“Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong; it’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength”

– G.D. Anderson 

Women and Islam

In Islam, men and women are moral equals in God’s sight and are expected to fulfil the same duties of worship, prayer, faith, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca. Islam by and large improved the status of ladies contrasted with before Arab societies, restricting female child murder and perceiving ladies’ full personhood. Islamic law stresses the authoritative idea of marriage, necessitating that a dowry is paid to the woman and not her family, and ensuring women’s rights of inheritance and to claim and oversee the property. Women were additionally allowed the option to live in the marital home and get monetary maintenance during marriage and a holding up period following demise and separation. 

Historical records show that Muhammad counselled ladies and gauged their opinions seriously. Umm Waraqah was selected imam over the family unit by Muhammad. Women contributed altogether to the canonization of the Quran. A lady is known to have adjusted the definitive decision of Caliph Umar on the endowment. Women prayed in mosques unsegregated from men, were involved in hadith transmission, gave sanctuary to men, engaged in commercial transactions were encouraged to seek knowledge, and were both instructors and pupils in the early Islamic period. Muhammad’s last wife, Aishah, was a well-known authority in medicine, history, and rhetoric. Caliph Umar named ladies to fill in as authorities in the market of Medina. Life stories of recognized ladies, particularly in Muhammad’s family unit, show that ladies acted moderately independently in early Islam. In Sufi circles, ladies were perceived as educators, followers, “otherworldly moms,” and even inheritors of the profound privileged insights of their fathers. 

No woman held religious titles in Islam, but many women held political power, some jointly with their husbands, others independently. The best-known women rulers in the premodern era include Khayzuran, who governed the Muslim Empire under three Abbasid caliphs in the eighth century; Malika Asma bint Shihab al-Sulayhiyya and Malika Arwa bint Ahmad al-Sulayhiyya, who both held power in Yemen in the eleventh century; Sitt al-Mulk, a Fatimid queen of Egypt in the eleventh century; the Berber queen Zaynab al-Nafzawiyah (r. 1061 – 1107 ); two thirteenth-century Mamluk queens, Shajar al-Durr in Cairo and Radiyyah in Delhi; six Mongol queens, including Kutlugh Khatun (thirteenth century) and her daughter Padishah Khatun of the Kutlugh-Khanid dynasty; the fifteenth-century Andalusian queen Aishah al-Hurra, known by the Spaniards as Sultana Madre de Boabdil; Sayyida al-Hurra, governor of Tetouán in Morocco (r. 1510 – 1542 ); and four seventeenth-century Indonesian queens.

Nevertheless, the status of women in premodern Islam all in all adjusted not to Quranic beliefs however to prevailing patriarchal cultural norms. Thus, improvement of the status of ladies turned into a significant issue in the present day, reformist Islam.

The rights to education and employment plus women’s activism make a big difference in women’s rights.

In “Myths About Women’s Rights: How, Where and Why Rights Advance,” Feryal Cherif, analyses two hypotheses for why cultures advance gender equality. 

The first is the thing that we call “centre rights”: that women’s rights to education and employment are the structure hinders with which to begin political organizing for equality, developing a group sense of fairness (or the lack thereof), and building public support for women’s equal socioeconomic standing. This gives government officials, and other residential elites motivations to help ladies’ privileges. 

The subsequent hypothesis is that ladies’ privileges backing cultivates change as local and worldwide activists advance new standards of uniformity by publicizing countries’ practices — both those that treat ladies similarly and those that slack — and constraining governments to adjust to worldwide norms. Research shows that these hypotheses are steady with the ongoing advances in gender equality in Saudi Arabia and the region at large. Looking at ladies’ property rights in 41 Muslim-larger part nations, I believe that women are probably going to appreciate safer property rights in nations where, first, women have more prominent admittance to education and second, where there are thick systems of women rights activists. Where ladies are more mindful of their privileges, better situated to challenge male family, and have the socioeconomic power to hold politicians accountable, their property rights are stronger. That is valid also for the Saudi Arabian development of women’s rights, including the right to drive. It is presumably not a happenstance that, throughout the long term, the hole between Saudi Arabian boys’ and girls’ education has considerably limited. Furthermore, it’s actually in numerous other Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) nations, where young ladies beat young men in school and enrol in universities at higher rates than boys. Besides, an expanding number of Arab ladies have joined the work power — though not yet at levels as high as worldwide midpoints. Indeed, even in Saudi Arabia, with its extraordinary forms of gender segregation, ladies are working in an ever-increasing number of fields. Also, with the right to drive, more women will be able to seek employment. 

