What rights women have in
a country depends above all on what rights anybody has there. All the
dimensions of culture are relevant for it, as well as national wealth and
religion. But if a religion in a country is used to curb the rights of women
it is never the religion that is to blame but always the people who
interpret and practice that religion. All major religions differ in their
practices depending on the culture of their believers. Islam is not the same
in Senegal, Saoudi Arabia and Indonesia, nor is Catholicism the same in
Northern Ireland, Colombia and France.I
received a letter recently from which I quote a passage:
To Dr. Gert Jan Hofstede,
I was glad to find some valuable information in your site
http://www.geert-hofstede.com.., however, was disappointed , and not
only disappointed but also puzzled about "why" did you mention in the Arab
world section of Masculinity that "... This would indicate that while
women in the Arab World are limited in their rights, it may be due more to
Muslim religion rather than a cultural paradigm."... As for me, I am an
arab, and i lived in the arab world for almost all my life, ... as a matter
of fact.. the Muslim religion is not guilty for any right that a woman may
not have in this world... In addition, we, the women, are absolutley free
and have all of our rights and even more than the extent to which western
women has...
Your background shows that you've studied cultures, that's the reason
why i got puzzled, because its not hard to see that we , the arab muslim
women, are more respected in religion and that our religion had given us
more rights than any other system...
Yet, you might have seen cultural factors that affects arab's mental
thinking, and might have joined religion to some "religious-free" habits or
thoughts... judging our religion, Islam, by just looking at muslims, isnt
fair to our religion... because, im telling u this frankly, many are called
muslims , however they dont act like it... and of course, we, the women who
took Islam as a system of life, feel so bothered by those muslims who ruin
our 'real' image... thus... im writing you an undetailed e-mail so that the
possibility of reading it to the end would be high...
Example of non-religious thoughts: Saudi Women not allowed to drive.
This is a thought thats not of religion, the country just did it... religion
is free from it.
(...)
Regards,
Abeer Lashteghani
Senior level student
University of Sharjah
In my reply to Abeer I indicated
that the Web site she quotes is not mine, and that in fact its (USA-based)
author has, in my view, got a too simple idea about what the culture
dimensions can predict. I agree with Abeer that it is national culture, not
religion, that has given rise to most religious practices in most places. I
do not agree with her that those Muslims who deviate from her version 'are
not Muslims' - they are Muslims who live by different rules, that is all.
And I do not wish to argue about how many rights women have in any religion,
simply because there is no end to such an argument, because it does not
depend on the religion but on those who practise it.
Religions and cultures have
evolved in a time when peoples of the world were often at war and that was
considered a normal state of affairs. To fight other cultures had survival
value for a culture. In many cultures, value systems are still in pace that
make it easy to disparage foreigners as morally inferior. I think that now
that we are so numerous and technologically powerful, and so interconnected,
we need to evolve to a condition in which all the cultures of the world
learn to live and let live. Helping move towards that condition is a
challenge that will keep many, many people busy for many generations.
