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I WANT to thank you for a great article by Alia Almoayed 'Make meal-time fun for children'.

I have now read it and have told my husband he needs to read it as well. I have an almost two-year-old who we, of course, don't think eats enough but we will try her suggested rules and hope to see him eating more.

Patricia Adeltoft, Saar.

I AM a regular reader of Alia Almoayed's HealthWeekly column and last week's was very useful to young mothers.

Simi Anoop,

by email.

HOPE this mail finds you well, as a regular reader of HealthWeekly I would like to take this opportunity through your letters page to express my sincere thanks to Alia Almoayed for her wonderful service to the community and the tips on meals for children mentioned last week.

Sakthi Rengasamy,

operations manager,

Gulf Hill & Knowlton.

ALIA Almoayed's HealthWeekly column is the first thing I open on a Wednesday. Please continue the good work.

Anuradha,

by email.

I WOULD like to say how much our family enjoys reading Alia Almoayed's articles and look forward to seeing many more.

Renu Wynn,

by email.

IT'S good that Editor Stan Szecowka is finding time to write about new vehicles in MotoringWeekly.

It is refreshing to read his comments from the point of view of the users/ buyers and what advantages each model of car offers.

Also, I would like to state my appreciation of the format GulfWeekly adopted for its World Cup coverage by giving the chance to nationals of the competing countries to contribute.

This was a very novel way and much more attractive than the normal 'dry' details of the event. It made the coverage much more personal and interesting.

Rehan Ahmed, senior environmental specialist,

Public Commission for the Protection of Marine Resources, Environment and Wildlife, Bahrain.

GIVEN my privilege as a woman, I only degrade myself by trying to be something I'm not - and in all honesty - don't want to be: a man.

As women, we will never reach true liberation until we stop trying to mimic men, and value the beauty in our own God-given distinctiveness.

What we so often forget is that God has honoured the woman by giving her value in relation to God-not in relation to men.

But as Western feminism erases God from the scene, there are no standards left - but men. As a result the Western feminist is forced to find her value in relation to a man.

And, in so doing she has accepted a faulty assumption. She has accepted that man is the standard, and thus a woman can never be a full human being until she becomes just like a man - the standard.

When a man cut his hair short, she wanted to cut her hair short. When a man joined the army, she wanted to join the army. She wanted these things for no other reason than because the 'standard' had it.

What she didn't recognise was that God dignifies both men and women in their distinctiveness - not their sameness.

As soon as we accept that everything a man has and does is better, all that follows is just a knee jerk reaction: if men have it - we want it too.

A Muslim woman does not need to degrade herself in this way. She has God as a standard. She has God to give her value; she doesn't need a man.

In fact, in our mission to follow men, we, as women, never even stopped to examine the possibility that what we have is better for us. In some cases we even gave up what was higher only to be like men.

Fifty years ago, society told us that men were superior because they left the home to work in factories.

We were mothers. And yet, we were told that it was women's liberation to abandon the raising of another human being in order to work on a machine.

We accepted that working in a factory was superior to raising the foundation of society - just because a man did it.

Then after working, we were expected to be superhuman - the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect homemaker - and have the perfect career.

And while there is nothing wrong, by definition, with a woman having a career, we soon came to realise what we had sacrificed by blindly mimicking men.

We watched as our children became strangers and soon recognised the privilege we'd given up.

And so only now - given the choice - women in the West are choosing to stay home to raise their children.

According to the United States of America Department of Agriculture, only 31 per cent of mothers with babies, and 18 per cent of mothers with two or more children, are working full-time.

And, of those working mothers, a survey conducted by Parenting magazine in 2000, found that 93 per cent of them say they would rather be home with their kids, but are compelled to work due to 'financial obligations'.

These 'obligations' are imposed on women by the gender sameness of the modern West, and removed from women by the gender distinctiveness of Islam.

It took women in the West almost a century of experimentation to realise a privilege given to Muslim women 1,400 years ago.

Given my privilege as a woman, I only degrade myself by trying to be something I'm not - and in all honesty - don't want to be: a man.

As women, we will never reach true liberation until we stop trying to mimic men, and value the beauty in our own God-given distinctiveness. Yasmin Mogahed, by email.