Sexism: Ancient, Existent, and Persistent Every ten minutes a woman in India reports assault and every 21 minutes one of them reports a rape by a man. These incidents occur as a punishment to women for pursuing education, equality, or simply for being a woman. In India and many other countries men are considered superior to women, therefore they have more rights and privileges. Women are discriminated against by being beaten, stoned, gang raped, or even have acid thrown on them for harmless "crimes" enacted by fundamentalist Islamics. Moroccan feminist, Fatima Mernissi has said that Islam is a patriarchal and misogynist religion that “professes models of hierarchical relationships and sexual inequality and puts a sacred stamp [onto] female
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However, today it is most prominent in Islamic society. In order to understand how sexism came about, one must search far back. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate by Leila Ahmed delves into the conditions and lives of women in Muslim history. Ahmed stated that the subordination of women started with the rise of urbanization. “Contrary to androcentric theories proposing that the inferior social status of women is based on biology and “nature” and thus has existed as long as human beings, archaeological evidence suggests that women were held in esteem prior to the rise of urban societies and suffered a decline in status with the emergence of urban centers and city-states” (Ahmed 11). As the country expanded and its economy flourished, women’s status in everyday life diminished. “In any case, throughout the period of successive city-states, power, and authority resided exclusively with the husband and father, to whom wife and children owed absolute obedience”(Ahmed 13). The laws and widespread ideals about these austere men and their position in society were considered absolute in all circumstances. A wife could be thrown into water, have her teeth knocked out with a burnt brick, or be sold if she, in any way, “humiliated” her husband. The enforcement of these strict punishments are perhaps what have forced women to settle into their secluded
However, today it is most prominent in Islamic society. In order to understand how sexism came about, one must search far back. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate by Leila Ahmed delves into the conditions and lives of women in Muslim history. Ahmed stated that the subordination of women started with the rise of urbanization. “Contrary to androcentric theories proposing that the inferior social status of women is based on biology and “nature” and thus has existed as long as human beings, archaeological evidence suggests that women were held in esteem prior to the rise of urban societies and suffered a decline in status with the emergence of urban centers and city-states” (Ahmed 11). As the country expanded and its economy flourished, women’s status in everyday life diminished. “In any case, throughout the period of successive city-states, power, and authority resided exclusively with the husband and father, to whom wife and children owed absolute obedience”(Ahmed 13). The laws and widespread ideals about these austere men and their position in society were considered absolute in all circumstances. A wife could be thrown into water, have her teeth knocked out with a burnt brick, or be sold if she, in any way, “humiliated” her husband. The enforcement of these strict punishments are perhaps what have forced women to settle into their secluded