Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox

Article 3 of the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) requires that state parties take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to guarantee women the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of e...

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Main Authors:	Amriah Buang, Ratnawati Yuni Suryandari
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, UKM,Bangi 2011
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/1/7.geografia-2011-4-amriah-middle_east-last1.pdf

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recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-31552016-12-14T06:33:46Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/ Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox Amriah Buang, Ratnawati Yuni Suryandari, Article 3 of the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) requires that state parties take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to guarantee women the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men in all fields of life. The mainstream image of Islam seems to have been one that apparently portrays Islam and its stipulations on women as anathema to those of CEDAW. Curiously, the direct relationship between orthodox Islam or Muslim societies with perceived mistreatment or disempowerment of women does not materialise as clearly or forthrightly as anticipated. This paper demonstrates that recent CEDAW examinations reveal that educational attainment of Muslim women in orthodox Muslim countries in seven orthodox Muslim countries in the Middle East, namely, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Iran has vastly improved especially with respect to higher education. Yet, the facts also reveal that high education does not generally translate into greater political empowerment of the women. This paper then seeks to understand this apparent paradox with special reference to the Saudi Arabian case. It reasons that orthodox, conservative and negative perspectives and stereotypes of women in Islam are but only part of the answer. The other part would be that the educated Muslim women in orthodox Muslim countries of the Middle East as elsewhere do weigh things together in deciding which careers to pursue; that they deliberately decide in favour of the education and health profession because these are considered religiously more doable than politics and governance. The mainstream Western notions that rather simplistically equate educational with political empowerment does not happen the way it is expected for the Muslim women because of these non-secular considerations that engage them but that were not factored in and recognised in the conventional notions. Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, UKM,Bangi 2011-11 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/1/7.geografia-2011-4-amriah-middle_east-last1.pdf Amriah Buang, and Ratnawati Yuni Suryandari, (2011) Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox. Geografia : Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 7 (4). pp. 51-64. ISSN 2180-2491 http://www.ukm.my/geografia/v1/index.php
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	Article 3 of the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) requires that state parties take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to guarantee women the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men in all fields of life. The mainstream image of Islam seems to have been one that apparently portrays Islam and its stipulations on women as anathema to those of CEDAW. Curiously, the direct relationship between orthodox Islam or Muslim societies with perceived mistreatment or disempowerment of women does not materialise as clearly or forthrightly as anticipated. This paper demonstrates that recent CEDAW examinations reveal that educational attainment of Muslim women in orthodox Muslim countries in seven orthodox Muslim countries in the Middle East, namely, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Iran has vastly improved especially with respect to higher education. Yet, the facts also reveal that high education does not generally translate into greater political empowerment of the women. This paper then seeks to understand this apparent paradox with special reference to the Saudi Arabian case. It reasons that orthodox, conservative and negative perspectives and stereotypes of women in Islam are but only part of the answer. The other part would be that the educated Muslim women in orthodox Muslim countries of the Middle East as elsewhere do weigh things together in deciding which careers to pursue; that they deliberately decide in favour of the education and health profession because these are considered religiously more doable than politics and governance. The mainstream Western notions that rather simplistically equate educational with political empowerment does not happen the way it is expected for the Muslim women because of these non-secular considerations that engage them but that were not factored in and recognised in the conventional notions.
format	Article
author	Amriah Buang, Ratnawati Yuni Suryandari,
spellingShingle	Amriah Buang, Ratnawati Yuni Suryandari, Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox
author_facet	Amriah Buang, Ratnawati Yuni Suryandari,
author_sort	Amriah Buang,
title	Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox
title_short	Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox
title_full	Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox
title_fullStr	Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox
title_full_unstemmed	Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox
title_sort	education, political empowerment and muslim women in the middle east – understanding the paradox
publisher	Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, UKM,Bangi
publishDate	2011
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/3155/1/7.geografia-2011-4-amriah-middle_east-last1.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T19:38:01Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T19:38:01Z
_version_	1777405401766035456

Education, political empowerment and Muslim women in the Middle East – Understanding the paradox

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