Egyptian Soapbox

Reference to the Western woman as a paradigm to be followed or denounced is a major feature of the discourse on women. A package of moral laxity, pornography, casual sex, materialism, and disappearance of family ties is usually assembled by the religious debating voices like Al Bahi who devotes half his book describing the corrupt conditions of the Western woman. The same approach was followed earlier in the century by Talat Harb, and is followed by many other religious proponents of unveiling. Another extreme would put the Western woman as paradigm to be emulated, the strongest voice in that extreme is Kasim Amin.