San Francisco Chronicle: Europe emboldens its Muslim women / Female immigrants find more freedom - Manfred Wolf
A worldwide but underreported phenomenon is that when given the chance, women are more enterprising, more flexible and more adaptable than men in assimilating to new ways and rising in an environment that often remains alien to men. In the developing world, it's often women who support the family by running a small business or otherwise providing a stable income. Certainly, they're the ones grasping new opportunities.
A similar pattern is at work among immigrants in developed countries. Take the case of Muslim women in Western Europe. An essay on Moroccan women in the Netherlands makes the point that they're less likely to want to return to their homelands than Moroccan men. It's not hard to understand -- by returning, they have more to lose. One of the untold stories of the immigration turmoil in Western Europe is that such women, despite their lesser position in the family -- maybe because of it -- do better in Europe than Muslim men. Compared with their powerlessness and isolation back home, they have freedoms and opportunities undreamt of before.
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