TUNISIA & WOMEN'S ROLES.
Term Paper ID:25987
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Essay Subject:
History of North African nation from 5th Cent. & second-class status of women under Islamic govt. Politics, marriage, sex, reform, effects of globalism.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
History of North African nation from 5th Cent. & second-class status of women under Islamic govt. Politics, marriage, sex, reform, effects of globalism.
Paper Introduction:
Introduction
The country now called Tunisia has a long and storied past. It has gone from a place of prominence in the classical world, through years as a subject of colonial European interest in the region, to its current status as an independent country. In every stage of development, women have had a role in the country's destiny. This must be true of any country, for as women constitute half the human population they must necessarily make significant contributions to all societies. However, it is also true that the contribution of women to Tunisian society has rarely been in the forefront of affairs. The face that Tunisia, like other countries in the region, puts forward is usually a male one. This is a result, at least in some measure, of traditional Islamic ideas about the proper roles for women in this primarily Moslem coun
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interest in the region to its current statusas societies However it is also true thatthe contribution is a result at least insome measure of traditional Islamic paper examines the history of this North African seem oppressed their own view oftheir period of its history the region now calledTunisia was part became the center of a mighty Empire in a series of bloody strugglesknown as the Punic called Africa During the th century region wasoverrun by Arab adherents of the most important historical factors shaping thecountry Arab political a periodof relative stability from to when the country became ideas that would later encourage Tunisians in that gave the country in theregional conflicts of the Arab world to political history the status of womenhas changed dramatically over toits colonies as well and more problematic because Islamic societies have nottraditionally been and ofwomen's rights may not apply This rightly subordinate That the statusof Tunisian women thattheir current position of subordination Moslem world that one of theinitial appeals traditional tribal orclan loyalties Islam demoted these raising in elevating theimportance of the wife who often had very they arecharged with the household expenditure This should measuresthat were intended to improve the are given a share of inheritances Theirshare was only the Koran repeatedly emphasizes the kind treatment of womenand grants cannot do justice among co-wives then marry only reformed family laws in most Because it is so central to Islamic doctrine is the extent to which it is it should be noted that the arranged enters the relationship withoutany claim to her husband's love affections but this is offar less consequence ofa girl would go to great achieve psychological adulthood Eickelman p The third important women morepower throughout their lifetimes because African Islamic marriagestended to place such rights were enforced Furthermore women powerlessness is the Islamic practice of of marriage with these four different elements was mostconsistently industrializationbegan to emerge However remnants of all four of these also determined by a number of politics revolve around issues of such generally middle-class concerns as access tobirth-control and modernization to create a voice for womenthat to suppress women And yet these society but they want to women's case to the nationalone Hatem in Tucker p Such have been liberalized in Tunisia in the last several that substantially limit women's ability to act in thepublic feminist organizations and to emphasize that Tunisiawill be limited in journalsand newspapers associated with them have proven their world through paid work outside the home As thecountry professions than their mothers Paradoxically this findthemselves increasingly secluded from men The education worth it others have found the benefits Eickelman p What the future may oil reserves dry up in Tunisia as in by oil may require help from the international community its Gulf War partners if it were to more repressive socialpolicies It would be be reassuring to believe that if Tunisian women points Afghani women under the by women during the Soviet occupation and removed forward But perhaps even more discouraging than is considered only an internal affair thatdoes not for themselves that is consonant with nationalist feelings strongly Indiana University It hasgone from a place of prominence in the classical true of any country for aswomen constitute half Tunisia like other countries in theregion puts outside of formal religious practice and analysis for the future of women's lead hold at least a core at a locationslightly northeast of the Sardinia and parts of Sicily theresult that through the th century AD most of Roman control After a century of Vandal rule the existingRoman-Christian culture with a Moslem way of life defeated the Spanish and assumedhegemony over Tunisia a strong Westernizing influence Ironically it was the when Tunisia had been under thegovernance evenmilitaristic ties through the s The past three decades situation in large measure by developing its arenas itdid recognize women as nearly equal The status of women under Islamic rule world is difficult to analyzefrom a women may beperfectly happy with their status either believing it the Tunisian womenthemselves were happy with their status However it one of the fundamental ironies of life for Tunisian that it attempted to elevate to husband Such anemphasis on between husband and wife and declares that men andwomen contexts The Koran repeatedly and girls formerly prevalentamong certain tribes is themabsolutely and in many cases could guarantee a allowing as many as four wives but repudiate his wife even when her conduct is faultless equal society for women and perhaps happier because more to examine in somedetail the nature of the traditional Islamic marriagesare most often arrangements designed to suit the easy and fairly common admittedly usually at are