Do Arab men hate women? | Head to Head

how bad is life for women in the Arab world we hear about forced marriages widespread sexual harassment driving bans the list goes on there's no doubt the region is far from being a model of gender equality but our critics too eager to brand Arab women as helpless victims my guest tonight sparked outrage when she wrote an article saying the root of the problem is that Arab men hate women but is that an unfair and sweeping accusation or simply the inconvenient truth I'm Madi Hassan and I've come here to the Oxford Union to go head-to-head with journalist activist feminist Mona Eltahawy and Challenger on whether her rhetoric is helping or hurting the cause of women's rights in the Middle East tonight I'll be joined by a panel of three experts dr. itemid mahana from the London School of Economics Middle Eastern Center dr. Todd Hogg a a progressive Imam based in Oxford and dr. Shahrukh Najib who teaches Islamic and Gender Studies at Lancaster University [Applause] ladies and gentlemen Mona Eltahawy a committed feminist for over 20 years she's perhaps the most provocative voice out there and the issue of misogyny and the Middle East Mona is your view that there is a war being waged on women in the Arab world absolutely Maddy I mean when twelve-year-old girls are dying giving childbirth in Yemen when 91% of Egyptian girls and women have had their genitals mutilated when sixteen-year-old girls in Morocco are forced to marry their rapists so that their rapist can escape conviction that is nothing short of a war so who is waging the war in your view well I think it's a misogynist Society I think and this is why I made the point in my essay or ask the question and some people have told me you haven't answered it but perhaps we can answer it today because it's my contention that there is a hatred for Arab women there is a hatred for women in the Middle East and North Africa that plays out in these horrific statistics that we hear most people would agree that the status of women's rights in the Arab world is pretty abysmal right now but when you say that men quote hate women some might say to focus on that feeling is a cop-out because it enables you not to have a much more complex discussion about say poverty tyranny ignorance lack of education you gloss over all that and say it's them versus us it's men versus women it's hate well when you look at the countries in the Middle East or North Africa or just for simplicity's sake the 22 countries of the Arab League some of them are as rich as say the United Arab Emirates and Qatar Saudi Arabia and some of them are as poor as Yemen and Somalia the thing that unites the Middle East and North Africa the Arabic speaking countries of that region is this hatred for women that plays out differently so whether you're incredibly rich or you're incredibly educated or you're incredibly poor and not educated you're still suffering as a woman its interests you talk about the unity of the 22 members of the Arab League I mean one thing I mean it's interesting because that is another criticism that's been raising that you've had to deal with is that you treat the Arab world as monolithic you treat Arabs as homogeneous as all the same you say Saudi Arabia is a misogynistic country Morocco you might say as a misogynistic country but of course the driving ban is only in Saudi Arabia and no other Arab bans women from driving no other country in the world I believe bans moon from it's a Saudi specific issue and yet you're holding it up as an example of Arab misogyny it's basically the guardianship system not just the driving ban but I don't gloss over the differences because what I do is I expressed in the essay and in later interviews the various ways that the misogyny plays out so I'm not saying I mean there is that it would be ridiculous to suggest that Saudi Arabia is exactly like Yemen but what does unify them again I mean if you look at for example the World Economic Forum publishes annually the global gender gap index where they look at things like education and political opportunity all of that they list 136 countries and 14 of the Arab League countries are in the bottom the bottom 36 of that 136 these are not my figures I did not make this up Newsweek did a leak table of countries and they found of the 25 worst countries given them in the world as a woman there were two Arab countries in there no one's glossing over what's wrong as I said we both agree the situation is not great but you imply that it's somehow worse in the Arab world than anywhere else rather than the sub-saharan Africa or South Asia let's take one example let's take one example that female circumcision or female genital mutilation FGM yeah which is something you I think we both agree we would appalled that practice and so practice that needs to be stopped most scholars say it's more of an African practice than it is an Arab practice again you hold it up as Exhibit B or Exhibit C of your Arab misogyny I think we're not fair to all of the Arabs who don't practice ooh who are boring of course not but that again that's why I've given a different example no it's not a generalization I've said each country has a problem with women's rights overall the region is very bad and as I said according to the indexes it's usually at the bottom when you talk about the global gender gap but I've given it as an example from Egypt it also is happens in Sudan it happens in Djibouti it happens in Yemen it happens in several countries by no means have I said this is a specifically Arab thing okay there is something that unites the countries in the Middle East that is behind some of this and that's political oppression it's a repression it's a lack of democracy it's despotism the issue is that dictatorships oppress everyone men and women it's not a woman specific issue Mohamed Bouazizi the Tunisian man who set himself on fire which ignited the Arab Spring he did so after he was slapped in the face by a police officer who was a a woman yes so you know when you look at someone like him or the Egyptian protesters who lost their lives protesting it's not about gender per se it's about a lack of freedom which then affects the role of gender and women's rights etc the bigger issue is a lack of democracy right I am so glad that you said that because that we actually agree on this but I take it a step further because none of those revolutions that began in the Middle East and North Africa were about gender they were about repression they were about facing that regime and that regime oppresses everybody but here's the difference here's why that or how that revolution impacted women differently than men the women in Tahrir Square or the women in the various squares whether they were in Yemen or in Bahrain or in Tunisia or Libya or Syria when they looked that dictator