In addition to core rights, women rights activism has additionally considerably expanded in the Middle East and North Africa in the previous decades. During 1980 and 2015, the number of women rights groups operating in the region nearly tripled. Some scholars and reporters have argued that advocacy campaigns and global pressure have helped push MENA nations toward gender equality. 

Indeed, even in conservative states like Saudi Arabia, the government may think that it’s hard to contain women’s expectations once they’ve been educated and entered the work power — even while more traditionalist pieces of their country push back.

Political Participation

Political revolutions and instability in the Middle East have mobilized women in new ways. Despite political turmoil and express dangers to their privileges, numerous ladies are expanding their activism to make their voices heard. Because of this flood of political commitment from ladies, however, fundamentalist and traditionalist pioneers and governments are pushing back, increasing their assaults on women’s human rights with an end goal to keep up their power. 

Even though, when women do win rights, they aren’t able to execute them since they are sabotaged by solid accepted practices and conventions. For instance, although women in Egypt have cast ballot rights, the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (which conducts customary political race checking) has discovered that in provincial towns, spouses, fathers, or siblings will advise women how to cast a ballot—or even just take a women’s polling form from her and round it out however they see fit. 

Laws in the area, including both old laws and ongoing ones, confine ladies’ common freedoms and fill in as unequivocal proof that people with significant influence don’t consider women equals. For instance, in 2014 the Iraqi parliament introduced a draft law that endeavoured to make it lawful to wed a young girl as young as nine years of age, granting conjugal assault, and allowing polygamy. A long-standing law in Lebanon doesn’t permit women to pass on their citizenship, implying that if a Lebanese lady weds a non-Lebanese man, her children wouldn’t have Lebanese citizenship. Also, fundamentalist gatherings are a ground-breaking and developing danger, with systems that straightforwardly target women, including the abduction and forced sexual slavery of Yazidi ladies in Iraq by the alleged Islamic State gathering (ISIS). With so many powerful forces opposing women’s human rights in the Middle East, many in the region feel that international support has been far too weak. Leaders of women’s groups across the region stress the need for international support and solidarity. Past budgetary help, women likewise call for worldwide solidarity and expressions of help, referring to the two sorts of help as basic to opposing fundamentalism. Women’s gatherings keep up that while fundamentalist dangers against women’s rights are at the moment most powerful in the Middle East, the issue is, in fact, a global problem. 

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When we talk about India, we do have a provision for abortions, sections 312-316 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the provisions of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971 covers the abortion laws in India. The IPC sections 312-316 criminalise abortion; “the person undertaking the abortion as well as the doctor (or registered medical practitioner) facilitating the abortion are liable to be prosecuted.”

The government of India, though in 1971, enacted the MTP Act as an exception to the IPC. The act was enacted to exempt medical experts from the criminal obligation on the condition that they terminate the pregnancy as per sections 3 and 5 of the act. The prelude to the act expresses that it is, “An act to provide for the termination of certain pregnancies by registered medical practitioners and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” Therefore this whole system of legal abortion is doctor centric and prescribes abortion in specific circumstances.

The Proposed Amendment 2020

The MTP act was enacted in 1971 and hence the law needed changes, activists in India for the last decade have been pushing for legislative changes to the law.

The central cabinet’s sanction of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill 2020 was reported on January 29. According to Prachin Kumar, “The amendment was long due and has made some anticipated changes demanded by women’s groups and courts, including the Supreme Court.”

