Gender, Power, Politeness and Women in the Arab Society

It has been argued that women have a different way of speaking from men which both reflects and produces a subordinate position in society. This argument has been used to assert that the powerless language of women disqualifies them from positions of power and authority. Thus, their powerless gender forces them to be more polite than men who are considered to be superior to them. But the concept of politeness is quite complex and needs to be studied and investigated from various perspectives as norms governing the phenomenon of politeness differ from society to society due to various reasons. Such is the case with women in the Arab society. Unlike what has been commonly argued, women enjoy a great respect, honour and status in the Arab society and require men to be more polite to them. They gain power over men because of various factors such as religious and socio-cultural norms, status in family, age etc. This complex nature of the concepts such as gender, power and politeness and rules and norms governing them in the Arab society, form the focus of discussion of this paper. Looking at these concepts from the Arab society perspective, an attempt has been made to look at these concepts from a different point of view.