in the eye and they managed to get rid of Benaglio Mubarak etc they then looked you know to the light to the right and to the left and they realized that if the regime oppressed us all our society oppresses us as women and this is where our double revolution comes in so what we've done basically is we we started to tackle that political revolution that you say rightly oppresses everybody but where we as women recognize we have to go now and without going that way our political revolutions will fail is that we need a social and a sexual revolution that looks that to the right and to the left and says you oppress me specifically foreign policy boasts on its website that its main selling point is more than 18,000 influential people in the Washington DC area read it cover-to-cover in the White House on Capitol Hill the State Department and the Pentagon why did you write your essay that caused such controversy in foreign policy magazine a magazine aimed at the u.s. foreign policy elite no Arab magazine would have run that essay I used to write a weekly column for two years for Chocolat newspaper where let me finish let me finish a show colossal newspaper saudi-owned paper they banned me they banned me because my views were too liberal and too controversial so no Arab magazine would have published it but number two how come so many people in the Arab world got so upset that means that they read it right foreign policy magazine and a whole bunch of other magazines they run every week essays that critic human rights violations economic corruption all kinds of ills from the Arab world and nobody gets this this critique but when it comes to women's issues this bizarre cultural relativism kicks in where our regimes and I said this in my I say I regimes put on this attitude of hands-off these are our women this is untouchable at some of your business what I would like to see when we talk about ethical foreign policies I would like to see all these regimes that support our dictators first of all stop supporting our dictators but but but this is a big but do not give them aid not just for human rights violations but for gender rights violations too and I mentioned Hillary Clinton specifically to mention or to point out the hypocrisy because when she was Secretary of State she made a big deal about being a feminist Secretary of State but when she would go to Saudi Arabia she would never sit down and say to the Saudis or one of the biggest allies of the u.s. you treat your women like children and I will not have that and be a big a lie to you but of course it's about the apocrypha it's about Boyle one of the reasons one of the many reasons why people have ejected to the foreign policy piece of course was the cover which I've brought here and I don't know how many of you can see it in the audience or at home now this is a cover and this picture of the whole little vote is it this is a naked woman yes who has an it Bob basically a face of a lavell painted on her in black yes it upset a lot of people yes it some would say it's pretty offensive it placed all sorts of traditional Western Orientalist crude stereotypes of helpless Arab women so many people got so obsessed with this that you know what I said in the end I don't care and if it upsets you bets even better because it makes people ask what are the images that we have of Muslim women out there and are we focusing on just the image or the substance behind the image another question that's often asked is why single out Arabs you mentioned the leak tables and discrimination but of course there are other countries on those league tables and even Western countries you would of course have really none of them you're also an American on average three women every day are killed by their spouse or partner when will you be writing a piece in foreign policy magazine saying why they hate us about American Christian white men two things when I go on US TV I go on and I make it very clear that the kind of men on the religious right in the United States and the kind of men on a religious right in the Middle East in North Africa that I fight are both the same and I basically say that they're all obsessed with our vaginas as women and that's a message that resonates and that message resonates because we have I've you say to message the resident and yet you wrote a famous article and the book only about Arabs not about those because because right now the issue the issue for me my obsession is the revolutions that have begun and as I told you our political revolutions will fail unless we have social and sexual revolutions that push them into the home I was creating a revolution in us right now I'm talking about Egypt and the rest of the region okay let's go to our panel and who are waiting here to give their take on what they're listening to dr. Shahrukh Najib is a lecturer at Lancaster University Center for gender and women's studies she's one of Britain's experts on Islam and feminism do you recognize this picture of the region the revolutions and their consequences that Mona is painted I do agree with you that you have the right to look at of society in the face and say you are misogynistic but juicy yourself is also having the right to speak for all Arab women and talk about we having to mount or start a revolution against sexual and political discrimination in society I feel that I'm very privileged in that you know I'm educated I I work I write I travel freely and I believe that privilege obliges me to fight ten times as hard as someone who doesn't have that privilege so if somebody can't speak for whatever reason you know when I was attacked in Egypt twelve other women were assaulted on the same street where I was assaulted but none of them have been able to speak for various reasons some have been silenced by their families some of them are too ashamed to speak and as a society we do not encourage women to speak out about violence or sexual assault especially when those 12 other women cannot speak for whatever reason and I can it behooves me it's my I'm obliged to speak very very loud because I understand they can't speak I want to bring in dr. Taj Haggai who is chairman of the Muslim educational center of Oxford he's a self-described progressive Imam dr. Holly what's your reaction to what you're hearing from Mona I think we should stop obsessive about the title why they hate that I think a better term would have been why do they oppress us where that is oppression and suppression come from it doesn't come from a vacuum it come from the misinterpretation of religions with edicts and so forth that's that that's where it comes from and that's why it's such a huge problem for the Arab world for the Muslim world and yes it may be happening in Papua New Guinea on burkina faso or wherever but that's not the issue the issue is just he