Vrinda Grover in her column for the Hindustan Times wrote in March, that it’s a welcome amendment. She further states that the bill among other things, “proposes to place an unmarried woman and her partner at par with a married woman and her husband, in securing abortion due to contraceptive failure.” This is an idea that carries forward the rationale of the domestic violence act. The law on domestic violence makes no distinction between the rights and protections available to a married woman or a woman who is in a live-in relationship.

The Press Information Bureau on 29th January 2020 published the amendment, it stated that “The salient features of this act is enhancing the upper gestation limit from 20 weeks to 24 weeks for special categories of women which will be defined in the amendment to the MTP rules and would include vulnerable women, including survivors of rape, victims of incest and other vulnerable women like differently-abled women and minors.”

The MTP (amendment) bill still requires or rather proposes that a doctor sign off on termination of pregnancies up to 20 weeks old, and two doctors do the same for pregnancies between 20-24 weeks old.

The bill also intends to expand access to “safe and legal abortion services on therapeutic, eugenic, humanitarian or social grounds”, in case of foetal “abnormalities”. The proposed amendment makes it mandatory for the government to set up a medical board in all the states  and union territories. The responsibility of the board will be for the diagnosis of substantial foetal “abnormalities” that need termination after 24 weeks.

These are some of the proposed changes in the law. Now although there are certain good points in the amendment, a lot of activists think that this amendment missed to address some of the important issues.

Criticism of the Amendment

Shampa Sengupta in an online session organised by the Centre for Health Law, Ethics and Technology at Jindal (CHLET), Global Law School, Sonipat, strongly objected to the language used by the PIB in its announcement of 29th January 2020 regarding the amendment. “It’s not from the department that looks into the disability affairs.. But that does not mean you can use a word as ‘differently-abled’, it is not legally accepted in our country”, said Sengupta about the announcement.

Dr. Aqsa Shaikh in the same series of sessions organised by the CHLET said that it’s very unfortunate that it took almost 50 years for the government to realize that the MTP Act needed some changes. According to her, these changes are still insufficient, stakeholders have not been consulted, and a very patriarchal approach has been adopted. Shaikh further stated that “Under the MTP, the pregnant person does not have a choice, the person must seek permission. If the permission is granted then the doctor will conduct the procedure, else, the doctor will not. So that approach has to change.”

Tejasvi Savekari of Saheli Sangh in the session pointed out that during this Covid-19 pandemic, and because of the resultant lockdown, a lot of abortion cases have been seen. In most of these cases, safe abortions could not be done because of a lack of access to safe abortions.

She raised a very valid question, “who will take responsibility for this? Instead of simplifying the system, the law is making it more complicated. Firstly one has to take permission from two registered doctors and then from the medical board. So much time will be lost in all this, so will a woman be able to get a safe abortion done? Does she not have a right over her own body? Is she not capable enough to make her own decisions?” She asserted the fact that there are absolutely no answers to these questions. She said that it’s unfortunate that the law had no consultation and it saw no protest at all.

Sex Workers and Their Plight

The life of a sex worker is not easy. There are various stereotypes associated with the profession and the sex workers have to deal with stereotypes when it comes to their abortion rights as well. Kiran Deshmukh of National Network of Sex Workers CHLET session revealed that sex workers are always treated unfairly and are discriminated most of the time.

Deshmukh said that when a sex worker is pregnant and when she goes to a civil hospital, the staff of the hospital does not treat her well because they know that she is a sex worker. The strong stereotype that a sex worker can’t have a child is visible in the actions of the hospital staff. According to Deshmukh, matters get worse when a pregnant person is also HIV positive. Then that person is discriminated against more than anyone else. She stated that “we consider this form of discrimination as violence and this violence will not end till we do not collectivize. Collectivizing is very important if we want to fight against this violence. The womb is mine, it is my right to decide to continue or to terminate the pregnancy. But the doctors do not listen to us, especially in civil hospitals.” She further added, “when we collectively say the same thing, they have to listen to us, and provide us services because the power of a finger is different from the power of a fist.”

