Religion-The Role & Status of Women in Hinduism and Islam - Essay Example

And although both religions do give women some special rights and protections, they primarily work as a societal way to keep women in a subservient position to men, so that the roles are set out in a way that justifies oppression. Although women in both Islam and Hinduism have made major strides forward in the last century, there are still many barriers to equality and equity in the way they are treated in patriarchal societies, in comparison with men. It is important to look at some of the factors that have led to the persistence of this gender oriented inequality and oppression, including gender bias, imbedded and persistent patriarchal power structures in the society, roles of men and women, unequal expectations in religious expression, and other factors and issues that are relevant to this topic.

Many focus on issues like Quranic reforms and reform movements within Islam and Hinduism to improve the status of women, and point to this as a step forward and an equalization measure, and there are those who focus on the fact that even with reforms in place women are not considered to be equal to men in many Islamic and Hindu societies. A frequent theme in existing scholarship of this issue is the associated issue of confounding variables. For example, there are a lot of Muslim societies all over the world, so it is difficult to generalize the position of women in all of them without accounting for individual differences.

Historically, “Women’s roles in society differed depending on the social class to which they belonged and the region of the Islamic world in which they lived. Although they were many variables… The Quranic reforms concentrated on the areas of marriage, divorce and inheritance” (Cleveland, 30). Throughout history, the position of women in Islam has changed, but it remains at Ancient Indian society, although it was arguably more gender equal than ancient Islam, especially in regards to sexuality, was also basically a