Women in a Qur'anic Society II

Continued from :
2. A DUAL SEX RATHER THAN UNISEX SOCIETY  
Now let us consider the second basic characteristic of the Qur'anic society
which affects the position of women. This is found in the directives for a dual
sex rather than a unisex society. While maintaining the validity of the equal
worth of men and women, the Qur'an does not judge this equality to mean
equivalence or identity of the sexes.  
Probably all of you are familiar with the contemporary move toward unisex
clothes and shoes, unisex jewellery  and hair styles, unisex actions and
entertainments. In fact, it is often difficult in America to decide whether one is
looking at a boy or a girl.  This results from the current notion in Western
society that there is little if any difference between the two sexes in physical,
intellectual and emotional endowment; and that, therefore, there should be no
difference in their functions and roles in society. The dress and the actions are
but superficial evidence  of this deeper conviction. Accompanied by a
downgrading of the qualities and roles traditionally associated with the female
sex, this current idea has generated a  unisex society in which only the male
role is respected and pursued. Although meant to bring a larger measure of
equality for women, the idea that men and women are not only equal, but
equivalent and identical, has actually pushed women into imitating men and
even despising their womanhood. Thus it  is generating a new type of male
chauvinism. Tremendous social pressures have resulted in stripping women of
their role-responsibilities formerly performed by them, and they are forced to
live a life devoid of personality and individuality.  
The society based on the Qur'an is, in  contrast, a dual-sex society in which
both sexes are assigned their special responsibilities. This assures the healthy
functioning of the society for the benefit of all its members. This division of
labour imposes on men more economic responsibilities (2:233, 240-241;
4:34), while women are expected to play their role in childbearing and rearing
(2:233; 7:189). The Qur'an, recognising the importance of this complementary
sexual assignment of roles and responsibilities, alleviates the greater economic
demands made on male members of the population by allotting them a larger
share than women in inheritance. At the same time it grants women the right
to maintenance in exchange for her contribution to the physical and emotional
well being of the family and to the care she provides in the rearing of children.
The unisex ideology generates a competitive relationship between the sexes
which we find in America and which is disastrous for all members of society:
the young; the old; the children; the parents; the single and the married; the
male and the female. The dual-sex society, by contrast, is a more natural
answer to the question of sexual relationships, a plan encouraging cooperation rather than competition between the sexes. It is a plan which has
been found suitable in countless societies through history. Only in very recent
times did the idea of sexual non-differentiation or identity achieve
prominence, and then primarily in the Western society. Even the medical
evidence for mental or emotional difference between the sexes is suppressed
in Western research, for it threatens the prevailing trends of thought. How long
this socially disastrous movement will continue before it is rejected as
bankrupt is not known. But certainly we  as Muslims should  be aware of its