Values of Progress, Modernity, Democracy, Freedoms, belonging to humanity, belief in pluralism, cultural tolerance, otherness, culture of peace, refusal of all forms of fanatism or discrimination. These are the corner stones of my writings and lectures. These purposes can not be served unless we all feel most ashamed of the manner "Women" were/are treated in many societies, where they are/were banned (to a shameful degree) from most of their human rights. The "Man Dominated Culture" is disgraceful to mankind. If men apologize to women for 1000 years, this will be "insufficient". In the shade of above I wrote my article "Women And Progress" that was first published at "Al- Ahram" on 15th August 2003 (in Arabic). Only recently I found time to translate into English. It might sound "a given" to some westerns, but in the Middle East (and elsewhere) we need thousand voices/wills to cause the required crack in the prevailing medieval masculine culture.

T. H.
29th October, 2003

Women & Progress

Although my writings have covered a wide range of subjects since my first book was published in 1978, the central theme that links them all together is the issue of progress. The seemingly unrelated topics to which I have devoted numerous articles in various publications and entire chapters in my books, ranging from educational development, to the need to adopt modern management techniques in all fields, to defects in our thought processes, are all tributaries of a single river flowing in the same direction: towards defining the elements of progress and removing the obstacles impeding its achievement.

One of the most important indicators of a society's progress is the status it accords to women and how they are perceived in the prevailing cultural climate. Indeed, that is perhaps one of the most accurate ways of measuring the extent of a society's progress or backwardness. I have for long championed the cause of equal rights for women, not only because I firmly believe they are -at least- equal to men in all aspects of life, but also because a society that subordinates women to men cannot hope to make any headway on the path to progress. The institutionalized concept of male superiority, the so-called machismo ethos, works not only against the interests of women as a group but of society as a whole. In other words, the worst thing about male chauvinism is not that it is reactionary and completely out of step with the spirit of the age, or even that it is at odds with basic human rights, but that it is an insurmountable obstacle in the way of progress.

I have no doubt whatsoever that male chauvinism grows from the seeds of male insecurity. A confident man who believes in himself, his intellect, his abilities and with a strong sense of self does not need to assert his superiority over women. The experience of dealing with thousands of young men has taught me that the more modest their capabilities, the more insistent they are on clinging to the chauvinistic culture that relegates women to a lower status than men. It is understandable: those who fail at the public level have nothing left but to assert themselves artificially in their little private domain.
Strangely enough, the generations that grew up in the fifties and sixties, like myself, are more progressive on this issue than later generations. Several factors have contributed to this phenomenon. One is the spread of reactionary interpretations of religious teachings, another is the more high-profile role that was coming to be assumed by women. With more and more women receiving an education and participating in the workforce, the myth of male superiority was effectively shattered. To compensate for this blow to their self-esteem, many young men sought refuge in a kind of mythical victory, invoking their innate superiority on no other grounds than their gender (how easy it is to find texts promoting the notion of male superiority, a notion that flies in the face of science, reason, culture, humanity, and civilization.)

As previously mentioned, many years spent closely observing the attitude to women among the men I worked with confirmed the existence of an inverse relationship between a man's lack of self-confidence and his willingness to accept that women are equal to him in all respects, and that, indeed, in some respects they rank higher. For if women are men's equals as human beings, their value surpasses that of men in certain areas, notably as mothers, the first teachers of humankind.

Some of the proponents of the male-superiority theory use specious arguments to back their claim that women are somehow inferior to men, often citing religious texts to justify their position. But there are always other texts that assert the full humanity of women and the equality of both sexes. At the end of the day, any text, even if it is divine, requires a human agency to interpret it, and the real test is how the mind elects to deal with it. Thus the source for the notion of male superiority is not, as some people claim, religion, but the stages of human history in general and of tribal/Bedouin history in particular when civilization and humanistic values were at a low ebb. There is no greater proof that the issue has nothing to do with religion than that none of the proponents of this chauvinistic approach care to underscore some of the aspects of the first marriage entered into by the prophet of Islam. Not only was it exemplary in terms of the equal humanity of both partners, but in many other aspects, like the wife having the right of divorce and the husband not taking a second wife. But the reactionary chauvinists choose not to see these examples or not to bring them to light, as if they never were.

