Middle eastern and Islamic attitudes to women

Anyone who sees women as second class citizens is an absolute scutther burnt ar5ehole of the highest order

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I can't find that thread but here's an older one with similar comments including one that explains a man can only beat his wife as a last resort with a small object like a toothbrush to tell her he wants a divorce.

How..why..what?

How do you even beat someone with a toothbrush? "That's a toothbrush. Am I to take it from your poking me that you want a divorce?"

??

Aint Eazy Being Cheezy wrote: »

Prophet's a paedophile.

Just to comment on that, by the same regard Joseph was a paedophile, since Mary is traditionally held to be a young teenager. And I dread you finding out that thirteen or fourteen was a common age for girls to be married off throughout our history. Upper class girls could be married off even sooner for alliances or property. I'm afraid a good portion of your male ancestors were paedophiles or at the least hebephiles if that makes you feel better.

That aside.

One of the worst aspects is that women in a few Islamic countries actually did have a decent share of rights before the latest round of fundamentalist revolutions. The punishments are extremely harsh though and it is hard to fight back against it from within. People do; Malala Yousafezi is a shining example, despite the punishment that those in charge felt wanting education mandated. There are others; you don't hear about feminism in these places because it's far away and doesn't get much coverage (plus it could be deadly to those actually working on the ground).

Womens rights tend to be gained despite religion rather than because of it. Western society regularly used religious reasoning to suppress women as well, but fortunately, a move towards keeping state and religion separate has helped to emancipate western women. That has not held true in many Islamic states yet. Mind you, we had to have centuries of bloody fighting to sort that out, and it is quite possible that Islam in general needs a reformation. Christianity updated itself through reformation and factions (and fighting). Judaism tends to quietly update itself in the background, not least as until very recently, Jews didn't really get the option to go enforcing their own more extremist views on anyone. Islam has managed the factioning part pretty well, but seems to making slow going on any sort of reform.

Given women have had rights before and were working towards gaining equality* religion or not, it is the fundamentalists that are the problem - same as in most religions. Religion is ridiculously easy to subvert - primarily because it gains its authority through an invisible higher power and cleaves to the words in holy books rather than the message. I do believe we would see similar (within our own laws) attitudes if fundamentalists were allowed to win power in - well, the US is probably the best example of large-scale religious western fundamentalism. Civil rights are fragile and can be removed. Most western states, fortunately, have safeguards in place, but they are not absolute either. This is why people are raging, for instance, about white supremacists.

I absolutely acknowledge that the religious books of Islam propagate anti-women attitudes. I also acknowledge that the fundamentalist leaders base their prejudices on backup from the Koran, use it as a weapon or for control, however you want to put it. However, it cannot be used as the sole excuse and reason (bar that people are afraid of Muslims in general at the moment) because we have seen freedom in these states, and because we had many of the same messages in our holy books and still managed to undo centuries of disrespect and oppression. We started off in a better place though - civil war and turmoil in many Islamic countries is pretty difficult to work with.

This is what fundamentalists do. They are rigid and fixed in their ideas at the extreme ends of whatever argument they pick. Their ideas tend to be unpopular outside a strictly homogenous population (which the ideals generally benefit for support). Fundamentalists do seek to reduce the power of other actors if they feel they can't trust them to empower their fundamentalist notions. Islam is culturally dangerous because of the fundamentalists currently pushing their brand of malevolence. And because it's a religion and religions are abusable by the corrupt and intolerant.

It would also be nice if the west would stop holding up Saudi Arabia, who are as big a bunch of muckstirrers in the Middle East as Russia is in the west.


*Albeit behind other cultures and I don't think that any Islamic country had equality in the same way that secular western states had achieved. Mind you, we got started "early", if a century ago counts as "early" in our general history.

Grayson wrote: »

How come these threads are always about islam? You hear feck all about hinduism and it's castes. Or the gang rapes in India.

I mention this because I don't like equating a religion with this activity. There are plenty of muslims, especially in the western world, who do not think or act like this.

I do believe in some parts of the world there are horrific cultures. I think generally in those cultures religion is twisted to meet the desires of the people.

There are many places where christianity is practised barbarically. The same goes for islam, buddhism and hinduism.
I think religion more often reflects a culture than the other way round.

Relevance to us, I suppose. No other religion is now flourishing in the West as Islam is.

Channel 4 (I think), have made a bizarre show glorifying ISIS..it only shows beheadings done to traitors to ISIS, no innocent journalists or anyone else, and there's a host of weird, laughably unrealistic characters like the gay ISIS recruit. One of te recruits has a Yazidi girlfriend. If you don't know what they do to Yazidi women, don't look it up unless you have a strong stomach.