Do not be narrow-minded and short-sighted: we will need justice and equality together

Women in the Arab world, and especially in some developing countries, have been led to believe that when a woman stands in a queue for any purpose she is served first, and that when a woman is in a car the car is not searched — very few examples, and perhaps that is all that was given to women, while everything in life was taken from them.

Freedom, work, ownership and speech were taken from her; they considered her deficient in mind and religion, a shame and something to be hidden; she is beaten night and day by her husband, her father or her brother, and she was denied living life as a normal human being with full rights. Yet she imagined that being served first in the queue was part of the esteem in which she is held, and forgot that this privilege is given to minors, people with physical disabilities or smaller groups of people.

Then she believed she had reaped all her rights and was distinguished above all other creatures on the planet, and that the world was deprived of these privileges.

She forgot that in the Arab world she is considered a domestic servant and a man's property, and that ownership of her passes from her father to a strange man (for a sum of money) called (the dowry), and this is written on a paper transferring ownership of her, just as consumer goods such as cars and vehicles are sold, and it is called (a contract… ). Then the man who owns her is able to insult her, torture her and kill her under any pretext, because she has become his property like all his other possessions.

In my homeland a woman has become less than a domestic servant: a servant is paid for every effort she makes, she can change her job, she has full rights and freedom to choose her life and her work and to develop herself, she works of her own free will, and no one has the right to insult, torture or kill her.

Whereas the (owned) wife serves in her master's house without pay and has no rights at all; if she wants to do anything she needs the permission of her master and owner (the husband). She is not even allowed to visit her father or mother if they fall ill or die without her husband's permission, according to Islamic law. And after bitter years, if she asks for divorce, she will have to return to her husband all the money spent on her, and all her past efforts are blown away by the wind, because she is owned, exactly like a servant.

Add to this that her husband can replace her, marry another woman and take a second wife over her at any time, while she has no right to object or to discuss the matter.

And if she manages to obtain a divorce she will become homeless on the streets or a social outcast, rejected by her own family, because she freed herself from slavery, while the man is able to carry on with his life without any suffering.

Then they tell her: this is God's justice on earth; accept nothing but justice so that you receive your rights in full, because equality will make you work like a man, carrying stones and building houses, and that means exhaustion and hard labour.

The question here, my sister, is this: do all men work carrying stones and heavy loads, toiling and exhausting themselves, or do many of them work on computers, in hospitals and schools, in planning and management, and as businessmen? This is where justice in work comes in.

When equality between men and women is applied, it means that when job opportunities arise, people are chosen according to each individual's abilities, whether male or female, and work and activities are divided according to each person's experience without discrimination — and that is where justice appears. Equality, on the other hand, is the equality of everyone, male and female, in rights and duties, with no one wronging another and no preference of male over female.

Justice has its places and circumstances, and equality has its places and circumstances.

But if you ask for justice alone, you will be robbed of all your rights in the name of justice; you will be denied freedom, work, education and innovation in the name of justice, and told that these things are men's tasks and not women's. They will tell you that justice means you staying at home to work and raise the children, while the man goes out to work to develop his skills and earn money.

And after a few years you will fall out and choose to separate. He has been promoted to manager, or has gathered money to open his own businesses, and chooses another wife instead of you, and his life goes on in dignity and freedom; while you will go out onto the street unemployed, or back to your family humiliated and degraded, with no experience of life and owning nothing, because you were deceived by justice.

Women in the Arab world and across the world need equality in places like these

and justice in places like these

That is why we need both justice and equality, so do not make us choose, you enemies of freedom and humanity.