WORKING WOMEN

WORKING WOMEN

Working women is two different words with two different meaning. However,definition of working women can be given as a woman who is grainfully employed,such as distinct from a housewife . In world nowadays, it is normal to find a woman who works like a man. This is because, to gain what they want in this modern world they need to work as hard as they can.Working women also related to women who had been leave by their husband or in another word `single mother’. Normally single mother will work to find money for her family. By this it is also called as an worship or `ibadah’ in Islam, because she work hard for the sake of her children and Allah. For that, as a bussinesswomen, it is my job to encourage and help woman who want to change they family finance and to estabilish a better life. At the same time, they can teach their children the way of being independence in a family. Hence, those children  will not going to be spoiled by their parent as they had been tought to be independent on they on self.

There are many different perspective on women who are working. Some will says that there is no need for women to work, as their place is only at the kitchen. Taking care of their husband and children needs and etc. But it is alright for a women who still have their husband, because their husband will take care of their family finance and it is a must for a women to obey her husband commant. If their husband did not allowed them to work, they need to abey it as it was a law of marriage. As in Al-Quran verse 4:34 that  "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient and guard in the husband's absence what Allah orders them to guard."  

Also in Sura ( 60 : 10 : 12 ) gives more details : (O you who believe! when believing women come to you flying, then examine them; Allah knows best their faith; then if you find them to be believing women, do not send them back to the unbelievers, neither are these (women) lawful for them, nor are those (men) lawful for them, and give them what they have spent; and no blame attaches to you in marrying them when you give them their dowries; and hold not to the ties of marriage of unbelieving women, and ask for what you have spent, and let them ask for what they have spent. That is Allah's judgment; He judges between you, and Allah is All Knowing, Wise. And if anything (out of the dowries) of your wives has passed away from you to the unbelievers, then your turn comes, give to those whose wives have gone away the like of what they have spent, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah in Whom you believe. O Prophet! when believing women come to you giving you a pledge that they will not associate none with Allah, and will not steal, and will not commit fornication, and will not kill their children, and will not bring a calumny which they have forged of themselves, and will not disobey you in what is good, accept their pledge, and ask forgiveness for them from Allah; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.) 

However it is not right for single mother,because they do not have the source of income for their family. If they do not work how they will find money to rise their children. Even though there are welfare fund to helped those single mother but it will not be enough to rise all of their children with only an amount of money without any extra income. If we do look nowadays, in college, university and etc there are more women who are educated compared to man. They also can get a better job with the qualification that they have after they graduated from university or college. But if we do look further, it is rare to find a women with a high qualification in their study to get a higher position in one organization or company. However we can find those women at a lower position of work, compared to men who always get the higher position. This is because, some people look women like they have no ability to manage  the company if they get a higher job, for example as a director of an organization. What a waste of time,energy, money for them to be educated if they are  not allowed to work or only given a lower position that is not fit with their academic qualification.Women have their own right to work on their own and not by force.

At the same time, some people also take advantage on women who want to find jobs. They some time will be force to work as a prostitute, drug seller and also they are force to sell their own organ. To avoid women from being force to do such kind of jobs, goverment or any organization should take action on this kind of problem. They can provide this women a place to work, give them chance to work at a better work place or they can give this women basic training to open their own bussiness. It is much better if they also provide this women finance to begin their bussiness.

As we know, to work or to open a bussiness we need to travel a lot to find a place for a job or a place to start our bussiness. Unfortunately, sometimes men do not allowed their wife,daughter or thier sister to travel. They think that it is not good to let those women to travel as they may bring some problem to the family. However, in this Quranic ayah also talk on the right of women to travel and seeking means of living for all humans, men and woman on basis of equality and opportunities for all the seekers and searchers. Allah says about this earth: (And He placed in it mountains above its surface and He blessed it therein and made therein its foods, in four periods: alike for the seekers.  ) (41: 10). 

