Women: separate does not seem to be equal

Before we left the U.S., we attended the wedding of some dear friends and had an amazing time.

In addition to the joy of celebrating with the bride and groom, I also got to see some of the many great friends that I made at Duke (I would go again simply to meet these women and other friends from there). Pictured below, these women are self-actualized, strong, and have maximized their opportunities to choose their lives.

From my minimal time here in the Middle East, it seems like treatment of women here could be limiting women's choice. I am not saying that women here are not self-actualized nor do I think a woman's choice is limited when she chooses to wear the hijab (the cloth covering the women's hair in the picture below).

I am also not saying that a woman who choose to wear the habib (the fabric that covers the woman's face and hair) has necessarily limited her choices. Although, I do find it is easier to talk to (and understand) a woman wearing a hijab than to converse with a woman wearing a habib.

What disturbs me here is the formal and informal statements that appear to give women inferior status. Below is the women's worship area at the holiest Jewish place, the Western Wall. It is small, in the sun, crowded and lacks the nice furniture found in the men's worship area.

The men's worship area is dramatically larger and has an inside space for the men to pray and read the Torah in comfort.

Again contrast the women's worship space in the Blue Mosque, Istanbul against the men's.

Men's worship area




Women's worship area




Informally, I experienced my on "inferior" status as a woman on our EgyptAir flight from Jordan to Istanbul. On the flight, I received my airplane meal (with a middle-eastern twist). To eat my meal, I unwrapped my plastic cutlery and didn't think anything of my plastic fork and spoon until I realized that the man on the window seat to my side and Wilson in the aisle seat on my other side, had metal cutlery. I looked around and realized that all the female passengers had plastic cutlery while the male passengers had metal cutlery. In the abstract, I wouldn't have minded eating my meal with plastic cutlery -- it was the fact that someone had decided that the woman passengers on that plane did not deserve the same treatment as the men passengers.

Treatment of women in the U.S. is not perfect and women have yet to receive equal wages for equal work but these observations remind me how important it is that women globally retain the rights that women before us have fought so hard to secure. I am grateful for my female-rights predecessors and I hope that the 2012 election is a move forward for women's rights in the U.S. rather than a move backward.