speaks I think on behalf of a certain sect segment of Arab society and she's entitled to say these things yet Ahmad Mahana what's your reaction obviously I mean I really thank mana very much because you open this opportunity you were so brave to open this opportunity for a debate however I can't be tolerant with your generalization the generalization that you you use in your article it implies a humiliation it implies insulting for our men you don't know how Muslim Arab men gyptian I'm there I was a living and lived in Gaza by your Egyptian and Mandela class lived long time in Washington or any United States it was but how long did you spend in Upper Egypt 24 and rural women youth you will reflect the actual life that fool women and Egypt clip because I read many articles you haven't mentioned anything about the reality of poor women's lives in Asia okay let me tell you about rural areas of Egypt we have girls as young as 12 and 13 who were trafficked into marriage with much older wealthier men from the Gulf countries this is a documented fact we have sex trafficking of the daughters of the poor we are sending our girls to rich men from the Gulf all it pickles link doctor hog I mentioned about the perversion of Islamic principles where in your essay you say quote Islamist hatred of women burns brightly across the region again some might say a very unfair generalization in Tunisia and not the party yes almost half of its parliamentary party women TOEIC el carmen yemen Nobel Prize winner member of an Islamist palate kind of policies of atrocities what kind of policies are they pushing when you look at the women of the Muslim Brotherhood oil let's look at the women of the Salafi Nour Party who you know because they were trying to counter accusations that they're misogynist and they ran female candidates they ran of rose in place of a woman's face in their campaign literature a woman is not good enough to run on their face is such a sin that they have to run a rose for it they use religion to justify this domination when you speak to the women of the Muslim Brotherhood they have said FGM and these were parliamentarians FGM which is mutilation of the genitals is a form of quote unquote mutilation and then fit with your thesis of men versus women if women are also engaging but but this is what I was saying earlier that the women understand what they need to say in order to be accepted in this women internalize their subjugation marry this doesn't happen in a vacuum when you're a woman who grows up in a society where you understand what you need to say first of all to get that finally say that women who don't take the same course as you have internalized wearing something away wait wait I might say the same about you this is what have I internalized the idea that I deserve to be free I'm glad I've internalized this idea because I won't be monolithic and homogeneous I when it comes to women drivers often in Western countries I this is this is not a westerner speaking this is an Egyptian Muslim and when it comes to women's rights the Arab world unfortunately is quite monolithic when it comes to oppressing us as women so here's my question to you millions and millions of women are voting for Islamist parties in these countries how are you changing their minds how are you persuading them to externalize this well the first and most important step is to actually look things in the eye and say this is really bad and stop apologizing and stop being defensive I'm hearing a lot of defensiveness here where I'm supposed to say you know what it's not that bad but you know what it's incredibly bad and if we're going through revolutions and uprisings right now that are about freedom and dignity the chance of our revolution were bread liberty and social justice you can't have any of those things when half of your population is treated terribly these are revolutionary times if you had to choose between living under a secular feminist dictator or a democratically elected Islamist government which one would you choose I don't this is the kind of binary that has taken our parts of the world to really come on the woman who wrote why they hate us can't talk to me about binary issues it's gonna be binary quickly I can well I'm provoking where would you rather live under a feminist dictator or a democratically elected Islamist government I would like to live in a country that has a constitution that guarantees a high enough ceiling of Rights that is up here that guarantees everybody rights and doesn't put it so down here that I have to contort myself in order to fit in Egypt you underwent a horrific experience which you've written about and spoken about where you were assaulted by state security forces by you said by people in the crowds and the revolutionary crowds sexually assaulted arms broken absolutely horrific experience do you think that affected your decision to take this stance right this provocative piece because of what you went through personally I think it's really interesting that women are always accused of personalizing everything that you know when a woman is angry oh my god it's because you've had such a terrible life well first of all what happened to me was horrific and it made me angry and of course I'm angry I mean who wouldn't be angry I spent three months with my arms in a cast I couldn't write I couldn't use my fingers like heard a lot so this was the first essay that I wrote when I was finally able to write so of course I wrote it in anger but I've been a feminist since I was 19 I was sexually assaulted and had my arms broken when I was 43 what did I do in the intervening period I didn't suddenly wake up and say oh my god I'm so angry because Egyptian police violated me I've been angry since I was 19 and that anger was was first planted in Saudi Arabia my family moved to Saudi Arabia from the UK when I was 15 and to move to Saudi Arabia as a teenage girl it was like the lights being turned off and I understood that as a woman I had two options to lose my mind or become a feminist and at first I began to lose my mind in an advocate for art you are a you are a feminist you say you fight for Arab women to have as much freedom as much power as much agency as possible yet you support a blanket ban on the face veil on the niqab isn't that a contradiction feminism isn't about opening up something that then comes in and cuts feminism at the knees I consider the niqab an erasure of women I don't know who the individual woman is under that niqab and when you look at the ideology that promotes the niqab it is the antithesis of feminism it doesn't essentially believe in a woman's right to do anything but cover her face and yet it wants to use the tools of feminism to defend that right that's the contradiction right now and your critics would say even if that were all true you want