The first person in history to receive the Nobel Prize more than once was Madam Curie. That alone is enough to silence those who claim men are superior to women, and it is far from being the only instance of public recognition of a woman's excellent achievements. But diehard male chauvinists dismiss the argument that brilliant women like Madame Curie, who are light years ahead of them in intelligence, knowledge and success, testify to the fallacy of the male superiority theory, and claim that such women are exceptions that confirm the rule. In fact, the only reason women were not allowed to realize their full potential earlier is that for centuries they were subjugated by men, who then claimed they were unfit to take part in, let alone win, the race. My experience as the CEO of a giant multinational corporation employing thousands of men and women proved to me not only that male staff members were in no way superior to their female colleagues, either in education, performance, management or leadership qualities, but that, if anything, the opposite was true. Possibly because they were driven by a sense of challenge and the desire to prove themselves, women often proved to be superior in many ways.

Last year, the first female judge was appointed to Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court. This is an important step in the right direction, but needs to be followed up. The appointment of women to all levels of the judicial system is the only way to end what is an affront to the norms of civilized behaviour. If we start the process now, in twenty years' time we can have a judicial system comprised of 50% women. This is a natural state of affairs that should prevail in all aspects of life. A society that restricts important positions to men uses up only half its potential in the way of intelligence, performance, productivity and education; it is a society running on half steam. Not surprisingly, a society that does not make full use of all its assets remains in a state of underdevelopment, for how can a person run on one foot?

Women's organizations have worked and continue to work tirelessly to promote the status of women in society. Yet they are required to do even more, to set in place a comprehensive plan designed to put an end to the reactionary male chauvinist culture dominating our society - in the family, in education, in religious institutions and in the media. A campaign should be launched to drive home the point that the only source of a man's blind belief in his innate superiority over the opposite sex is a tremendous lack of self-confidence. Free people like to deal with free people and the opposite is true. The only men I hear propounding outlandish theories about their superiority over women and the inability of women to hold leadership positions are frustrated men who are themselves devoid of any qualities of leadership or elements of superiority.

Any society that views women as unequal to men contrives to find references and 'evidence' to support its perception, although the attitude has no religious or legal basis, but is a purely cultural phenomenon. It follows that the more developed a society's educational/cultural environment, the less inclined its members are to subscribe to the primitive belief that a person's worth is determined by gender. In a developed society, people no longer need to ask a question that is reactionary by its very nature, namely, are women equal to men? There are clear examples that prove that the issue in its entirety is a cultural one. Despite the existence of Qur'anic texts enjoining men to release a wife who no longer wishes to continue the marital relationship, and prohibiting them from keeping her against her will just to hurt her, the legal system has for many years provided men with a legal device that allows them to do the exact opposite: the infamous beit el ta'a, whose only purpose is to enable a man to hold his wife against her will, and to hurt her, both psychologically and financially. This is a flagrant example that epitomizes the backward attitudes prevailing today, in total disregard of several sources that could have been interpreted progressively in the context of a more enlightened cultural environment. Although the system of beit el ta'a was a disgraceful legal, social, and cultural travesty, when the government enacted the khul'a law, empowering women to exercise a human right that no fair-minded person can oppose, it stuck in the throats of thousands of our men. How could the law deprive them of a tool of brutal injustice that was in their hands? If they had a reasonable amount of self-confidence, this long overdue legal development, which represents a very important step forward, would not have bothered them at all. One can only wonder how a man who wants the law to help him keep his wife locked in a marriage against her will can reconcile his attitude with such values as manliness, chivalry and honour. The long and glorious history of Arab male chivalry, decency and pride is rendered meaningless when one man keeps his wife in a marital relationship which she does not want. The issue is also indicative of a state of cultural rot when thousands of young men and women are completely opposed to the idea of granting women the right to divorce, even though it was a right held by the first wife of the prophet himself.

One of the most shocking aspects of the male supremacist mentality that has taken hold in some societies is that it is not, as might have been supposed, confined to the male segment of the population. Although men are its source and beneficiaries, the myth is embraced wholeheartedly by many girls and women, who raise their children to accept without question propositions that run counter to all contemporary values of progress, science and civilization.

The issue is addressed in greater detail in my forthcoming book, currently being prepared for publication. Entitled The Tragedy of Women in our Contemporary Reality, it talks of the impossibility of liberating women from the yoke of the male supremacist culture, which is a form of slavery, unless women themselves are at the vanguard of a movement to change societal attitudes in line with the requirements of the age, to replace the reactionary view of women as inferior beings with a view that accepts them as equal to men in all respects. More, they should promote the notion that although they constitute half the population, their actual value, as mothers, is far greater than their numerical weight. It is tragic that in this day and age, when the advanced world is concerned with knowledge, development, civil liberties and human rights, we should still be asking the shameful question: Are women equal to men?