[nukkad] Why Muslim women fit into European society faster than men

[Amir 'Ali Mackwani <>]

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--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: hasniessa@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 20:33:55 -0400
Subject: [Batunimurid] Recommended: "Why Muslim women fit into 
                                        European society faster than men"

Headline:  Why Muslim women fit into European society faster than men

Byline:  Jennifer Ehrlich Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 06/07/2004

(BRUSSELS)

When Miriam Bouzid was 9, her parents asked what she wanted to be when 
she grew up. Her answer shocked them: a pilot.

"My mother told me, 'You have a strange way of thinking. That's a man's 
job. You have to choose something else,' " Ms. Bouzid recalls.

Her ambition was foreign to her parents, who had moved to Belgium from 
Morocco in the 1960s as part of a wave of "guest workers" who ended up 
staying. But at 32, Bouzid is only a few flight hours away from 
becoming the first Moroccan-Belgian woman to become a professional 
pilot.

Educated, motivated, and multilingual, she is part of an emerging group 
of young Muslim women who are outpacing their male counterparts in 
making the transition into mainstream European society, the workplace, 
and even political office.

Their success is a hopeful sign that new generations of women may break 
the cycle of unemployment and poverty prevalent among Europe's migrant 
populations. What many find troubling is that young Muslim men are not 
making similar gains.

"Some firms feel that they are a progressive firm if they hire migrant 
women - but not the men," says Rachida Mohout, a Moroccan-Belgian 
teacher in Mechelen, Belgium. "The future is getting better for girls 
who further their education but for boys it is getting worse - they get 
fewer chances in school and in work."

The gender gap in integration begins in the family. In Belgium's 
Turkish and Moroccan Muslim communities, boys typically enjoy relative 
freedom to come and go, while girls are often restricted to the home. 
As a result, girls often study hard - and find themselves on a 
family-approved route to independence, says Christiane Timmerman at the 
University of Antwerp's Research Centre for Equal Opportunities.

"Girls know from that start that if they want more independent living, 
and they want to have a greater role in public life, education is their 
only way out," says Ms. Timmerman. "Boys have all the freedom they want 
in the public sphere so they don't have to do anything to get there."

When boys reach high school, they drop out more frequently amid 
anti-intellectual peer pressure, or shift to vocational schools that 
prepare them for a shrinking number of jobs in Belgium's service 
economy. Their lack of interest may be rooted partly in perceptions of 
young Muslim men as responsible for crime and violence, a view that can 
carry over into treatment at school. Although it is illegal, Ms. Mohout 
says many schools are beginning to reject male Muslim students who are 
perceived as a problem. They are sent into the remedial education 
systems instead.

"There is so much frustration among the boys because they feel they are 
being treated differently from Belgian boys - blamed more often for 
problems and viewed as criminals," says Mohout. "It creates a vicious 
circle."

Muslim girls, while they have more incentive to study, still face 
social and family pressures. Even Bouzid's route to becoming a pilot 
was not direct. At her family's urging, she agreed to an arranged 
marriage at age 16 to a Moroccan man she later learned had married her 
to secure Belgian residency. Bouzid dropped out of school and became an 
assembly-line auto worker. She spent six years mired in Belgian courts 
before getting a divorce, then took adult education classes to finish 
high school and pursue the advanced science degree needed for pilot 
training.

"A lot of it depends on your own attitude - you can't expect presents 
to arrive at your door," says Bouzid. "You have to have a goal in life, 
but if you say, I am Muslim, I wear a headscarf, I will never get 
anywhere, then you really won't."

Still, young migrant women who are friendly, educated, fluent in 
European languages, and not overtly religious, are more easily accepted 
into European schools and workplaces than men. "What makes integration 
more difficult is that Westerners often start with a negative attitude 
towards Mediterranean Muslim men, but the attitude toward women is that 
we pity them," says Timmerman.

In most European countries, ethnic minorities have at least double the 
unemployment rate of natives. As a result, many countries have started 
new migrant integration programs focusing on language and job skills. 
But the current generation of young migrant men who are are out of work 
receives less government attention.


(c) Copyright 2004 The Christian Science Monitor.  All rights reserved. 

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