A topic
that changes according the culture is the women’s role, that is, the thing that
are assigned for the women for the only reason of being a woman. Two different visions
are the vision of the Arabic culture and the vision of the Latin culture. The
first one has a strong influence of the Islamic religion, and the second one
has had an important influence of the Catholic religion, although this is now
in decline in some Latin-American countries. One point in common of the two
religions is the domination that these exercise on the women, but the level of
domination is different.
The first
and evident difference is the vestment, although in the Latin culture exist
certain rules, these are more ‘’moral’’ with a social punishment, in the Arabic
culture the women can receive physical punishment for violating dress rules,
the latin woman is a slave of the stereotype, but her punishment is her own
mental punishment and the social punishment.
Another
difference is in the intensity of the ‘’private role’’, while the latin women
is still considered like a ‘’housewife’’, with a welfare rol, putting always
first the mother and the wife rol, in some countries more than in others, the
importance of the female figure in the work force is growing, the occidental
and more specifically the latin woman has an opportunity to stay in the public
space, in the ‘’decisions space’’, the space generally reserved for men, but
always conserving her ‘’private rol’’. In the Arabic culture this point is
different because the women has more restrictions to enter in the public role,
the vision of the women like a ‘’assistant’’ is stronger, the public role is
always a men role, and women has to do their privates works.
Other
difference is the sexual freedom, although in Latin-American still exists moral
thoughts related to Catholic religion about the women sexual freedom,
they can have a greater sovereignty of
their bodies, and the punishment, just like in the vestment thing is social. In
the Arabic culture the women is property of the men, they can receive severe
punishments only for exercise sovereignty of their bodies, they have to conserve
their virginity until the marriage or they can have very big problems, in the
latin culture this point is only social.
In my
opinion the religions exercise a very bad domination on the women and are the responsible
of the patriarchal system of domination and the lower positioning of the woman,
and these things generate all kinds of violence against women. While the Islam
and the Catholicism exercise different levels of domination, both are a
domination.
