A WOMAN SHOULD BE RESPECTED AS AN INDIVIDUAL

Written by: Ms Khadijah Shah (ROD)

A great philosopher says,

“Why God created men before women? Because we always need a rough sketch
before the final one”

The world is entering into the 21st century but the fate of women in many societies
remains still under the cloud of ignorance and dependency upon male members.
Many of the working women in government jobs have to work far away from their native
places. Scarcity of women hostels and suitable accommodation causes serious problems
for working women in our society. Sometimes working women become a target of
criticism and humiliation by the religious quarters. Such problems become a hurdle in the
way of women’s progress.
William Wordsworth says,

“The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength and skill,
A perfect woman nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet the spirit still and bright,
With something of angelic light.”

Our women need to be able to work apart from side by side with men in different
professions. Firstly, almost all women should be educated to different levels. Education
up to Intermediate is quite necessary, both for our men and women. Now since the drastic
fall in our educational standards education up to Matriculation seems to be insufficient.
Secondly, the old traditions and conventions barring women from outside work will have
to be abolished. No doubt, the veil system is no more, so popular, but the traditions of
keeping women restricted to the home are quite alive, in villages and small towns and the
underdeveloped parts of our cities. These traditions are mostly based on our
backwardness, ignorance and faulty upbringing and training.
Thirdly, we have to reduce the dependence of the whole family on the male head.
According to Shakespeare:

“Man is the crown of nature and his crown shines because of woman.”

In Hinduism, one of the oldest religious and ethical systems, women were assigned a very
low role in the society. It is a general belief that only sinful was re-born as women. Even
today they are slaughtered and butchered by following the ignorant traditions such as
“SATTI”, when a husband dies his wife is burnt alive without mercy and humanity. In
Judaism, a woman is under an eternal Divine curse and for this reason she must be ruled
by her husband.
The professions and vocations that suit the women of our society are the following:
Firstly, teaching profession is the most suitable for women. At the school, college and
university levels female teachers can teach perhaps more effectively than men. They have
the added advantage of long holidays and short teaching hours which means less physical
and mental strain on their physiques.
Secondly, the nursing and airline hostesses’ professions and the like are more suitable for
women. Here feminine attention is needed which men cannot provide so well.
Thirdly, the expansion of commerce, there is a growing demand for saleswomen and
office clerks, secretaries and managers. Thousands of women can be usefully employed
in these capacities to the satisfaction of traders as well as the customers.
Fourthly, the medical profession needs the services of more and more of female doctors
to attend to the female population, children and generally to men as well.
Fifthly, women are very suitably performing work in garment, handicraft and toy
factories and factories producing jams, cold drinks, bread, etc. at home or outside the
home. They can stitch clothes well, help in shoe-making, and can work at ease and with
interest in the fields of their choice like those of cosmetics production, designing clothes
and shoes, painting and engraving .In such activities women are naturally interested.
Milman remarks:

“Women to fair to worship: too divine to love……”

According to Islam, a women has a more important and holy duty than that of man. She
is the mother and the teacher of the nation. The Holy Prophet Hazrat Mohammad
(P.B.U.H) said,

“Verily, the Paradise lies under the feet of the mother.”

Saint Virgin Marry suffered a lot in the world but is the closest in the Eye of God. Jesus
Christ as well as, other prophets were born from the womb of a woman which highlights
that importance of women.
Therefore, it is a mother that a woman can best serve her nation. It does not mean that
Islam stops woman from taking part in the social fields of life. Islam has allowed women
not to work like a man but to co-operate with him. It is rather significant that the first
converter to Islam from amongst those around the Holy Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H)
was a woman named Khadijah-tul-Qubrah, an independent working woman, a trader.
It is absurd to exclude women from the social and political spheres on the supposed
ground of being less intellectual than men. We have the number of examples to give light
to this statement. Rulers like Queen Victoria in England, and Chand Bibi, Razia Begum
and Noor Jehan in Indo-Pakistan, proved that women can govern a nation successfully as
men. Women are great rulers as well as great fighters. In the struggle for achieving
Pakistan as an independent nation, Ms Fatima Jinnah sister of the founder of Pakistan,
Begum Liaqat Ali, Begum Shah Nawaz, Begum Rana, Begum Mohammad Ali etc.
played a vital role in fighting for the independence.
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There is a true story related to a woman named HUMA HIYAT, who lived in Taxila.
She suffered a lot due to poverty as well as insecurity in the male dominated society. She
got married forcibly at the age of 15 with a man Ilyas Ahmad who was 40 years old. He
bribed her parents and bought her. She gave birth to 13 children, from which 8 are alive,
in 20 years. Without caring of her health she was forced to do so as she was threatened by
her husband that he will divorce her. She was beaten brutally by her husband with hot
iron as one day she tried to escape from that prison with her children.
She had 4 sons and 4 daughters. One of her son is mentally retarded. Her husband was
extremely possessive about his wife that he didn’t allow her to go to her parents. She is
now a mental patient and takes sleeping pills of ‘Lexotonal’ (name of a medicine), to
escape from the bitter realities of life. Now her house has become a prostitute’s centre
where her 4 daughters named Isma, Uzma, Tahira and Tehmeena are being used like
tissue papers and is being sexually abused and hurt even by their own father and brothers.
Isma and Uzma are above 30 in age and they are forcibly made prostitutes by their
brothers and from such resources they get 10,000 per month per girl. Their father got
married last year at the age of 65 with a 19 year old prostitute. Their brothers are drug
addicts and they use to exploit innocent and poor girls.