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282chapter fivethat the text compares boys with girls, and not girls with boys. Andif boys are compared to girls and found wanting (‘males are different’),preference is, implied by such a negative reading, given to thoseto whom boys cannot be compared (the girls!). Note that we havementioned a similar case of God’s preference in our discussion ofinheritance laws, by which the shares of the male heirs are alwaysdetermined by the shares of the female heirs.In the past, life was characterised by hard work and physicallabour. This meant that, at least in terms of public presence, menhad an advantage over women. Because of such physical superiorityand public dominance, al-rij§l and qiw§ma were naturally associatedwith men. However, things have changed and technological progresshas wiped out the advantage that physical labour once had over whatused to be considered ‘soft’ work: education, administration, service,and intellectual and creative activities. Women are now not onlyactive in almost all branches of industry, commerce, and agriculture,they have also taken up leading positions in politics and in the city’sboardrooms. Moreover, data from medical and educational researchshow that we can once and for all discard the myth that women arebiologically and intellectually disadvantaged: women live longer thanmen, suffer less often from heart diseases, and girls do better inalmost all school and university exams.As for guardianship on the level of the family, research has shownthat children are happier if both parents do the housework together,if they show kindness and respect to each other, and if at least oneparent is willing to put in the hard work, to show a high degree offamily commitment, and to provide strong leadership. And yet, noteveryone is willing or able to take on the same amount of responsibilitybecause some are naturally better than others in organisingfamily life. In some families there are strong husbands who providethe necessary leadership, in others it will be the wife who takes upthis role. And if both have strong personalities and high social andemotional competence, they will, following the principle of equivalence,make their decisions together. We therefore interpret ‘guardians’as follows: Those who have strength, competence, and power(male or female) who will provide leadership to ‘those who followthem’ or ‘those who come after them’ ( al-nis§") in terms of abilityand competence (male or female). God gave more to those who