A reflection on the women rights discourse
Irfan Ali
The cry of women rights is one of the buzz word in popular media these days. And off course, women are not parallel in terms of rights, when compared with man. Women have been marginalized from her inalienable rights in almost every society in every epoch of history. The issue is as old as human history. God has created man and women of same clay, of same nature and spelled same soul into them. Same hands have created both sexes with slight biological differences.
Are these biological difference are responsible for male female disparities in the society?? Or there are some societal factors responsible for such a disparity, against which women are crying. Certainly biological differences matters very less, when we discuss the issue of rights. Concepts like duties and rights are social phenomena. It is the society which has assigned manhood and womanhood or sociologically what we call them, as gender.
From the antiquity, this weak creature (woman) has become a play mate in the hands of men. probably, due to her weak physique? Or her in-house activates, which societies have assigned her, has kept women inside the walls of her house permanently.
Henceforth, she and her rights were contained within the cantonment of walls. Whatever the reasons may be, but it is evident from the history records that women were treated as an alien creature. Highly learned men like Plato had advocated for communal sex thus making her a sex toy or state property. In Hellenist, Babylonians, Egyptians and other civilization of the past, treated women an instrument of joy. Kings and nobles were keeping numerous wives. Women trade and slavery remained a common practice.
Even before the advent of Islam. As a symbol of disgust Arab Bedouin were burying their female child. Female was a cause of shame for them.
With the dawn of Islam and its teaching proved to be a new beckon of light for women. Islam exalted women to high stature making her matching her rights to men. Even in some areas of life, women status was mounted more than men. Paradise the highest reward of religious life was kept under the feet of women (mother). One can imagine how much Islam has raised the respect of women in society. Women’s economic rights were protected by giving them their due share in inheritance. Acquiring knowledge was made mandatory to both women and men without any discrimination by Quran. It was later after the demise of the holy prophet; divine teachings were thrown to the back burner.
An exemplary human society based on equal right to all humanity without any bigotry modeled by the holy prophet crumbled, when people gave up the divine teachings. The situation farther deteriorated when various empires in both east and west started a power struggle during the medieval period. These empires trampled humans rights particularly women rights under their feet.
