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The following are excerpts from an interview with Jordanian MP Dr. Haya Al-Musimi on ANB TV that aired on January 2, 2005:
Al-Musimi: All that we want when we speak about women's rights is to give women what Allah and religious law gave them. This includes… If we look at what Western women have achieved we will see that what they got is what we got easily 1,400 years ago: A share of the inheritance, the right to private property, the right to choose husbands and to leave them – these are rights granted to women by Allah from the advent of Islam. We are just saying: go back to what Islam brought with it; this way women will receive their due, and even more. This is the simple picture. The complex picture is that some people don't think that there should be any difference between women and men. That there will be no distinction between women and men - only one sex. Only sex, and this same sex has the same rights. The same rights. You won't be able to differentiate any more between what's for men and what's for women. Those who advocate this are very dangerous. This is very dangerous, not just to the family and to society, but to women themselves, because women will never be men. Women will never be men. Like it or not, women will never be men.
I spoke with a women's rights advocate. She spoke of equality. All the international conventions speak of equality, always equality. All I said to her was: How can you compare me to a man? How can you demand of me to work the same hours as a man? And to work in the same way as a man? On the other hand, when I come home, I have additional tasks. I get pregnant and I nurse and raise my children. When can there be equality? When I am pregnant and the man is also pregnant. Then, there will be equality.
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