The government has not taken into account the problems of the sex workers as is clear from Deshmuk’s statement and above discussed amendments.

No Consideration for Differently Abled

The proposed amendments have not given due consideration to the needs of the differently-abled persons. Rupasa Malik of CREA is of the view that proposed amendments to the MTP Bill 2020 are limited and that it, in no way, reflects the ‘transformative changes’ which are vital to the MTP Act which is extremely dated. Malik said, “there exists this idea that all women and girls with disabilities are asexual and, therefore, what is the need for even thinking about them in this context of abortion access?”

Shivangi Agrawal of Determined Art Movement, in another session organised by the CHLET on the topic ‘A Disability Rights Perspective on Abortion: A Nuanced Understanding’, said “When I first read the MTP Amendment, it said to me that disabled people are irrational for having lives, for existing in the world. I feel like the government has continuously ignored disabled activities and they do not value the decision-making capacity that disabled people have.” She further added, “I feel like this bill encompasses the idea that providing for disabled people is too much.”

Dipika Jain in her column in TheWire mentioned about the ‘abnormalities’. She wrote “disability rights advocates have argued that foetuses with potential disabilities should not be singled out for abortions. This reinforces the notion that persons with disabilities have less value than persons without disabilities, and that all fetuses with ‘abnormalities’ should be terminated. It should be the sole discretion of the pregnant person, in consultation with their doctor, to carry a pregnancy to full term or to abort, even if the foetus has a potential disability, cognitive impairment and/or other medical conditions.

Conclusion

Abortion is a matter of rights of a woman. Even the Supreme Court of India has recognized that in the landmark case of 2009, Suchita Srivastava v. Chandigarh Administration. The court said, “There is no doubt that a woman’s right to make reproductive choices is also a dimension of ‘personal liberty’ as understood under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. It is important to recognise that reproductive choices can be exercised to procreate as well as abstain from procreating. The crucial consideration is that a woman’s right to privacy, dignity and bodily integrity should be respected.”

In 2017 in the case of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, the SC identified privacy as a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution. The right to privacy within its scope includes the rights to bodily integrity, reproductive choice and decisional autonomy. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud cited the landmark 2009 case Suchita Srivastava v. Chandigarh Administration, in the Puttaswamy case.

It’s unfortunate that even after such decisions, the proposed amendments continue to maintain the original paternalistic doctor-centric framework of the MTP Act. The decision to terminate is still in the hands of the doctor and not the pregnant person. This needs to change.

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The notion that gender is binary, that is when gender is recognised in only two terms – male and female is highly refuted. Social research has shown there are as many as 52 genders. Some definitions of gender overlap and some change over time, as a cultural change. One would commonly encounter individuals who would identify themselves as cis-gendered – a label whose personal gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned to at birth.

Cisnormativity is the notion that a cis-gender identity is a socially accepted norm. This leads to discrimination and creates stronger social setbacks for those who do not fit in this norm. It has thus become important to understand gender closely and use appropriate language and gender. This not only promotes inclusivity but also lets people know one is supporting and affirming to the other person’s gender. For example, a genderfluid person moves between different gender presentations. The individual may identify as masculine one day and on another day, the individual may identify as a femme or woman. Hence, the use of gender-neutral pronouns such as “they/them” is encouraged for genderfluid people

Gender becomes the most conspicuous difference between humans and animals and it manifests itself psychologically. Traditional western viewpoints designate males and females as binary opposite and argue that gender is inescapable. But this is not the case anymore. In our social surroundings, gender plays an important role. Through this article, we learn about the meaning of gender and its distinction from sex along with some cases and examples. We identify the common gender-related discrimination and understand the true sense of the word.

A Tryst with High Heels

The famous red-soled Louboutin with their breathtakingly high or rather painful stilettos are reserved for the women’s section and viewed as a commodity for the feminine gender only.

