CULTURE AND DIVERSITY: Role of women in Asian, Africa, Middle Eastern and Northwestern Society

The role of women in the Philippines is explained based on the context of Filipino culture, standards, and mindsets. The Philippines is described to be a nation of strong women, who directly and indirectly run the family unit, businesses, government agencies and haciendas. Although they generally define themselves in the milieu of a masculine dominated post-colonial Asian Catholic society, Filipino women live in a culture that is focused on the community, with the family as the main unit of society. It is in this framework of Philippine hierarchical structure, class differences, religious justifications, and living in a globally developing nation wherein Filipino women struggle for respect. Compared to other parts of Southeast Asia, women in Philippine society have always enjoyed a greater share of legal equality. Generally, the Filipino wife is the treasurer in the family. She has the power of the purse. She makes crucial decisions that involve her family, her home, and her children. Filipino husband's responsibility is to provide for the family, while the Filipino wife ensures that their home and family are well taken care of. Filipino women take pleasure in ensuring that her husband and children are well taken care of, not because she is obligated to do so, but because of her selfless love and devotion to her family.

In traditional Africa, women had recognized and vital roles in the economic well being of their communities. Among the Kikuyu of Kenya, women were the major food producers and thus not only had ready access to land but also had authority of how the land was to be used and cultivated. Therefore, the value of women’s productive labor in producing and processing food established and maintained their rights in the domestic and other spheres. Moreover, in much of pre-colonial Africa, bride wealth gave women a certain amount of economic independence and clout. In the past, African women in some societies retained a measure of control over their bride wealth which economically empowered her to a certain extent. Women were responsible for a number of things including: setting the rules of trade among themselves and an example is market taxes and tariffs, organizing and managing the market system, agreeing on lucrative terms of trade with outsiders, holding meetings to discuss how to improve their trade and marketing system and more.

The position of women in Islamic society in general and in Saudi Arabian society in particular is a complex and frequently misunderstood issue. It is certainly true that Muslim and Western views of the role of women show sharp cultural differences but the stereotype of Muslim women, as uneducated, with no rights and no opportunities is a caricature born of ignorance or malevolence. The Holy Qur'an gave women economic and social rights long before such rights were attained by Western women. From the beginning of Islam, women have been legally entitled to inherit and bequeath property, holding their wealth in their own names even after marriage, without obligation to contribute that wealth to their husband or their family. Under Islam, a woman is enjoined to behave modestly in public and, as in the West until recently, is generally expected to give a full commitment to making a family home - a home within which, incidentally, she enjoys a pre-eminent role.

The Royal Commission on the Status of Women was a Canadian Royal Commission that examined the status of women and recommended steps that might be taken by the federal government to ensure equal opportunities with men in all aspects of Canadian society. Passed by prime minister of the time, Pierre E. Trudeau, the Canadian Human Rights Act gave basic rights to all humans. There was no discrimination based on sex, race, religion, sexuality etc. It specified that there must be "equal pay for work of equal value". There had been significant disparity between the pay received by women and by men.