By: Mona El-Naggar
Published: September 4, 2012
There is a Muslim society in Cairo Egypt called the Muslim Brotherhood and it promotes the idea of the traditinal role of a women as a wife and mother and subordinate to a man. It holds patriarchial and traditional values about a women's place in society and it gets popular support because one of its former leaders was elected as president and he resigned. His name is Mohamed Morsi and he promised to protect the rights of women but he only appointed 3 women on his team out of 21 aids. However the Muslim Brotherhood still has prestige and power in Egypt. Besides popular support they get political capital and and they reinforce social conservatisim. The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to influence families by holding workshops for women and premartial workshops to help shape the a "righteous family" that hold the ideals of women being subordinate and holding traditional gender values. A family that is righteous makes a righteous society that can choose a "righteous leader" who can continue to uphold these ideals through the government. The workshops are sponsered by Family House which is a charity that is financed by the Muslim Brotherhood. It gives financial support to struggling households and provides a matchmaking service and sponsers weddings for low income couples. The Muslim Brotherhood does have a counter argument made against them. Critics and analyst argue that the traditional roles of women and continued subordination is a social problem because by promising women their independence as long as they maintain their traditional obligations will ultimately lead women not being able to have a voice in society and not participating in the workforce. This is a social problem because a movement is begining to take place with critics and analysts of the Muslim Brotherhood speaking out against them. I agree with the counter arguements being maide against the Muslim Brotherhood but it is hard to say where to draw the line between ethnocentrism and letting a culture stay relative. I have a westernized view of gender roles believing that men and women are equal but patriarchy has been practiced in Egypt for many years. But citizens in Egypt are against the traditional view of women and they are mobilizing against that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/world/middleeast/05iht-letter05.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=familiesandfamilylife
Mickela Rutledge 1:05pm 9/7/2012
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