recent Psychologistsreportsagree that when there are two persons of opposite genders in enclosedsurroundings,sexual ideas and connotations are bound to pass through their minds.Thecasual and frequent manner in which such encounters are allowed tooccurin an atmosphere of free mixing sets the stage for most of thecalamitiessuffered by women today. Acting upon these impulses leads to all thewoesof modern society: Abortion, divorce, single parent families, suicide,rape and all the other heart breaking social ills. Fourteen hundredyearsago, the Prophet Muhammad warned humanity about the hazards of freemixingand advised extreme caution. In this matter, he informed us that whena man and a woman are alone together, the third one present will be theShayran (Satan), working to implant mischief between the two.As stated earlier, 75%ofall rapes are committed by men who know their victims personally. Intheworkplace, 38% of men in positions of power abuse their position totakeadvantage of women working with them. The most frequent cause ofdivorceis adultery, which is made easy by the free mixing of the sexes. Thereasonthat children as young as 15 are getting pregnant is because theschools,which were once segregated, have become “co-educational”, and are nowdensof iniquity where peer pressure reigns supreme and promiscuity is theorderof the day. The abortion rate simply reflects the low esteem in whichhumanlife is held.In the Western world,equalityfor women has meant looking the same as men, doing the same jobs asthem,and exhibiting the same behaviour and characteristics as men. Westernsocietieshave paid the price for this unnatural approach, by suffering hugelossesof morality and human values. Equality of the sexes does not mean thatboth men and women should look the same. In a society where money,beautyand masculinity are what counts, a woman has to work, dress and behavelike a man and at the same time stay pretty like a model in order tostandon equal terms with men. This is to the detriment of her moral valuesandfeminine nature.Islam has set out theuniqueand complementary roles of both men and women, an issue which will beexaminedmore closely later. First, the misinformation campaign directed at mostWesterners which conveys to them that Islam preaches inhuman practicesand the Oppression of women need to be emphasised. Opponents of Islamusuallymaliciously manipulate the fact that Muslim women are required to dressmodestly, and are prohibited from mixing freely with the opposite sex.A further whip is drawn to bash Islam with by distorting the factsregardingpolygny. They misconstrue these Islamic teachings as evidence andportrayIslam as preaching suppression of women. The West has been sosuccessfulin propagating these distorted views that even some Muslims have fallenvictim to it. This should hardly come as a surprise when it is knownthatMuslims tend to be more familiar with Western literature than their ownIslamic heritage. In Britain alone, between 1960 and 1978 over 22,000booksand 43,000 journals published material slandering the teachings ofIslam.When every form of media and education such as, television, schools,teachers,friends, colleagues, books, newspapers and magazines are all conveyingthis distorted message that Islam oppresses women; it is no wonder thatthose who are poorly educated, in the facts of the matter, are soeasilydistracted away from the right path.To counter this tide ofmisinformation,a general need to educate society at large about the true Islamicteachingsregarding women needs to be urgently undertaken. The Qur’an and ahaditharequite explicit on this matter and the next chapter explains the properstatus of women in Islam according to these sources.