Obstacle: Societal Roles
Societal roles refer to the expected parts that women are expected to play in their cultures. These include but are not limited to the roles of obedient daughter, wife, mother, and in careers, teachers or nurses. Because of these traditional roles, women’s formal schooling can seem culturally unnecessary or redundant due to the homemaking education that women receive in the family environment.
However, it is important to recognize what social traditions and practices exactly influence and continue to perpetuate these social roles. In many Arab societies, once women marry out of the family, they no longer have a financial obligation to their family. This means that the family is no longer expected to support them financially, but in turn, the woman has no obligation to support her family either. The woman becomes dependent and bound to her husband’s family instead. Therefore, parents count on their sons to care for them and support them in old age rather than their daughters. This obviously has financial implications for women’s education: since the woman, once married, will have no financial obligation to her parents, it makes more sense for the parents to invest in the continuing education of their sons (Beatty 9). If the sons have a full education, they will be more likely to have a higher-paying job, and that money will go towards supporting the parents in the future, while the daughters’ wages would support her new family or her husband’s parents (Beatty 10). In this way, parents are obligated to place male education above female education in importance.
However, it must be understood that this traditional societal structure and patriarchal priorities are a strong part of Middle Eastern culture, and not a law or teaching of Islam. In fact:
Islam condones educating women and allows them to participate in politics. The religion of Islam acknowledges that both men and women have the capability and responsibility to learn. According to the Quran, ‘Whosoever performs good deeds, whether male or female and is a believer, we shall surely make him live a good life, and we will certainly reward them for the best of what they did’ (XV1: 97). (Marri 3)
Arab society has held this patriarchal cultural standard since before Islam, with long-dated and pre-Islamic traditions such as female infanticide and genital mutilation, which have persisted despite the equalizing language of the Quran (Marri 2).
Furthermore, it is vital to recognize what social institutions are in place that have both created and perpetuated these social roles. The main reason that parents are primarily concerned with their own welfare in old age is due to the lack of social security or pension programs in their country. Most Middle East countries, with the exception of the rich oil states, are too poor to support such large and expensive social welfare programs for their citizens. Because of this, Arab adults must always think about their own future sources of care and income, since no support or safety net can or will be provided.
This shifts the financial burden of retired parents to the younger members of the family. Because of this, there is a distinct advantage to marrying off daughters as early as possible, and investing extensively in the education and prosperous future of sons. As soon as the daughters are married, they become the financial responsibility of their husbands, and their husband’s family; they are no longer dependent on their own family’s resources. If the family can afford quality and continuing education for their sons, there is a much higher chance of profit to be gained than for daughters, whose employment possibilities are much more limited in Middle Eastern countries. The more educated and profitably-employed sons the parents can ensure to support them, the more secure their own futures will be. In this way, the lack of social security programs and pensions perpetuate social roles that impede women’s education.
