Gender Bias & The Mukmin (And Mukminah)

Salam alaik,

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When I was studying in Faculty of Education under the TESL program, sexism, gender bias and subordination of women was frequently made an issue. We were required to read all sorts of literature (journals, novels, poems, short stories, plays, etc) as well as films (the scarlet letter, provoked, etc) under the theme. And most of the time, I was trying to relate it to English and teaching; why are we 'provoked' or 'conditioned' to believe in the horrible prejudice called gender bias? So I spent most of my time trying to convince my friends otherwise; that its' existance is due only to an individual's or a groups of people's resistance to Islam: because what Islam teaches is against gender bias and this is proven through the personality and practice of the Prophet (saw) and those who follow him.

Yet a person who calls himself or herself Muslim does not necessarily follow the Prophet (saw). This is due to many factors, such as temptations, environment, pressure, education, upbringing, etc.

Recently I have started to feel disappointed with people who call themselves da'ie or du'at yet do not realize that they are infected by gender bias, something which is against what the Prophet teaches.

The comment that I heard went something like this:

"Women like to become lecturers because they have so much free time. That free time should by right be devoted to research, knowledge, etc, but they use that time to pick up their children from school and the works."

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First of all, in today's society, there is so much pressure for women, wives, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, aunts, nieces, etc to break their backs working. Yet at the same time, they are still expected to fulfil 'traditional' roles* like cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, etc.

(Some say that these forcing women or to subjugate them into merely fulfilling these traditional roles without giving her equal opportunity to break their backs working, is gender bias. Islam, on the other hand, holds a moderate view on this. But it will not be discussed here)

I feel that such a Muslim man to comment in such a way means that he is confused, ignorant and ingrateful. Confused over women's roles (to be devoted to work or her family?), ignorant about the real issue of gender bias and subjugation of women (women are forced, pressured to work to help provide for the family) and ingrateful to mothers everywhere for their devotion to their family despite that their backs are breaking, assisting their husbands in providing for the family.

Wake up Mukmins! Wake up from the disillusioning darkness of ignorance and walk towards the light of knowledge....