Woman in Islam Treated Justly, not Equally

Woman in Islam Treated Justly, not Equally

Islam treats man and woman justly but not equally, as equality does not always mean justice. Let’s take the example of a weak person who can barely carry  40 pounds of wieght  and a strong man  who can  easily carry a hundred pounds of weight. Now asking both; the weak and the strong to carry a 100 pounds is equality but it is extremely unjust as we are making the weak to do something that he is not capable of.

    Man and woman are built differently, and so are their physical and mental capabilities. According to Dr Paul Popenoe, Men are 50 percent stronger than women in brute strength¹. This is why, in Islam, it is the duty of man to support his wife financially, as he is strong, he can go out and work to earn livelihood of his family, while the woman’s main responsibility is bringing up the children and household management, this again does not mean the physical work on her part if the woman of her standing does not engage in physical work (and of course She can also work in all the walks of life which suit her mental and physical capacities).

 Mental capacities of man and woman are also different. All prophets were men according to the majority of Muslim scholars, and those who differ with them at least  agree on the point that the percentage of the woman prophets was very small compared to men prophets. Just as the majority of the great scientists were men. A survey done in UK found that only a fifth of UK economists are female, and only 17.5% percent have made professor. An article posted in the Guardian in 2008 with the title” Where are the books by women with big ideas?”²  suggests the same disparity between the genders. In spite of the fact that the west is the biggest advocate of gender equality, not a single woman has ever been elected to be the president of US till 2012.

   I would like to make clear that I am not trying to prove that men are better than women. I am just trying to prove that they are different, as most of the above mentioned disparities might have been caused by the difference of interests of both genders. Interests  of man are different than those of woman. But this again proves my point that man and woman are different and justice requires to treat them differently as it requires to teat the equals equally.    

 1. Dr. Paul Popenoe, “Are Women Really Different?” Family Life 31, no. 2 (February 1971)

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/oct/27/freakonomics-women-big-ideas