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gun control
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Laura Nickrosz 4/14/03 Women in a Modernizing Arab World In the non-fiction book Beyond the Veil, author Fatima Mernissi explores the Islamic view of women and the effects of modern life on male-female relations and shows readers the sexual dynamics of the Muslim world. The book is divided into two parts, the first of which entitled « Traditional Muslim View of Women and their Place in the Social Order », and the second called « The Anomic Effects of Modernization on Male-Female Dynamics ». Within these two sections, Mernissi examines a wide range of categories, all of which pertain to female position in society. Her in-depth analysis allows and encourages the reader to question existing views and biases, and look at women in Islamic society from a truly Muslim perspective. The first half of the book contrasts the Muslim concept of active female sexuality and compares it to passive Freudian theory. Mernissi refers to Imam Ghazali, author of The Revivification of Religious Sciences, for the Muslim perspective. Ghazali explains that for Muslims, female sexuality is active and equal to male sexuality. Thus, according to Islamic perspective, women need to be restrained in order to prevent chaos in the social order. Mernissi illustrates this with ancient and well-known Moroccan proverbs, such as « Women are belted with serpents and bejeweled with scorpions. » and « Women are leeting vessels whose passengers are doomed to destruction » (Mernissi, 12). Clearly, this shows a pervasive popular opinion, that a woman’s sexuality is something dangerous that is feared and therefore must be controlled. Ghazalian theory links the virtue of a woman to her sexual satisfaction, and thus to an intact social order. In the eyes of Muslim culture, her sexuality is something natural and potentialy beneficial, as long as it is effectively regulated. Freud’s philosophy on female sexuality is used to illustrate the Western perspective. According to the Western view, female sexuality is passive and therefore masochistic. Western Christian culture characterizes a woman’s sexuality as something animalistic, highly uncivil, and thus needing to be condemned. However, the author purports that both theories seem to, at their core, argue similar positions. They both see women as uncontrollable beings that are destructive to the social order and need to be restrained. According to the author, there are certain social constructs that have developed as regulation mechanisms of female sexuality. These include polygamy, repudiation, the right of men to divorce, and « idda » which is the period a woman must wait after being divorced or widowed before she can remarry. In Part One, Mernissi also looks at pre-Islamic Arabic society and the change of rules that regulated their sexuality upon the birth of Muslim law. The transition that occurred is said to have stemmed from the life of the prophet Muhammad and the subsequence preaching of the wisdom that he gained. Thus, the Prophet’s knowledge of the « irrisistible experience of women »(Mernissi, 21) dictated the resulting shift in the dynamics of male-female relations, especially regarding sexuality.
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Paper Information
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Title: gun control
Words: 2433
Rating: None
Pages: 9.7
submitted by: julia7286
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