to use a liberal means despotic means in order to further your feminist agenda by banning women some of whom are forced to wear others of whom choose to wear right eye let me make an outrageous and provocative remarks I don't know unlike you okay if somebody chooses to be a slave am I supposed to support that choice because they chose it what does this fetishization of choice you think wearing an article of clothing is equivalent to being a slave no but this is why I said I'm going to be intentionally provocative now I'm not comparing the niqab is it relevant no it is relevant because you're talking you're asking me to respect choice regardless I'm telling you this is a choice two arrays women let me bring in our panel again dr. Najib you don't wear a face veil but you wear a headscarf the face veil does limit women's exposure society interaction Mona has a point there does she not the banning of the niqab or sinking of niqab as an arranger of women in the public sphere particularly again presupposes that female agency in public has to take a certain shape so you're imposing your own view of how female agency or female presence should be in the public sphere on a lot of other women who would express that agency differently and in that I think you're you're being a fundamentalist feminist and in a very repressive way for another woman another panelist I know you know on that last point if you were sitting on that bench right now and talking to me in this discussion and your face was covered our dynamic would be very different we as human beings a nonverbal communication plays a huge role in the way that we communicate this isn't just about me and my personal discomfort this is about human communication when you cover your clothes the question we want to use our lives as a band the question if we're not having a debate essentially about that I've had to wait for another day the question is your means that you're advancing as a fan some would say including human rights because it's fundamentally illiquid for the greater good that language before for the greater good doctor ha gay am I right in saying that you don't like the face feel so much that you once threatened to burn it in public I did actually did burn you yes but I think the firstly we need to use the proper word I don't call it the face veil I call the face mask because that's what it is it's a mask we should stop pussyfooting around using nice terms like veil we and witnesses drive for this face mask income from doesn't come from women it doesn't always but it can't come from men it come from these male mullahs fokaha ulama clergy whatever and since the the word nicob vodka is not even in the Koran since this practice predates Islam but you would die time at the time Cyrus the Great and so it says it's pre-islamic since it's non Quranic automatically I think the religious terms it isn't Muslim so that's not the question would you ban it what a name of feminism yes because I'll tell you why I would ban it because in this country in this country you and I man they can't walk down the street and go to Barclays Bank or anywhere else and go change some money the wearing of a ski mask these three ladies and the rest of the women here they can go so yeah we have now gender inequality we are supportive living the gender equal society why did it right for women to to conceal their identity in public and not right for men to conceal their identity in public either everyone conceals their faces or no one does your past you've described yourself I think as quote on the far left you said in one of your your individual liberal you're on the left you don't have the political right and yet some of the language you use does wittingly or unwittingly it does feed not just a right but the far right especially in a Europe it feeds an agenda whether you like it or not you're fueling some of the people who really just want to bash and hate but I attack them just as I attack attack the the religious right on the Muslim side I place myself in every article I've written about the niqab especially I say very clearly I place myself in the middle between two right wings there is a right wing Vezina phobic political right wing in Europe and in North America but there's also a right wing within the Muslim community that nobody wants to talk about or very few people want to talk about and that's why I take it as a point of pride wait wait I take it as a point of pride to call myself a liberal feminist yes I'm a liberal feminist and I'm an extremist liberal feminist because it's unpopular to be a liberal feminist because we keep pussyfooting around and apologizing for the abhorrent way that we treat when you're a liberal feminist who's happy to use a liberal means to advance your agenda when it comes to this appearance of women yes it's because I will not allow something to cut feminism at the knees and then I'm told what kind of feminists are you I'm a feminist who believes in the right to choose and what are you choosing to disapear women and you're using feminism to justify that that's ridiculous we're gonna have to take a break right there this is a very interesting discussion we're going to be talking in part two about Islam and feminism we're also going to be hearing from our very patient audience here at the Oxford Union who'll have their questions and comments to Mona Eltahawy join us for part two have head dead [Applause] welcome back you're watching head-to-head on al-jazeera we're here in the Oxford Union with our guest today Mona Eltahawy journalist activist feminist we're talking about feminism and women's rights in the Arab world just on the religious angle told her this and yes the shadow of Islam hangs over much of our discussion about the Arab world and women's rights so Mona let me ask you this would you just to have yourself as an observant Muslim as a practicing Muslim I hate those kind of questions because I think for any Muslim the only question is are you a Muslim and as far as I'm concerned if you self-identify as a Muslim that's all anybody needs to know what do you mean my self identifies with it sounds nice what does actually mean in practice to say I'm a Muslim that's it and then when you see when people ask you these observant questions I know what the the goal of this is you're trying to put people in a box and say oh you're that kind of Muslim oh you're that kind of Muslim all you need to know is that I'm a Muslim and that's essentially what the prophets have used the phrase also progressive Muslim yes so you put yourself in a box well in that label as long as I choose in the box okay as long as you're provocative as long as you choose the box Allah but people want to take it further than that and they do want to know things like so do you pray so do you fast and they say it's none of your business because