Islams Reformers

y saying, “Life is in common,” will mean for men to shake women
off their protection by saying, “Look after yourselves,” which is
thoroughly against women.
If the statement, “Life is in common,” means, as the religion
reformers defend it, for women to help with the burden of earning,
with which men are loaded, they might as well render this help
inside the house. Many of the society families have servants in
their houses. Like men, women also have their dresses made by
tailors. What is more surprising is that, in the houses of the society
women, cooking, looking after the children and almost all the
housework are done by servants. Thus, the woman’s own earnings
cannot even afford the expenses of her own ornaments, cosmetics,
perfumes and hair-dresser’s and the servant’s wages. The burden
of subsistence still remains on the man’s shoulders.
It is seen everywhere in what a miserable and pitiable situation
the women who share the burden of subsistence are if they are too
ugly to be looked at on the face. The beauty of the girls who rely
on their beauty and who try to be pretty decreases as they get
older, and especilly the skin of those women who use powder, lipstick
and rouge become uglier being worn away by friction day by
day. When they do not use rouge, their faces become wrinkled,
ugly like tripe. Therefore, when they get up every morning, they
have to make their toilet and make up for hours in front of the
mirror. On a winter morning, as I was riding the tramcar in the
twilight, I saw a dustwoman sweep the snow on the ground. I was
grieved for her. I wished that this Muslim granny had, instead of
having attained such a freedom, been lying down in her warm
room or reading or preparing her children’s needs. Islam has
loaded all the needs of the woman to her husband. If she is without
a husband, her closest relative is to supply her needs. If she is
without anybody, Bait al-mâl, that is, the government treasury, is
to support her. Every need of the woman should come to her. We
have heard very often about women’s laments, complaints about
their own lives.
Religion reformers, who cannot deny the miserable, dismal
position of ugly working women, attempt to defend this also and
say that if pretty women are put at the sales departments, there
may be customers who would more probably buy their beauty
instead of the goods for sale, and thus the sales may decrease. Let
alone the misery of ugly women who, having attained their
freedom, work among men and the exhaustedness of those who
strive hard before the mirror to make themselves pretty every
– 103 –