Word: arabized
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...only are Arab women largely excluded from political participation - the report notes that most of the handful of Arab women cabinet ministers tend to hold symbolic rather than influential positions - they often suffer domestic violence, including so-called "honor killings," behind a societal cloak of silence. Laws often restrict women's personal liberties, for example by giving them lesser status than their husbands in divorce proceedings, and requiring the permission of a husband or father to work, travel or borrow from a bank...
...report traces the predicament of Arab women to the region's longstanding patriarchal traditions of protection and "honor" wrapped into tribal identity. The authoritarian regimes that emerged with Arab independence a half century ago have undermined liberal institutions and values that might have better encouraged women's rights and protected them under a rule...
...Women's prospects are further weakened by regressive Islamic jurisprudence that effectively codifies discrimination against women. So entrenched has this discrimination become, the report notes, that hundreds of popular Arab proverbs scorn women for having "half a mind, half a creed, half an inheritance...
...Despite its gloomy picture of the current state of affairs, the report does highlight the heroic efforts of many Arab women and their male supporters to remedy the situation, and the gains they have made. In particular, it credits Arab novelists and filmmakers for publicizing women's suffering and offering models of hope. But in its conclusion, "Towards the Rise" recognizes the huge obstacles that remain. Unwilling to leave reform to government or Islamic leaders, the report calls for a "widespread and effective movement of struggle in Arab civil society" - a social revolution, really - to advance women's rights...
...authors list ambitious goals for this "movement of struggle," including achieving compulsory basic education for Arab girls to eliminate female illiteracy by 2015, and enforcing equal employment opportunities for Arab women. One specific reform proposed is a program of affirmative action "to expand women's participation in society and dismantle centuries-old discrimination." A more important, but vastly more daunting, challenge identified by the report is taking on the Islamic establishment to remove cultural obstacles sanctified by religious rulings. The report says that the reform it envisions "will modernize religious interpretation and jurisprudence through the widespread adoption of the enlightened...