NYT,pg1: Women, Secret Hamas Strength, Win Votes at Polls and New Role

[DeepModem Mom]

Women, Secret Hamas Strength, Win Votes at Polls and New Role
By IAN FISHER
Published: February 3, 2006


GAZA, Feb. 2 — Hamas has been known and feared for its men, armed or strapped with suicide bombs. But in its parliamentary election triumph here last week, one secret weapon was its women.

To a degree specialists said was new in the conservative Muslim society of the Gaza Strip, Hamas used its women to win, sending them door to door with voter lists and to polling places for last-minute campaigning.

Now in surprise control of Palestinians politics, Hamas can boast that women hold 6 of the party's 74 seats in parliament — giving the women of the radical group, guided in all ways by their understanding of Islam, a new and unaccustomed public role.

"We are going to lead factories, we are going to lead farmers," said Jamila al-Shanty, 48, a professor at the Islamic University here who won a seat in parliament. "We are going to spread out through society. We are going to show the people of the world that the practice of Islam in regards to women is not well known."

If Ms. Shanty's prediction is true, the role of women will certainly not be along the secular Western lines followed largely, and with real strides for women, under decades of leadership by Yasir Arafat's now defeated Fatah faction. The model will be Islam: women in Hamas wear head scarves and follow strict rules for social segregation from men....


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/international/middleeast/03women.html

[orwell]

1. Women?

...in government. How radical...

What's the world coming to?

[bemildred]

2. Yet more heads popping in the background.

A big day for popping heads.