Allah also orders all human , male and female to walk the earth looking for means of living : (He it is Who made the earth smooth for you, therefore go about in the spacious sides thereof, and eat of His sustenance, and to Him is the return after death.) (67: 15) this mean that both of male and female are encourage to travel and work to find wealth of Allah had store in this world. Moreover, the woman in Islam is ordered to immigrate like man in the cause of God to avoid religious persecution. If it is hard to travel, permission was given to shorten prayer if there is a real danger ( 4 : 101 ) . So, the woman who is able to immigrate and refuses will be put in hell fire:  (Surely (as for) those whom the angels cause to die while they are unjust to their selves, they shall say: In what state were you? They shall say: We were weak in the earth. They shall say: Was not Allah's earth spacious, so that you should have migrated therein? So to those, their abode is hell, and it is an evil resort . Except those who are (really) weak and oppressed - men, women, and children - who have no means in their power, nor (a guide-post) to their way.So those, it may be, that Allah will pardon them, and Allah is oft Pardoning, oft Forgiving) ( 4 : 97 : 99 ).

Early Muslims in Mecca were persecuted, so many of them men and women had to escape to Ethiopia twice, and then the third one was to Al Medina. Some Muslim women immigrated leaving behind their infidel husbands, some girls immigrated independently for the cause. So, they were educated to be activists from the beginning. They established with men the first (and the last) real Islamic state with Prophet Mohammed. Islamic state consists of a deal/contract among individuals who agree to form or create states – women have a role.

Eventhought there were Quranic ayah that allows women to work and travel like in the above statement, but it is not easy to gain those women interest to start on their own bussiness or to find jobs. This is because, some of them may think of their own capability to work by themself. This can easily been shows when a women had no confident on themself. To get a job or to start their own bussiness they must have confident on everything that they do, basically in the way they speak. If they improve on their confident this may help them to be expert on the job their are on. As we all know, in this globalies world once a job is offered  interview will be held by employers. Firstly,in the interview candidates will be marks according to their confident and the way they talk. Secondly,they will be marks based on their attitudes and lastly the marks will be given based on their academic qualification.

Thus, goverment or any organization should organize a working women society like Working women`s Charter Campaign. This society can help women to organised they strength,give some training on their confident and attitudes,hence can play a major role in assisting women struggle. Women workers, like all other workers, need the support and collective strength of other workers to win wage increases and improvement in working conditions and to combat redundacies. Women workers have traditinally been employed in small workplace or weakly organised workplaces. For such group of workes outsides support is even more importance . By this we can see that, women need support not only from their family,but they also need support from their teammates and also from people outsides their life,for example, their neighbours or maybe people that they meet on the way to work.

In the nineteenth century, the family wage ideology provided ways of resolving perceptions of contradictions in the position of women wage earners. Working-class families believed that women were subordined to and dependent on men on their livelihood. Nevertheless, working man and women lived and worked in communities where industries increasingly sought female labor and where families needed the income of women who earned and individual wage. Many working-class women and men feared that wage-earning women treatened traditional values and families pattern. 

Many contemporaries resolved the contradiction between women`s subordination and wage work by looking at female wage earners in term of two broad categories. This perspective enable them to accept women`s wage works in the way that did not challenge women dependent and subordination in the family and society. Wage-earning women were viewed as daugther or wife who temporally supplemented of the earning of men they depended on,or widows or single women who were victim of wage system because they could not depend on a male breadwinner. 

The second and much smaller group of working women were older single or widowed women who are viewed as hapless victim of reduced circumstances and the wage system. Many contemporary observers understood that women were compelled to work out of necessity, not because they wished to upset the natural social order. This can be as a continous statement from the previous paragraph that mentions about women who are force to do works that is harmfull or not safe for them.

Accordingly a woman should be( sponsored, supported, protected) by a man – father, husband, brother, even her son – for travels, and has to get his permission to work. Generally, she is prohibited in many ways to work.  Some women whose husbands allow them to work do not allow them to have control over money. Some give a working woman wages less than a man who is doing the same work. Some prejudge the woman her right to supervise men, if she is qualified for promotion. This contradicts Qur’an and its real Islamic laws and its values of equality and justice.

