There is a strange notion among deshi women and men that women in the West are liberated because things were like that over there all the time. Women did not have to struggle for their human rights over there. They got it automatically.
Actually, people never give it a thought. But as I look at it, this shallow, 'taken for gtanted' image of Western or American women has become a source of irritantly constructed cultural relativism that works as an impediment towards societal progress in a variety of ways. Any move towards 'modernity' by a teenager is equated to turning 'Weternized' by deshi parents, and fiercely objected to. Poor Aqsa Pervez in Canada was killed by her enraged father.
I would like to present the following news article not only to expose the long road the women of America had to traverse, but also to show that our own efforts to awaken women's liberation in our society had not lagged far benind theirs. Think of the brilliant and bold Begum Rokeya a hundred years ago!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33312818/ns/politics-more_politics/
We too have laws enhancing and protecting women's rights. It is just that our men are not too law-abiding and prone to mental and physical lethagies when it comes to the issue of women's status at home and at work.
Farida Majid
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