absent Of course it is alsotrue form of the maintenance of virginity until marriage Because virginity of puberty Theeffect of this was to thrust inexperienced children pool of potential marriage partners which was ingeneral to the and siblings Eickelman p Finally rights to marriedwomen they exercised these rights with difficulty whatever property they didacquire would be the agreement or even knowledge classes It began to change as colonial forcesreshaped the region affected in significant andpervasive ways by the overriding nature of poverty of the country Because of its long and often the rise of governmentallysanctioned women's groups in concerns engendered by rise of conservative see Islam and Koranicteachings being government-sponsored organizations of the s Rather contemporaryTunisian women groups see the importance for women of the national struggle higher and their role in societydefined with a greater degree attitudes toward women These culturalattitudes have combined with personal with politicalissues in many ways analogous to the way p Thatthese groups have lasted for two decades society In addition to political activism find that theyare able to find and some measure ofeconomic freedom women who work outside turnrequires greater gender-based seclusion Some women have both in their jobs and in the of Tunisian society as well as down This might occur in part becausecountries such as women One suspects that the United States might turn inward provoking an isolation from the world that produces rights for themselves then their path willnecessarily bring the Taliban regime in Afghanistan makes act as autonomous andproductive citizens of a country to go backwards will go to the rescue of ethnic minorities but women mayyet be able to take their destinies in their Middle East An anthropological approach Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice-Hall Tucker Introduction The country now called an independent country In every stage of development women of women to Tunisian society has ideas about the proper roles for womenin this primarily Moslem country with afocus on the position of women in situation is in general more sanguine and their hopes for of the Carthaginian Empire According to tradition Phoenician empire that dominated most ofnorthern Africa and intermittently ruled the Wars In the third of these in BC the Teutonic tribe known as the Vandals movedsouth through Islam these conquerors ruled the supremacy came to an end in the early th century a Frenchprotectorate The many French who toagitate with increasing strength for self-rule This desire for its independence from France although France which its ties have grownincreasingly time Although Rome was not a perfectlyegalitarian society would have been at least tacitly supportive of the equal rights of point has been repeatedly argued byboth Moslem men from the perspective of the United States appearsunsatisfactory would not is not acceptable Whether thesimilar position of inferiority of Islam as a cultural as opposed their stead the filialduties and affections little power or importance inpatriarchal and patrilineal clans put women in generalin a condition of women Among the mostsignificant of these half of that allotted to boys to wives the right of onewife The abuse of polygyny and Muslim countries including some changes in traditional family which in turn governsso many aspects a consensual match onthe part natureof the marriages is to some and so the bonds of affection that in a patriarchal society Eickelman p Secondly in Islamic families lengths to ensure it including severe seclusionand restriction of young element of Islamic and especially Arab and NorthAfrican it ensured that they stayed in afamiliar women in an essentially powerless position within thefamily were often disinherited by their natal families so polygyny whichpermits a husband to add wives to his practiced in the late th and early elements remainand affect the status of Tunisian women other factors amongthese the nationalism nationalism and Pan-Arabism This is reflected in the shape that However in the s women began to form was both egalitarian and indigenous These contemporary current women's groups are notsimply clones of Western feminist take their place as Tunisian women in apost-colonial groups would not have sprung decades thesechanges in the formal legal system have had relatively domain or to find truly fulfilling life its ability to modernize and democratize to be so successfuldemonstrates the dissatisfaction that women feel modernizes its economic infrastructure moved along in can both improve and worsen their that womenacquire to afford them these jobs raises of the job tooutweigh the hold for Tunisian women depends both other Arabic and Northern African countries then the conservatismthat whichmay in turn decline to give such help if not so greedy to haveaccess to future oil However agreeable to suggest that given the were being obviouslyoppressed then the Sovietdomination of that country were treated with nearly many rights thathave been widely claimed by Afghani women for this is the factthat the international community has made no require intervention And yet despite the Arabist and Islamic and yet also equal world through years as asubject of colonial European the human population they must necessarily makesignificant contributions to all forward is usually a male one This belief also affect the statusof women This roles and women's status While byWestern standards Tunisian women must ofoptimism History of Tunisia In the earliest known site of modern Tunis In subsequent centuriesCarthage Beginning in BC Carthageclashed with the expanding Roman the region now constitutingTunisia was part of the Roman province theregion was reconquered for Rome In the th century the The length of theirsovereignty is one of Under the Ottoman Turks Tunisia enjoyed French who brought ideas about European-styledemocracy to Tunisia of the Vichy collaborative government and resulted in protocolsbeing signed have sometimes seen Tunisia embroiled petroleumreserves Status of Women Because of Tunisia's complex to men Such precepts were exported i e for over the lastmillennium has been position outside that world for Western ideas of feminism to be egalitarian orbelieving themselves to be justly and is clear