I know that that is the beginning of a slippery road to a judging and B dismissing everything I have to say so it's nobody's business will you judge a lot of people you judged conservative Muslims they want to sweeping phrase if they're going to be misogynist of course I'm gonna judge them and you don't think I get judged have you seen have you seen my Twitter feed I get judged every minute I have indeed we talked about the net bomb we talked about the net carb and the face fail in part one and you mentioned in that discussion that you used to wear the hijab the headscarf yes and I'm just wondering did you stop wearing the headscarf because you thought it's not an Islamic necessity it's not a requirement or did you stop wearing because law I don't care if Islam or a crime I'm a feminist and I don't want to wear this a liberal anti woman no I actually stopped wearing it because I didn't believe it was an obligation and it was actually later armored and fátima made me see you know the Moroccan sociologist and it was both their books that were very instrumental in my moving away from the hijab because when I first started to wear it I was 16 years old in Saudi Arabia struggling mightily with life in Saudi Arabia where I honestly felt besieged by the way men treated women there by the sexual harassment it happens on the street by the way men look at you and I just wanted to hide and so I thought you know and losing my mind I was I fell into a deep depression because of the way I felt in Saudi Arabia so I thought you know they keep telling me that I should wear a headscarf they keep telling me that this is what a good Muslim girl should do so I'll do it but very soon after I began to wear the headscarf I felt very uncomfortable wearing it but I struggled with that guilt and nobody talks about that guilt that Muslim women feel when I say I wore the headscarf for nine years and it took me eight years to take it off would you support me because for me it's about the face because in hijab I can recognize you you are the person that you are my problem with the niqab is the disappearance of women as I've said you mentioned Leyla Hamid photo immunity this is your view as a Muslim and as a feminist do you think Islam goes hand in hand with feminism would you call yourself an Islamic feminist there was a time when I called myself an Islamic feminist but I no longer do now I call myself a Muslim and a feminist but I do belong to a movement called misawa which is the Arabic word for equality and it's a movement that was launched in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia in 2009 and it's a movement for that just for equality and justice in the Muslim family in most countries such as mine Egypt and others that basically have so-called modernized their legal system the one area of the law that still abides by the various Islamic interpretations followed in that country is family law so things like marriage divorce inheritance all of that and it's incredibly misogynist so where has women like Amina Wadud who led that mixed gender fight I pray that I pray behind where it was a woman leading men and women praying side-by-side I mean or dude describes as her self as an Islamic feminist I stopped when I realized that we would get into these endless arguments of my versus versus your verse and I didn't want to get into my verse verses your verse because it always pulls something out and then the last thing they would use is well you don't even wear hijab so I was always always marginalized just because I was a woman I'm not wearing hijab if I don't play that game it is your view that Islam is an inherently Patriarca vision or is it that men have come along and inserted patriarchal interpretations into a faith that's not patriarchal what I you know my views have evolved and I think the latest place and I'm sure they're going to continue to evolve our I would hope everyone's views continue to evolve but my views right now are most or actually all religions are essentially patriarchal all of them because when you look at Christianity look at Judaism you look at Hinduism I think all religions are basically give a free ride to men and I think that it falls on the shoulders of women who choose to remain in those religions to fly agents so let me just turn nail this down you're a believer in Islam you're a believer in God who is God patriarchy is it God who's made it he's got misogynistic there's a lot so yes it's coming from the pen um I haven't spoken to God lately but if you look at the way we're told God spoke then yes God is patriarchal but but here's our challenge my challenge now is to think okay what is my concept of God if I'm going to continue believing in God and my contact would be that is it is a just God and if it is a just God then the way that all religions are practice right now are completely unjust and you said you believe in the Prophet as well as part of the declaration of faith again a lot of people in the West now would say for example that a prophet was an evil person the Prophet of Islam was a misogynist it all began with him is that of you sure well my view that I like to share the Prophet is when he married hadisha hadiza employed him Khadija was a rich divorcee Khadija was 15 years older than him and she proposed to him and you know that and the Prophet was okay with that he married a woman who was 15 years older than him much richer a much more powerful than him and she really mean his only wife until she died and she was that she was the first Muslim so if the first Muslim that this man that we consider our prophet if the first Muslim was his much old wife that that is the image of the Prophet that I hold on to okay well let's go back to our panel on this dr. ha gate was a progressive Muslim Imam I think you call yourself do you see Islam as a patriarchal faith we need to cut out the middleman the middle manager who they're all males males tell women how to dress how to cover their face cover the hair and so forth and so forth now for example come to the hijab you know the average man in the audience and out there are they interested in women's hair hell no only women are interested in women's hair you know for the average man as long the woman have everything else there that's fine so this idea of the hijab the word reappears eight times in the Quran but not once they talk about women's hair the Whitney carbon vodka as we mentioned is not even in the Koran let me all start to negate what do you think when you hear about all the talk about progress aslam and reforming Islam and getting rid of the patriarchy the tradition is dominated by men but it wasn't always dominated by men there are precedents by Khadija Ayesha and throughout the centuries there were women scholars women interpreters and transmitters of the tradition who left this time and