I was going through a topic has the above title at Organic muslima blog and i had some notes to talk about
The arabic way of life was always strange for western communities , there are many contradictions if compared to the western style .
till the last century women was not allowed to join the public life or go to work , Doing this at this time was considered ashame for who approve it , but this is almost gone after about 100 year of conitious change .. leading to more open community .
this change made massive differences in the way of life , and shrunken the authorities controled by men , women now participate in general life effectivly , the old image is almost erased.
but there is nothing perfect .. there are still some remains stuck in Egyptian minds ,some use these remains to draw a negative image about Egyptian community , But in my openion .. these remains are normal .. this remains are found in any other county even western country , due to ignorance or defected personalities .
Moving from general life to personal life we wont find any noticable change .. due to the fact that women go to work just like men ,the domenant rule of men in the house as the income source and the controler person is vanished , time before this change borders were clear , men go to work for the whole day to come home expecting women to do their job as well .. which is simply taking care of childern , making food , cleaning the house .
women had their job inside the house and men had thiers too outside , this kind of life was not always that ideal .. some sick men (by time) started to mis-use this powers against women and forced them to get gradually aside and stay in shadow , which is not right .. although this kind of men are rare now but their ghost is still out there .
A working women is not haram in islam ..but islam put conditions to control this , women must have a true need to work either to help the family economically or to secure the living or its family in case of absence of men inside the family , other wise women should never put themselves in the hostile work environment , this is made basicly to protect women and save their dignity from one point of view , and to make sure they do their main rule they were created for which is raising children .
ofcourse i dont mean that women should stay in the house , in modern communities economical requirements are now more than what a single income source inside a house can handle , meaning that women work is now withen the first catigory for islamic point of view.
talking about man participating in house work is a must in islam ,islam ordered men to help women in the house , but due to traditional ignorance that is deeply penetrated through the street man in egypt , helping his wife became a shame .. he may do it in secret but never admit it :)
this is the (simple man) way of thinking.. had moderated education or no education at all , the percentage of such men is decreasing exponentially among the well educated class in egypt , simply because this class is more open minded and have more interaction with western communities from a side , and having better knowledge about what islam says from another side.
to summarize the relation in arab world now we will see different models
- the model of the ancient man who think that women is a dummy element that should obey in silence and those are like ghosts now found in ferry tails only and not common
- the enhanced model of the ancient man who uses his powers (economical power or even physical in the worst case)to control the house , woman is free to go out , do whatever she likes but his word is not negotiable(can be seen more in uneducated societies
-the fake model deals kindly with his women but show that he has control whenever he has a chance this model can help woman in house work but not in public
- the modern model which is the good model just like western standards and islamic standars as well
this last model is not rare as west think , because the new generations are mostly well educated more open minded .. and had interaction with outer world through internet and sattelite channels .
nothing is ideal and this is not based on any statistical studies .. only observation , living in the community and interacting with those different classes are my standards , we can say that most of educated youth are the last model , and also say that not all the (not educated ) class are the first or second .. some of them follow the modern model although they are not educated or had interaction with west ..simply because west is not the teacher ,the teacher in this matter is the personality ,raised conditions and the character itself.
but let me ask one question , Does woman in medern life do its duty twards its home and childern as it should be?
which is better the western women that has work as first periority and family comes second or the model of housekeeper?
