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WOMEN IN ISLAMIC SOCIETY The fate of women in Islamic society is not an easy one, says Laila Abou-Saif, an Egyption scholar, dramatist and filmmaker. Ms. Saif, during a visit to New York last November, said that she as a feminist had been attacked in print, reviled in public and stripped of her small theater in Cairo for openly expressing her views of women’s rights. She has also been an active and out spoken critic of the Khomeini regime’s treatment of women in Iran. She feels that of all Islamic societies, Egypt has given women the most rights and freedoms. This past year, for example, the Sadat government reformed Egyptian marriage laws by ending the practice of ’’house arrest” for disobedient wives and making it harder for a man to divorce a women in absentia, without providing for her economic future. And President Sadat has personally and publicly criticized Iran for bringing back the wearing of the chador, or veil, by Egyptian women. But even in relatively ’’liberal” Egypt, Ms. Abou-Saif said, there seems to be a revival of religious fundamen talism and social reaction, encouraged by the example of Iran. University women are now voluntarily wearing the veil, in certain instances. In 1978, Ms. Abou-Saif made a documentary film about a cross-section of women of Egypt called ”l Want My Freedom”. The film dealt with an old woman who remembered being among the first to take off her veil, a judge who had risen to near the top of her profession, and a poor woman brought to a rural court by her husband to be charged with offenses she didn’t understand. Her personal history is an interesting one. Ms. Abou-Saif was born into a professional family of the minority Coptic Christian sect in Cairo — her father was a doctor and Egypt’s first specialist in radiology — and she was educated at Egyptian and American universi ties. Now a tenured professor of drama at Cairo University, she is 38 years old and divorced. She says that living alone, she is the object of scandal and rumors, as a woman should not live alone in ’’good Egyptian society.” The return to traditional Islamic restrictions on women — such as the wearing of the veil — concerns her, as it seems to be self-imposed by women, influenced largely be events in Iran. It is a particularly unfortunate time for such a regression to occur, because according to Ms. Abou-Saif attention had just begun to focus on the needs of women; such as birth control, protection under the law, education and an end to the practice of female circumcision. Now they seem to be looking back, not ahead. Her activism has a high price. Upon returning from an international women’s march against the chador (veil) in Teheran, she was the object of a bitter personal attack in one of Egypt’s most influential magazines. She sued the author for libel and won. The Egyptian Cultural Ministry withdrew support for a small theater she had started in Cairo, an action which she feels was connected with her support for stronger women’s rights. She visited Iran in order to learn why young people there had turned to the strictest strain of Islam, as well as to protest what that movement had done to inhibit the lives of women. In Iran, the women said they wear the chador as a symbol against the Shah. ’’When I pointed out that the Shah was no longer there, they said the covering of the body protects them from becoming sex objects. I feel that when you hide your face, you annul your person, you cancel out your personality. I understand the need to identify with their history, their tradition. But the men are wearing whatever they like. Can’t men and women work as co-equals? Why does the symbolism always have to fall on the backs of the women?” Women who write about women’s rights in Libya, Algeria, or other Islamic countries soon find it is impossible to continue to work and live in their own countries — the reaction to their views is too strong. They must move to Europe or elsewhere. ’’Especially since Iran, Ms. Abou-Saif said, Iran has changed everything.” (Adapted from ”A Feminist’s Trials in an Islamic Society”, by Barbara Crossette, New York Times, Nov. 19, 1979) Opening on February 21, 1981 will be an exhibit of “Rushnyky-Jkranan Ritual Cloths” which will feature one of the oldest types of textiles associated with Ukrainian rites and customs. The exhibit will consist of fifty one rushnyky, dating from 1900-1940, from western, central and northern Ukraine. Rushnyky belong to one of the oldest groups of objects which have survived and gained a new decorative function. The equivalent of the rushnyk is commonly found not only in other Slavic countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, but also in the Jewish and Islamic traditions. In the latter it is called a mandil. RUSHNYKY-UKRAINIAN RITUAL CLOTHS Rushnyky are beautifully embroidered or woven cloths averaging from 39-107 inches in length and 14-18 inches in width. They played an important role in Ukrainian rituals, especially in the rites of passage such as weddings and funerals and in the holiday customs of Christmas and Easter. The most common decorative motifs found on rushnyk are the tree of life, birds, two headed eagles, figures of women, stylized flowers, and various geometric patterns. Rushnyky were prepared by every young woman as part of her dowry to be used on various occasions. One particularly interesting custom involved the bride-
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