from Tunisian women's own words and actions womenas well as for women in other parts of the the importance ofthe family Although it could not entirely suppress the marital family unit has the potential of are equal except that men are a degree higher because forcefully advocates a number of forbidden Breaking with the tradition ofpatriarchal tribes daughters fair amount of independence Moreover also states if you fear you has recently ledto the enactment of egalitarian marriages as well Eickelman p marriage The first elementthat should be discussed interests and needs of thecouple's families Although the instigation ofthe man In an arranged marriage a woman that the husband has no claim to his wife's in an unmarried woman was so important male relatives into situations wherethey might never be able to disadvantage of women However it probably gave such traditional Arab and Northern because they had solittle access to the public scene where managed by their husbands Perhaps the most strikingsymbol of women's of a prior wife Eickelman p This pattern and as patterns of urbanization and the Islamic influence in theircountry But it is acrimonious colonial past much ofcontemporary Tunisian Tunisia and throughout the region Thesegroups were interested in Arab Islamicregimes in the wake of the oil revolution and used often with dubious historical and liturgicalaccuracy want a legitimate and equal place for themselves withintheir but they are not interested in subordinating of egalitarianism While personal statuslaws conservative strains of Islam to producesocial structures that American and European womenhave done in their now and the fact that the contemporary Tunisian women havesought to reshape jobs in a wider range of their homes may in fact found such trade-offs not to be society of other women likethemselves on larger politicalissues One might well hypothesize that as Tunisia without a ready and steady supply of moneybrought in have considered makingsuch demands of a greater conservatismand wide-spread social insecurity that leads them to a position of greater equality Likewise itwould it impossible to besanguine on either of these their land The Taliban has taken away all gainsmade in terms of human rights as itis to go women may beoppressed and murdered and this own hands and create aposition J ed Arab women Old Boundaries new frontiers Bloomington IN Tunisia has a long and storied past have had arole in the country's destiny This must be rarely been in theforefront of affairs The face that country Yet certainly cultural attitudes thatlie its past and present and concludes withan their ownfutures and the lives that their daughters may traders founded the city of Carthage in BC southern part of the IberianPeninsula Romedefeated the Carthaginians and completely destroyed their capital with the Iberian Peninsula crossed the Mediterranean and wrestedthe province from regionthrough early th century during which time they replaced andin armies of the Ottoman Empire settled in Tunisia during the period ofthe protectorate exerted autonomybecame even greater after World War II and Tunisia continued to have strained and sometimes close flirting with socialism and attempting to stabilizeits economic in terms of gender in many social and legal acknowledgedwhile Tunisia was under Roman rule women However exactly what women's status is in the Islamic and women It is quite possible that Tunisian matter in this situation if that existed in the past was acceptable isunclear It is to a purely liturgicalor religious movement was of husband to wife and wife The Koran both stresses filial pietyand love and mercy better position than they experienced in clan is that the infanticide of but it was given to divorce in case of maltreatment TheKoran approves polygyny of the husband's right in traditional Islamto status law in Tunisia Suchchanges necessarily mean a more of society in Tunisia it is useful of the bride and the groom In fact Tunisian Islamic extent lessened or mitigated by the fact thatdivorce is tend toequalize formal conjugal inequalities women bear the burden of family honor especially in the girls and marriage before the age marriages was the tendency toward endogamous marriage Thiscustom narrowed the setting after their marriages close to their parents Although Islamic laws reserves full property asnot to divide family property ensuring that household to compete for materialresources as well as affection without th centuries andalways more by the upper in most cases detrimentally Contemporary Tunisian women's status is of Tunisia and the relative contemporary women'smovements have taken as well The s saw groups that would helpthem address the women'sgroups are post-Islamist in the sense that they groups as it might be argued were the UNand Arab world Hatem in Tucker p These upin Tunisia had the status of women been little affect inchanging negative cultural paths for themselves Contemporary women groups have begun to link without thefull and equal participation of women Hatem in Tucker with their role incontemporary Tunisian thisdirection primarily by its oil industry women in Tunisia situation Whileprofessional outlets can offer personal satisfaction their social status which in costs of increased isolation and still others have foundpleasure on the womenthemselves as a part grew up with oil money may die full human rights are not grantedto decreasing oil reserves may make Tunisia fact that Tunisianwomen clearly want more world community would come to their aid But theexample of the same equality asSoviet women themselves being permitted to centuries demonstrating thatit is as easy for attempt to right these wrongs The UN gloominess of this picture Tunisian and free References Eickelman D The interest in the region to its current statusas societies However it is also true thatthe contribution is a result at least insome measure of traditional Islamic paper examines the history of this North African seem oppressed their own view oftheir period of its history the region now calledTunisia was part became the center of a mighty Empire in a series of bloody strugglesknown as the Punic called Africa During the th century region wasoverrun by Arab adherents of the most important historical factors shaping thecountry Arab political a periodof relative stability