Fig & Olive

I was surprised to find myself agreeing with the sentiment that women today don’t need men. I usually subscribe to the notion that men are providers and protectors but as time passes that idea seems increasingly outdated. Most women today work and make their own money, and society —at least in the West, is safe enough for women to walk the streets at night without a guarantee of their demise. Yes, crime still happens —largely perpetuated by men, and women still find themselves in need or at least greatly desirous of, a man supporting them financially during their most vulnerable state (i.e. pregnancy). So yes, it is true, most women can move through the modern Western world financially secure and relatively safe without being married or under the direct protection of male guardianship. 

But that doesn’t express the full extent of women’s relationship with men. When it comes to protection, in the most abstract sense ‘law and order’ is symbolic masculinity, women could not be free to reject direct submission to male leadership if abstract patriarchy —in the form of a society governed by law and order, was not first established. Slightly more concretely; state legislators, law enforcement officers, and firefighters —for example, remain mostly male. For financial security, women are also dependent on men. The world of work had to first be opened up by men to women for women to be freed from depending directly on men (husbands, fathers, etc.) to financially secure themselves. 

Women are taught that they should not depend on men but should instead be financially independent, yet this only shifts dependence on one man -a male family member, to dependence on another -working in spaces mostly controlled by men. It’s not that women are wrong in doing so, sadly many modern men may not be up to the task of providing for and protecting the women in their lives, but we are fooling ourselves if we think we are any less dependent on men today than the housewives of yesteryear. We are simply dependent on a different group of men

In the Quran, God tells us men are “the caretakers of women.” This is ‘prescriptive’ —men in Islam are tasked with the duty of providing for and protecting their women, men alone are obligated to perform jihad, and men are (by and large) seen as the best public leaders for society. But, it may also be ‘descriptive,’ that perhaps this is how the world works. While men may individually fall short in their responsibility to ‘provide and protect’ for ‘their women’ they are still —as a group, fulfilling this role in society. 

Of course, things could change. Women are increasingly starting their own businesses, learning self-defense, and all other means of taking ‘providing and protecting’ into their own hands. Perhaps if we ever fully take on this role for ourselves we can then say we are truly independent from men, though, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. 

Photo by ali abiyar on Unsplash

____

Consider subscribing to our newsletter Afterthoughts for more posts and our weekly newsletter, paid subscriptions help to support our work. Subscribe for a free or paid subscription here. Also, be sure to join our Telegram and follow our Instagram.