A commodity restricted to gender, strikes as a strange idea to me.

The retailer asked, in a rather monotonous tone to my friend, “Which size ma’am?” and then when we told him it is for me, a he! At once the retailer was taken aback and for a fraction of second, we could see the gears in his brain process the information. Well, we tried the shoe, it wasn’t a perfect fit, end of the story.

A Brief History of Gendered Commodities

Historically, high heeled shoes were initially designed for upper class men to use when hunting on horseback, an activity considered fairly masculine.

With time, as women began wearing high heels, male heels slowly became shorter and fatter as female heels grew taller and thinner. Over time the perception of the high heels gradually became seen as feminine. There is nothing intrinsically feminine about high heeled shoes. My friend enjoyed wearing my ‘Peanuts’ themed Vans sneakers but, she wasn’t subjected to gender horrified looks or old auntie gasps. Such has happened because social norms have made it so.

Gender roles are not set in stone. It varies from society to society and time as well. It is susceptible to change.

Understanding Gender from Biological Sex

The baffled expression of the retailer tells us something which runs much deeper in the texts of Gender Psychology and its social perspective.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.”

Through the social lens, gender becomes a much broader term. While sex refers to an individual’s biological status as either male or female; gender refers to the person’s sense of expression of their maleness and femaleness.

While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours. This includes how they should interact with others or of the same or opposite sex, within micro and macro levels of societies. Such as households, classrooms, communities, religious places, sports fields and many more.

Individuals or groups who do not fit established gender norms, often face stigma, discriminatory practices and subjected to social exclusion. This in return has an adverse effect on health- both their physical and mental wellbeing. For example, the atrocities acted upon the hijra community in South-East Asia.

Cross-cultural and historical evidence do challenge this limited ideology and many gender-based stereotypes. The early rise of 20th-century feminism emerging as a social and political force has been fighting for equal opportunities and challenging traditional sexism of patriarchy.  This viewpoint is further supplemented with an interesting case from the Philippines.

A Case from the Philippines

PETA, acronym for Philippine Educational Theatre Association, a non-stock, non-profit organisation found in 1967 by Cecile Guidote gave the women of Philippines a strong voice. Under PETA, the Women’s Theatre Program (WTP) becomes an artistic medium that eventually becomes a weapon in the face of conservative political and religious influences which had been oppressing the women of the nation, solely due to their gender.

When PETA was formed, the Philippines was suffering from the dictatorship of President Marcos, making major gender inequality gaps and oppressing women. The WTP explores issues such as violence against women, prostitution and trafficking, poverty and reproductive right for women.

From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s PETA took seriously the task of leading a national theatre movement that would fight Marco’s dictatorship. They believed the struggle for social justice, women empowerment, democracy and equality amongst gender should also be urged on the educational and cultural fronts. The importance was paramount because without shaping people’s consciousness, the change will never prove lasting.

Sartorial Sexism

We dive deeper in the social perspective of gender in current times with the life examples of author Vicki S. Helgeson in her book The Psychology of Gender.

When her daughter was born, in 1998, Helgeson was exposed to the psychology of gender far more than as an advocate of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women.

She observed that after dressing up her baby in gender neutral clothes, passer-by’s often mistook the infant for a boy.

In her book she explains, the biological default is female. At conception, the embryo is destined to become female unless exposed to male hormones.

But the social default is male. When in doubt, assume the baby is a boy unless strong social cues are present, indicating the baby is a girl such as the pink, the bow, the specific patterns on toys and clothes. Further, she observed that it is not nearly as offensive to assume a girl is a boy as it is to assume a boy is a girl. She was surprised to find out how apologetic people become when they guess a baby boy for a girl.

Sartorial sexism stands strong within infants as it stood against me in Marks & Spencer. Infant clothes and toys are divided, with strict hints of sexism present. Slogans on apparels such as ‘Daddy’s Little Princess’ are for girls, expecting them to behave in a certain manner while for boys there are ‘Daddy’s Handyman’ reinforcing the machoism at an age when they cannot spell the very word. Symbolism also strictly divides dress codes with a pair of denims with stars and glitters are considered for boys and rugged or faded jeans are kept for girls.