There are also story about working women in Quranic ayah, it is about the story of moses:In the first part of the Quranic story of Moses as a child, women played the primary part. The first part is for the mother and sister and Pharaoh’s wife: (When We revealed to your mother what was revealed Saying: Put him into a chest, then cast it down into the river, then the river shall throw him on the shore; there shall take him up one who is an enemy to Me and enemy to him, and I cast down upon you compassion from Me, and that you might be brought up before My eyes. When your sister went and said: Shall I direct you to one who will take charge of him? So We brought you back to your mother, that her eye might be delighted and she should not grieve) (20: 38 – 40) 

(And We revealed to Musa's mothers, saying: suckle him, then when you fear for him, cast him into the river and do not fear nor grieve; surely We will bring him back to you and make him one of the messengers. : Then the people of Pharaoh picked him up (from the river): (It was intended) that (Moses) should be to them an adversary and a cause of sorrow: for Pharaoh and Haman and (all) their hosts were men of sin. And Pharaoh’s wife said: A joy of the eye, for me and for you; do not slay him; maybe he will be useful for us, or we may take him for a son; and they did not perceive. And the heart of Musa's mother was void (from anxiety), she would have almost disclosed it, had We not strengthened her heart so that she might be of the believers. And she said to his sister: Follow him up. So she watched him from a distance while they did not perceive. And we ordained that he refused suckle at first, until (His sister came up and) said: "Shall I point out to you the people of a house that will nourish and bring him up for you and be sincerely attached to him?".. : So We gave him back to his mother that her eye might be delighted, and that she might no grieve, and that she might know that the promise of Allah is true, but most of them do not know.) (82 : 7 -13  ) .

Here,we can find some hidden observations from this sura that is,there is no indication as to the father of Moses, while he was alive. All the rules are for women.Women here were working their nature work towards the child, except his sister who followed her child brother risking and endangering her life.There was reference to the women who tried to suckle the child.

In the second part, when he became an adult, women played the main part also when he escaped to Medyan:(And when he turned his face towards Medyan, he said: Maybe my Lord will guide me on the right path. : And when he came to the water of Medyan, he found there a group of men watering their flocks, and he found besides them two women keeping back (their flocks). He said: What is the matter with you? They said: We cannot water until the shepherds take away (their sheep) from the water, and our father is a very old man. : So he watered (their sheep) for them, then went back to the shade and said: My Lord! surely I stand in need of whatever good Thou send down to me.Then one of the two women came to him walking bashfully. She said: My father invites you that he may give you the reward of your having watered for us. So when he came to him and gave to him the account, he said: Fear not, you are secure from the unjust people. Said one of them: O my father! employ him, surely the best of those that you can employ is the strong man, the faithful one. : He said: I desire to marry one of these two daughters of mine to you on condition that you should serve me for eight years; but if you complete ten, it will be of your own free will, and I do not wish to be hard to you; if Allah please, you will find me one of the good. He said: This shall be (an agreement) between me and you; whichever of the two terms I fulfill, there shall be no wrongdoing to me; and Allah is a witness of what we say.) (28: 22 - 28) .

Here, we can also find some indications that is,women do the hard work of men to help the old father.One Woman has a strong personality and character to give piece of advice to her father to hire Moses and also has a good understanding of that strange man ( Moses ). This, can give evidence about working is an ibadah. Moreover, it will be bless by Allah as when women work all the profit they get they use it  for their family and children. 

In conclusion, man should give an opportunity for women to work. This is because, women can help them to increase the family finance at the same time can man do not needs to work so hard until do not have time for their own family. As we all know, women play a big role  estabilish a harmonic and happy family. There are nothing that can measure their sacrifies to the family. Women are not weak. They have gain so many trouble,problem and daily pressure in their whole life,but they still strong in their ability to handle it all. When women work, they do it for their own family and not for their own sake of desire. Like single women who needs to struggle their time,their life and their own happiness to work for gaining money  just to make their children happy and feel like they are not different with other children who have both of their parent who can give them everything they want. They are not only can be teammate to their colleague,but they also can be teammate to their husband in handling the house finance and also in teaching and give guidance to their children so that they can serve our religion and country well.