as a scholar of Islam I can say with confidence that there are many sites of Hope within the Islamic tradition where women have managed to hinder a further stringent interpretation of the tradition but to keep in dieting religion keep inviting it as patriarchal misogynistic male-dominated and not do anything about it rather adopt our foreign paradigm Moosa was not a foreign paradigm osawa is a movement made up of Muslims from all over the world it was launched in Malaysia one of the biggest Muslim countries so there is no foreign paradigm here this isn't about the West trying to turn a slam upside down these are Muslims who are facing some of the most problematic areas which are family law which are incredibly unjust when it comes to girls and women's progressive Muslims are the ones who tell conservatives you don't own the religion that you're not the only authentic types out there dr. Mahana there's a spokeswoman for the Muslim Brotherhood called Saunders Assam who's said that religion Islam can be a key force a key driver against gender-based violence is that a view you share that it's that Islam and Islamic institutions can be used in the struggle for gender equality religion is a very very strong moral source of powerful women and they use religion in order to equalize their relationship with men organizations and movements like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood do not believe in gender equality the fact that they are not in person it's like that too you don't have to they don't have to whatever family has done anything on that exercise this power and they really don't do they accept crash between element can I find equality no I need to finish my project how do these women exercise their power if they hit the ceiling constantly and they're told because of religion because of the politics of the movement because of the culture they can't go any further where we wait and this tradition of power that you have is from than mine because bow men make all the decisions that is power what the hell do you want the standard aside what do you buy in your supermarket come on you're saying you want women to make decisions when I talked about earlier women in Muslim Islamist parties yeah you didn't like the decisions they were making well they were making decisions that empower men at their expense they're saying things like FGM is mutilation but isn't that is that one of the problem Ana's identify learning that power I'm saying that power to abuse women for the for the for the for men what I'm will not respect this noam chomsky to respect I'm asking is there a clash between empowerment and strict equality you can empower women in some bar as well and they won't produce a strictly equal society as we see in this is not empowerment this this is peace meals exactly not just that can I make one very brief point when we have these kind of discussions we're all operating within privilege we're all educated we can all eat we can all nobody threatens our lives okay because of that people forget that there are others who have much much less what I'm trying to do in my writing and when I get this angry what I'm trying to do is remind people that there are lots of people out there who have much less who don't have the privilege or the right to see her on a stage with you to tell you that her father and her mother decides that her genitals are cut that she at the age of 16 ends up committing suicide because she has to marry her rapist where is the power here there's I hate the word empowerment anyway because it means nothing okay let's bring in the audience just go to that lady there at the back on the left side of the audience yes you you don't you look around as you I'm fearful that there are so many women who so agree with you when it comes to the fact that women should be able to drive and should be able to vote and shouldn't have to be subjected in the room you agree with including absolutely absolutely but the moment that those women and men hear that their fathers or their husbands or their boyfriends are misogynist they stop listening to you it's not about individual husbands and fathers because you know a lot of women would write to me and say but my father doesn't hate me it's not that simple it's about men and boys basically being being made to be these misogynist because of the culture and the way it's mixed in with religion to get to that though we have to agree as women that we that right to speak out we have to agree is we mean that we have to stop being defensive and politically correct about this and then we get to the men but if I haven't even solved any of this if we're still arguing that women who have no decision-making abilities are empowered how am I going to get to the men I'm going to go to the lady here in the face Ville and Salaam alaikum and I think your passion is an inspiration for me there's a lot of things that you stand up for that I stand with you but obviously the face veil is something that grieves me and the question that I want to ask you really is that when you learn that you're interrupting my journey and my right to wear the veil and would you you know decide to actually stop speaking out against it just like when he was wearing your headscarf and it took you eight years it shows that it would take a lot to undo if it is an injustice that has been put in by men will you continue to stand up against it when you learn that really there are a lot of women that want to whether well I don't think I would change my position I mean I appreciate you being here and I appreciate you discussing this with me but you know you know that we both disagree deeply and I don't think my position will change I think that in order for if someone wants to make that journey obviously I cannot make that journey for them but my my views on the niqab are based on my principles about women and their visibility in society but also our ability to communicate because I'm sure that if your face wasn't covered I dynamic would be very different so I ask you also to consider that let's go back to audience lady here in the headscarf in the front room what you are saying contradicts was my real life I have never been oppressed my friends have never been oppressed I lived in the u.s. I left the intruder Egypt I lived in Cairo and I left in Upper Egypt what you're referring to is minor cases like when you speak about Father selling surgeries for the Gulf men you cannot generalize about it and say like women are being compressed because it's a very minor case as you're fearing too when you speak about men why they hate us when my father tell me like come early I see him he's protecting me not hating me can I interrupt I'm sorry why does he need to protect what is he protecting you from he's protecting me maybe there are thieves in the street someone is enter