Something seemed funny in that last line, didn’t it? And that is the social perspective of gender we carry today.

Conclusion

The nature of gender roles varies from society to society and time as well, such as certain commodities have shifted from one gender to another through time. Sex and Gender are two distinguished terms where sex relates to the biology of the individual and gender relates to the expression of behaviour from the individual. Gender manifests itself psychologically and if individuals do not fit the societal gender norms, they often face discrimination and subjugation from the dominant gender. Cecile Guidve initiative in 1967 lead to the creation of the Women’s Theatre Program (WTP) under the Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA) which fought gender inequality from both educational and cultural means. Sartorial sexism exists in our society and manifests itself through symbolic slogans, colour and fashion.

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According to National Crime Record Bureau or NCRB, more than 30-40% of acid attack victims are male in India. Here is a story of a male acid attack victim which was covered in India Today:

Chandrahass Mishra, a Meerut resident, was attacked with a bucket full of acid by his landlord’s son on 8^th September 2011. He was attacked by his landlord’s son as Mishra allegedly tried to prevent him from molesting a woman a day before.

They had a fight after which the accused threatened him that he will not even be for to show his face in public. Mishra had suffered nearly 40 per cent burns and the worst affected areas were his face, head and hand. Mishra was a small-time businessman who had to go through several surgeries and even through treatment for reconstructing his face via plastic surgery as a result of which he had to spend Rs 30 lakhs (300K) and was forced to borrow money and take loans.

What was even worse is that he himself had to run from one place to another for nearly a period of 10 months both for getting a medical board set up for calculating compensation which would be based on the burns he suffered and for disability benefits.

“Though Supreme Court had ordered a compensation of Rs 3 lakh for all victims, the reading of the state government authorities was that only woman victims are entitled to it. In the end, after five years, in 2016 I got compensation of one lakh rupees. Again, gender discrimination,” Mishra, now a coordinator with the NGO Acid Survivors and Women Welfare Foundation, told Mail Today.

Similarly, 52% of juvenile sexual attack victims are male. 

The whole nation comes to a standstill and candle marches are organised to mourn the rape and murdered of a five-year-old girl wherein the accused had inserted candles in her genitalia to stop the bleeding. It becomes a topic of discussion across the spectrum and everybody shows their agony and agitation right from the social media handles to Jantar Mantar (source).

But when a 15 years old boy is beaten up and sodomized and eventually succumbs to his injuries, no is even seen batting an eye about this ghastly incident of sexual assault on a minor who happens to be a male. His father had to dump his body as he didn’t even have enough money to perform his last rites. (source)

We believe that both cases mentioned above are brutal and should never happen in a civilised society. What pains us is the outrage (which is understandable) over sexual assault of a female toddler and utter ignorance by the very same society on the death of a teenaged boy.

Gender-related stigma to sexual assaults is such in India that our constitution does not have any specific provision to deliver justice to a male victim in the case of a sexual assault that too when it is recorded by NCRB that males are subject to sexual assaults too. India is not the only country, in this case, even a first world country, Singapore only recently brought in a law to give justice to such victims while it has been an independent nation for over half a century.

There is an abundance of fake sexual assault cases put on men by women for either financial favour or for any other reason. Men accused in this have to go through so much mental trauma and the societal pressure that many of them send up committing suicide.

Our motive behind writing this piece was, can we stop sympathizing for a particular gender while shunning and mocking their counterparts who have to go through the same amount of pain and agony? In a modern society where everyone is equal before the law, why is it that there are no constitutional remedies for male victims? Why does a society that claims to be modern and gender-neutral easily accepts these stigmas? 

It’s About time that we start introspecting about the fault lines in our societies and constitutions and extensively debate and take measures to fill in those gaps.

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