UN: Egypt men, women say okay to beat wife
Mar 1st, 2010 | By Joseph Mayton | Category: Women
CAIRO: There is a pause as the coffee’s boiling comes to a stop. The conversation has turned toward this young man’s wife, who gave birth to their first child late last year. According to Hamdy, an office-boy at a Cairo-based NGO, when he came home from work one evening and saw his wife standing and chatting with their neighbors, he beat her.
“I don’t like to see her talking to our neighbors and I taught her that this is unacceptable,” he said. It is not uncommon for husbands to use physical violence against their spouses and is of growing concern for women’s activists and human rights groups in the country.
According to a recent report issued by the United Nations, the vast majority of Egyptian men view beating their wives as “their right.” The UN’s population council conducted the study of 15,000 young people in governorates across Egypt and discovered 80 percent of men and 67 percent of women agree that husbands are justified in beating their wife if she talks to other men.
It also uncovered what women’s advocates have told Bikya Masr are “scary” statistics. The study said that 8 percent of young men between the ages of 10- and 29-years-old said it was acceptable to beat their wife if she burned food. Some one-third of men surveyed added that they would beat their wives if she argued or refused to have sex with them.
The study also indicated that 73% of the youths did not discuss pubertal changes with their parents.
One comment on the Meedan – a social-networking website that publishes comments and articles in Arabic and English translation – wrote that “this is shameful. Abuse of one’s spouse is never justified.”
Marwa, a 33-year-old mother of two living in Cairo’s upscale Zamalek neighborhood, told Bikya Masr that her husband often slaps her when food is not prepared promptly or when she doesn’t feel like having sex that night.
“Sure, it happens, but he believes it is his right under Islam to do these things and have me obey,” the former American University in Cairo (AUC) journalism graduate said. She added that while she doesn’t necessarily agree with it, “women have to understand that this is the perception of men in our country.”
Despite the widespread prevelance of violence in the home, women’s activists are optimistic that the future will be better and that their effortst to bring change to the country will come “sooner than most people expect.”
Rania Salama, an self-described independent activist who has worked on a number of local campaigns to bring awareness to Egyptian homes, said that she believes through education, both men and women will see that violence is not the answer.
“If we look at recent history across the world, violence had been accepted in the home and at schools, but over time this was eventually seen as detrimental to society and people stopped beating their wives, children and students because it was discovered it didn’t work,” she began. “What needs to happen here in Egypt is a chance for women to leave the situation when their husbands get violent or else there won’t be consequences for their actions.”
She pointed to the fact that in Europe or North America, women have the opportunity to leave their homes if their husbands attack them, for whatever reason, “but here in Egypt, where can a woman go? Her family will likely tell her that she was wrong and has to return. We have to change the stigma or this will continue.”
For Hamdy, beating his wife is “for her own good” and “if I don’t beat her how will she learn how to be a good wife and mother?”
BM
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I find this a disturbing article indeed. Coming from London to Cairo I must say that this is a global and not an Egyptian or specifically Islamic issue. The root of the problem lies with the upbringing of young men and women and with the perception of marriage and roles.
These are changing in the Arab world and in Egypt marriages are more commonly happening between consenting parties which will help the situation a lot. Older generations must not be allowed to continue to peddle the misinformation that Islam allows the beating of the wife. This is untrue and is used as an excuse to justify what can only be seen as abuse.
Islam gives the male partner the right to punish what he deems to be unacceptable behaviour but this criteria must also come from Islam which stresses his need to make his wife happy in the relationship and to act as a generous and caring husband himself. Beating your wife for burning food can not and does not fit within these parameters. Greater awareness in schools would go some way to challenging these old perceptions of the roles of husband and wife to allow future generations to change this horrible trend.
Rania Salama,
“If we look at recent history across the world, violence had been accepted in the home and at schools, but over time ……”
This might make sense if we are going forward, BUT unfortunately we are going backward and it is going to get worse.
Sam Welbeck,
” Beating your wife for burning food can not and does not fit within these parameters….”
Beating anyone, or anything is savagery. We have to use our head in solving problems.
Sam,
Unfortunately, physical abuse is more common among the younger generation than the older generation, as you may notice the examples are in the range of 20 to 30
In the older generation, women and men were much wiser to allow issues to deteriorate to this level, even with arranged marriages or non-consenting marriages, husbands and wives got to learn fast where are the limitations and the boundaries, even if the household environments was more convenient to the male side, a strong verbal exchange was enough to clear most issues, physical abuse was really rear because it was shameful to men in front of their own families, when the issue goes to the larger circle in the family (parents), in those days the concept was totally in reverse , if a men need to slap his wife, it meant that his wife did not respect him
Both physical and verbal abuses are not acceptable and disturbing in Egypt or anywhere else, but if we are trying to look into solving this phenomenon, we must look to the right group, cause and affect.
Mohajer Masry
I have to be frank, i am not at all shocked but really saw these numbers not only coming but increasing.
as Egyptian men sees it as “disciplining their wives” it is their way of naturalizing the situation.
fathers beat up daughters, the same fathers beat up mothers and the daughters go on to be beating by a new man.
Grown up, I heard so many stories of male relatives and fathers hitting their partners and I defy any one who doesn’t know at least a handful of men who abuse their wives.
[...] Masr reports on the shocking answers that Egyptian men and women give when asked, “Is it acceptable to beat your [...]
it’s all about the money honey.
money is empowerment. if i don’t want to take your crap anymore i’ll just pack my bags and leave. these women can’t do that because they can’t provide for themselves. if you can only rely on another to provide for you don’t ever think you’ll be his equal.
the one sure way to secure income is education, and that’s what the women in that country needs: the textbook not the koran. rely more on your brain and less on your “faith”.