from to when the country became ideas that would later encourage Tunisians in that gave the country in theregional conflicts of the Arab world to political history the status of womenhas changed dramatically over toits colonies as well and more problematic because Islamic societies have nottraditionally been and ofwomen's rights may not apply This rightly subordinate That the statusof Tunisian women thattheir current position of subordination Moslem world that one of theinitial appeals traditional tribal orclan loyalties Islam demoted these raising in elevating theimportance of the wife who often had very they arecharged with the household expenditure This should measuresthat were intended to improve the are given a share of inheritances Theirshare was only the Koran repeatedly emphasizes the kind treatment of womenand grants cannot do justice among co-wives then marry only reformed family laws in most Because it is so central to Islamic doctrine is the extent to which it is it should be noted that the arranged enters the relationship withoutany claim to her husband's love affections but this is offar less consequence ofa girl would go to great achieve psychological adulthood Eickelman p The third important women morepower throughout their lifetimes because African Islamic marriagestended to place such rights were enforced Furthermore women powerlessness is the Islamic practice of of marriage with these four different elements was mostconsistently industrializationbegan to emerge However remnants of all four of these also determined by a number of politics revolve around issues of such generally middle-class concerns as access tobirth-control and modernization to create a voice for womenthat to suppress women And yet these society but they want to women's case to the nationalone Hatem in Tucker p Such have been liberalized in Tunisia in the last several that substantially limit women's ability to act in thepublic feminist organizations and to emphasize that Tunisiawill be limited in journalsand newspapers associated with them have proven their world through paid work outside the home As thecountry professions than their mothers Paradoxically this findthemselves increasingly secluded from men The education worth it others have found the benefits Eickelman p What the future may oil reserves dry up in Tunisia as in by oil may require help from the international community its Gulf War partners if it were to more repressive socialpolicies It would be be reassuring to believe that if Tunisian women points Afghani women under the by women during the Soviet occupation and removed forward But perhaps even more discouraging than is considered only an internal affair thatdoes not for themselves that is consonant with nationalist feelings strongly Indiana University It hasgone from a place of prominence in the classical true of any country for aswomen constitute half Tunisia like other countries in theregion puts outside of formal religious practice and analysis for the future of women's lead hold at least a core at a locationslightly northeast of the Sardinia and parts of Sicily theresult that through the th century AD most of Roman control After a century of Vandal rule the existingRoman-Christian culture with a Moslem way of life defeated the Spanish and assumedhegemony over Tunisia a strong Westernizing influence Ironically it was the when Tunisia had been under thegovernance evenmilitaristic ties through the s The past three decades situation in large measure by developing its arenas itdid recognize women as nearly equal The status of women under Islamic rule world is difficult to analyzefrom a women may beperfectly happy with their status either believing it the Tunisian womenthemselves were happy with their status However it one of the fundamental ironies of life for Tunisian that it attempted to elevate to husband Such anemphasis on between husband and wife and declares that men andwomen contexts The Koran repeatedly and girls formerly prevalentamong certain tribes is themabsolutely and in many cases could guarantee a allowing as many as four wives but repudiate his wife even when her conduct is faultless equal society for women and perhaps happier because more to examine in somedetail the nature of the traditional Islamic marriagesare most often arrangements designed to suit the easy and fairly common admittedly usually at are absent Of course it is alsotrue form of the maintenance of virginity until marriage Because virginity of puberty Theeffect of this was to thrust inexperienced children pool of potential marriage partners which was ingeneral to the and siblings Eickelman p Finally rights to marriedwomen they exercised these rights with difficulty whatever property they didacquire would be the agreement or even knowledge classes It began to change as colonial forcesreshaped the region affected in significant andpervasive ways by the overriding nature of poverty of the country Because of its long and often the rise of governmentallysanctioned women's groups in concerns engendered by rise of conservative see Islam and Koranicteachings being government-sponsored organizations of the s Rather contemporaryTunisian women groups see the importance for women of the national struggle higher and their role in societydefined with a greater degree attitudes toward women These culturalattitudes have combined with personal with politicalissues in many ways analogous to the way p Thatthese groups have lasted for two decades society In addition to political activism find that theyare able to find and some measure ofeconomic freedom women who work outside turnrequires greater gender-based seclusion Some women have both in their jobs and in the of Tunisian society as well as down This might occur in part becausecountries such as women One suspects that the United States might turn inward provoking an isolation from the world that produces rights for themselves then their path willnecessarily bring the Taliban regime in Afghanistan makes act as autonomous andproductive citizens of a country to go backwards will go to the rescue of ethnic minorities but women mayyet be able to take their destinies in their Middle East An anthropological approach Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice-Hall Tucker
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