The State of Women in the Arab World

In Arab countries, women have far fewer opportunities than men do to acquire essential capabilities and to utilise them effectively on a broad front. They are also more widely deprived than men of their civil and human rights. In human development terms, such deprivation is seen as the main characteristic of " the marginalisation of women ". Women's opportunities to develop and utilise their capabilities differ greatly both within each Arab country as well as among them. However, available globally comparable statistics may not be sufficient to enable a comprehensive overview of these discrepancies. Is there a sculpture however pregnant with countless possibilities and dreams that resembles her image? Is there a portrait, even one fashioned of flesh, blood and love, capable of reflecting the ephemeral world present in her features? Is there not enough darkness to cast into relief the image of the Arab woman, or is there not enough light to capture it in the first place? Where is her true likeness to be found? In literature, images of Arab women are either those of victims or rebels, figures engaged in struggling against their respective conditions or torn between resignation, accommodation and defiance. In political discourse, images of women are similarly opposed. Women are either thrust aside from, or embroiled in, formulating the premises and corollaries of that discourse. Often, they themselves are divided over its assorted theoretical propositions about their identity, which variously portray them as conformist, non-conformist or indifferent. Sometimes, women are little more than female mannequins upon which the discourse tests its fancy. Such subjective discourse may conceal or emphasise features that reflect not so much the view that women or society have of women but rather the view which the authors believe that women or society should hold. Thus, the image of Arab women has been fabricated in the moulds of Western and enlightened Islamist liberation rhetoric alike, in the moulds of insular religious rhetoric and those of conciliatory or invented discourses, and in the innumerable imitative and derivative moulds to be found in the prevailing official discussion. Even as the image of Arab women has been popularised in such simplistic forms in Arab literature and political rhetoric, the mirror of reality displays that image in all its rich variety and profusion. Yet who sees the women of southern Saudi Arabia, their slender frames in flowing gowns bent over their tilling, their heads concealed …