of my white phone friend how old are you I'm 23 and and would he do the same to your brother yeah men in Egypt don't have curfews you know that you are seeing it from only one side I've been to Tahrir Square and when you sound like women are being violence off that order in Tahrir Square men have been insulted as well they have been beaten up I have seen many men have lost their own lives in order to protect my own having more people and you made a very strong point you wanna respond to the government generalizations you're seeing it only from one point of view I did not make those indices that show that there are huge gaps when it comes to gender equality in the Arab world these are not minor issues I am glad that you have a good life I am glad that you have not been oppressed and I'm glad that your father doesn't hate you but it's not about you and it's not about me it's about a lot of other women out there who have none of the privileges that we have and who nobody thinks about just because your life and my life are privileged uncomfortable does not mean that we forget about the other women let's go back to the audience let's go to gentlemen here in the green shirt the question I want to ask you is when it comes to actually implementing your beliefs or ideas how do you reconcile that with the principles of democracy so ie one woman or indeed one man one vote and if you're unable to do so do you not think it's a dangerous position to hold to say you know what it means to be free more than someone else I'm not saying I know what it means to be free than someone else but I'm saying that I want a sealing of rights that is high enough to include as many people as possible but also not to use this idea of she's choosing to be that way as a way of undenied undermining feminism how you implement this I mean there are ways to do this one of the major demands of feminist groups in Egypt right now is a quota in our Parliament because right now what I said to you the Tunisians have almost half their palm or a third of their partner and women half then and you said but they're not voting for the right things maybe there is a difference between a woman in Parliament who says that FGM is beautification and a woman in Parliament who's actually concerned with the rights and well-beings of girls this is going to be a problem with quotas of course because there are going to be women who are voted in who have very conservative views who are not going to help the rights of girls and women but what we hope to achieve through a quota is to normalize the image of women in politics but at the same time as this has happened because this isn't the only solution as time same time it's this is happening we have this revolution go into the home where women are challenging their fathers and their brothers and we're the brothers and the father's themselves are challenging views that for such a long time allowed them to treat girls and women like this without even thinking let's take some more audience members lady there in the back row there yes with your hand up I think the issues you're taking on are no doubt to be commended very brave and I think you know I wish more people would I just don't think you're acknowledging or answering actually by going about it in this way you're actually putting people off completely you know taking this approach taking this kind of us versus them men Merces women approach i really struggle with this kind of extreme way of dealing with these issues it's up to you to choose we're along a spectrum of activism you decide to stand because I've already chosen my position and my position has always been as long as there are extreme elements in my society and in my culture and in my religion who are willing to basically strip women of as many rights as possible I will be on that extreme end what you choose to do with your position is up to you but I'm hoping that because I'm putting on this end it opens up a bit of space for you you don't have to have the exact same views that I have you can say Oh Moniz crazy she's way out there I'm not going to be that way out there but you have to decide because we you know people keep talking about agency it's up to you to decide where you are but I have decided to take what may consider an extreme position and I'm proud of that what I see my role as being is a provocateur of someone out here who will say things that few other people will want to say who will be controversial because I believe that it is the role of a writer and somebody who considers the words that she uses as being part of her activism to disturb people and to hurt to find the place where it hurt and to push that's what I believe my role is let's go back to the audience lady here in the front room thank you very much for all your efforts I don't want to say that you know I don't appreciate what you're trying to do in highlighting these issues my concern with your analysis however is that by characterizing this as very much an Arab or a Muslim problem I think you're overlooking the fact that this is really about patriarchy which is in the end a universal phenomenon and I think the question that we need to be asking ourselves on which a lot of people reacted to isn't why do men hate women supposedly what is patrik patriarchy actually about some of the examples you give of so-called men hating women I think are more actually about men trying to exert control over society in general like the virginity tests of girls in Egypt that's not the Egyptian army hating girls that's the Egyptian army wanting to stifle dissent absolutely a lot of the sexual violence in Egypt has to do with pushing women out of public space but here's the point that a lot of people don't continue with these so-called virginity tests the Egyptian military violated women in that way because it knows that Egyptian society accepts the idea of virginity tests there are Egyptian families who will take their daughters to a forensic doctor and have him issue a certificate of virginity before she gets married not that's why I said that the the oppression of women happens on the regime level and it happens on the street level the two are connected they don't happen in a vacuum lady they're right in the corner stick your hand up very high high first of all I'm an Arab but I wanted to say thank you we're very proud to have someone like you and second I wanted to respond to a couple of people in the audience who said that it's not really that bad and these are like minor cases and if you're in the middle class you won't really face that well I still have to go through sexes and I still have to go through inequality gender inequality yeah I'm not raped and yes I'm not married off to someone at sixteen but I am expected to be okay with not getting leadership positions and companies because I'm a woman