Are We Up To The Challenge Analysis

The article by Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons titled Are We Up to The Challenge? focused a great deal on the author’s opinion of the interpretation of Islam in society as well as law. Simmons expressed that the treatment of women in the Middle East as well as the United States. The author, who is an African-American woman who grew up during the civil rights movement compares her experience with white supremacy and the Jim Crow Laws, which were extremely oppressive to the African-American population. Simmons claims that the contortions and justifications for the oppressive, repressive, and exclusionary treatment of women in majority Islamic societies, and even compares the experience to slavery, saying that much like slavery can no longer be justified, the discrimination of women should not be either. She speaks of the importance women played in the civil rights movement in the United States and how important women are to society and the potential they have once no longer suppressed. Additionally, the author practices Islam and states that because of her experiences, she can not accept that she is seen as a second-class human because she is a female. The introduction to and interpretations of Islam which she had was one of justice, truth, beauty, and grace, and religion which is one of justice and equality, and therefore, the injustice which women have been subjected to cannot be rationalized as the will of a God of justice. The author points to men’s incorrect interpretation of the Qur’an and hadith as the reason for anti-women interpretations, which have, according to the author, created later misogynist

Women should fight for the right to education and work outside of the home, women’s rights in marriage and divorce, and custody of children, as well as the right to vote, stand for election, and participate in all spheres of society. She states