while someone else is a man regardless of whether or not I graduated top of my class double standards aren't present and everything including sexuality and including where you get to go at night and why should someone have curfew if we live in proper societies where there really is gender equality do you think that you would have to go home early so that you'd be protected no you in a society where you can walk on the street at the same time that a man can walk on the street that's all I wanted to say that's exactly why I asked the young woman here who said to me that her father does it out of protection and I asked her what does he need to protect you from he needs to protect her from a misogynistic society and you know what you said most most Arab countries I think if not all don't have laws against marital rape and very few of them have laws against domestic violence so even when women's lives are threatened regardless of class now even even there are even some Arab countries where if you Harbor a woman who is trying to escape an abusive husband you yourself are taken to prison that gentleman there like a guy second row there with the glasses on I just want to say thank you I applaud what you're doing us I suppose many people do here as well and I do think that the problem needs to be addressed there is an elephant in the room and I think there's this idea in the Arab world that we have to pay a picture that actually things are ok we don't hang our dirty laundry up for everybody to see maybe you know I expect you very much but I think questions regarding look at the picture and how the story is being how the story is being projected look at the picture that was on foreign foreign policy online without there was a half-naked woman surrounded by six policemen and she was weeping why wasn't there uproar about that it shouldn't be uproar about that picture they should be opera about what's going on about what happened about what led to it let the issue be the issue I think I'm actually exclusive but a good point think I will take one more question woman there at the back yes we haven't grown up in the black top in terms of pervading cultural and religious boundaries particularly in the Arab world between a Muslim feminist wearing hijab and a Muslim feminist are not wearing hijab who would be more effective in pervading these boundaries and raising the roof in terms of raising political debate and raising the ceiling of women's rights that's a good question and I think that each of them has a role to play which is why I was saying that misawa has women who define themselves as Islamic feminists and those like myself who say feminism and Islam are like two separate things I think that each has a role to play we had a lot of diagnosis critique from you and as I said at the start I agree with your much of your critique of what's wrong don't agree with everything I think most people in the hall most people watching at home would probably agree we regard to how abysmal women's rights on the middlee the next question then becomes to you we hear a lot of criticism a lot of legitimate anger but what are the solutions what are the things that can be done what do you have a five-point plan to disagree with you Maddie that a lot of people will agree with me that things are bad because they don't and I've heard it here over and over again so our first hurdle is to actually acknowledge that it is that bad this is one thing that a lot of people do not want to just just take a break for a second and let's do a poll of the audience just so we clear on this raise your hands if you think the situation for women living in the Arab world is bad I think we're fine Mona okay the people what do I do well you can focus on that in order to kind of score a point let's stick to the subject score well then answer my question wartella solution what are the practical solutions that weren't in yours and you haven't really mentioned today give me a few of the things that you want to see happen it's why I'm writing a book we need legislation we need education we need a different way of thinking we need for the women and the men but I'm focusing on the women because we need to start with them for the women who are out on the street so courageously facing down these regimes to take that revolution home but in order for them to do that they need backing up so we need legislation against sexual violence we need legislation against domestic violence we need women to actually feel safe and not have their lives spread like minded people to win elections first to get that legislation we do we need people who actually believe in legislation to protect women from violence not protect women from this street because my father wants to protect me no to actually say that when someone violates me or assaults me I can take him to a police station and have them take it seriously countries that do have higher education levels in the Gulf for example women are more educated than men there are more women on university campuses than men but you know how many women are employed in Saudi Arabia 14 percent that's terrible so we need to increase women's role in the workforce we need to have legislation that gives them equality in the workforce we need to protect them from violence on the street we need to change curricula that encourages boys to think that they're going to be the only breadwinners because that is a burden on men especially in countries that are poor we need to encourage this idea that men and women together are keeping their homes alive there is a whole list of things thank you very much for being provocative for being extreme for coming here to be thank you all for coming tonight to listen to Mona and put your questions thank you all at home for watching head-to-head tonight this show we'll be back next week thanks for watching head-to-head on al Jazeera [Applause]

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 2,603,707

Rating: 4.6581526 out of 5

Keywords: Aitemad Muhanna, head to head al jazeera, Shuruq Naguib, Mona Eltahawy, Eltahawy, Head To Head, al Jazeera, Mehdi Hasan, Al Jazeera English, aljazeera, aljazeera english, arab women, middle east, head to head mehdi hassan, womens right in the middle east, UNHCR, Human rights watch, al jazeera english, head to head, respect women, muslim women, christian women, women in islam

Id: cTvuPYKBtks

Length: 47min 36sec (2856 seconds)

Published: Mon May 16 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/AutoModerator]

Members must participate on /r/exmuslim in a civil manner. Discuss the merits of ideas - don't attack people. Insults, hate speech, advocating physical harm can get you banned.

If you posted a meme or funny image, and it isn't Friday, delete it or you'll get temp-banned. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.