You also have laws in the OT about women being impure after their periods, a prohibition of sex and contact with menstruating women, and so on. Maybe it’s me, but I think these things are related. They’re telling men what to do and not women, sure, but the laws are based upon the flaws of women. And unless I’ve misunderstood, women were not supposed to learn the Bible at that point anyway, as it was considered a waste and something they could not understand. So of course the prohibitions had to be directed toward men, they were the audience.
Well, that’s nice to know, but irrelevant.
Or, perhaps, some religions simply aren’t quite as bad as some of the misconceptions held by others would suggest.
An ideology is more than the sum of its current practitioner attitudes. Although how a “living” religion is practised and taught is no doubt important, genuinely interested parties are better served by going to the source and examining the foundations of belief as well as the original instruction manual. Views and opinions change significantly by geographical sector, by time, by political climate, and even by individual, but the foundations typically remain the same.
Sexism is a cultural and even biological problem (since men and women are physically unequal, it is far to say there is a biological basis in sexism). The best way to illustrate this is by looking at the problem of honour killings, which occurs as an extreme manifestation of sexism throughout the world and cannot be predicted on the basis of religion (although many people, including honour killers, falsely attribute them to religion). Honor killings are a deadly combination of male chauvinism, misogyny, and corrupt civil systems in patriarchal societies. Thus you have hapless women being killed, often by family members, in Moslem countries (Yemen) as well as Christian countries (Brazil). In fact, honour killings occur in Western Asia, North Africa, South Asia, and South America, and certainly not only in the Middle East or derivative populations.
Likewise with the abuse and/or subjugation of women, which is simply a less extreme form of the same problem. Russia, like Brazil an unequivocally Christian country, sits high on the scoreboard in terms of such abuse; would you then like us to conclude that Christianity is sexist because two of the largest countries in the world where it is prevalent promote extreme sexist attitudes?
Of course not, we recognize that the problem is in fact cultural and arises from a multitude of factors quite aside from religion.
In this case religion is simply the justification applied to human tendencies.
Additionally, if you are going to argue that Islam is somehow responsible for sexist attitudes, you’d better provide some supporting arguments. It’s been shown to you what the Koran has to say on the subject of covering up for both men and women.
I agree that many Muslims around the world are under the impression that to be properly Muslim a woman must cover herself up to various degrees. I agree that often this is an idiotic and even barbaric practice. But I recognize that it is not something inherent in Islam, rather it stems from the patriarchal tendencies of many areas were Islam happens to be practiced (e.g., Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the Kurdish Genocide Zone), areas that have no shortage of problems in circumstance and attitudes.
Unfortunately there is somewhat (though rather less than many people think) of a coincidece of sexism and Islam, but do not conflate the two or seek causality simply on the strength of coexistence and/or the vile output of fundamentalists from misogynous backgrounds. The most you can do with your current position is claim that this or that particular form of Islam is sexist if it mandates that women should be mistreated. If you can demonstrate that much.
There are a number of factors in Islam as a world religion that are frequently abused, such as the incitement to maintain a modest appearance (quoted by someone else above); some Muslims are perfectly happy if men and women simply do not walk down the street naked, while for others it becomes necessary to cover up a woman in yards of cloth, forbid her from speaking to any unrelated man, etc. There is nothing whatsoever that says that women should be covered from head to toe or kept locked in the household; these are specific and extremist interpretations of the original ideological material (which, as someone pointed out, was instituted for the protection and the rights of women, not the other way round).
One good example of how Islam is in specific ways feminist compared to other world religions is the exoneration from female guilt and impurity. In Abrahamic traditions, including Christianity and Judaism, “Eve’s sin” was the curse conferred upon humanity by the duplicitous nature of woman, exemplified by the first woman, Eve, and her famous story. The Testaments are replete with this kind of misogynistic content but, interestingly, it was cut down in the Koran and in Islam itself. In Islam, the original sin is not the responsibility of woman but, since the transgression was committed by both Adam and Eve together, males and females alike share the responsibility and the burden. Daughters are not to be considered a shame and are to be no less a source of pride and joy than sons, and the birth of a daughter is not an impure or undesirable thing.
[sup]This post contains some recycled arguments previously posted by me in these discussions:
Whats the possibility of me living to see a Muslim dominated Europe?
Muslim “honor killings” protected under freedom of religion? [/sup]
You will find the above generalized view in most cultures with substantial cultural streaks of machismo. From Greece to Brazil, Italy to India, women are expected to be virgins at all times or be at fault for tempting men. This is easily explained: in patriarchal societies men are the rulers and men set the rules. It is especially convenient for men to be able to exercise the base impulses forbidden by civilization, and then have the option of blaming the target of the impulses. In this case religion is press-ganged into particularly repulsive service that is ideologically opposed to one of the (original) intents of Islam (better rights and status for women).
A woman leading a Moslem prayer service in New York has been received with violent denunciations and threats.
Well I can understand how standing behind a hot woman lifting her ass to the sky could divert ones pious thoughts in a more carnal direction - and women leading prayers are not allowed in other religions either but the woman here does seem to give as reason that men are fragile and easily led astray by a woman’s body.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050319/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_women_muslim_prayer_1
That’s an example of great interest, because the response to Dr. Amina Wadud shows you the level of misogyny, machismo, and chauvinism that dominates among virtually all the loudest exponents of Islam.
Read the outraged responses to this epochal event, and then consider this: there is absolutely nothing in Islam that prohibits women from leading prayer or even from leading mixed sex congregations. Not one of the arguments against Wadud that I have seen is actually supported by reason or scripture.
The various strident and obnoxious objections to Dr Wadud’s initiative were supported wholly and entirely by established cultures of male superiority and female subjugation, conveniently laced with the trappings of religion and peppered with the usual impassioned rhetoric. Again we see how patriarchal cultures need to vilify women in order to maintain control: and, sadly, we see patriarchs and wannabe patriarchs argue that women are somehow inherently impure (or a cause of impurity), even when dressed with modesty. This, most strangely, is in direct opposition to the spirit and letter of the Koran.
Although that’s depressing, there are important things to remember: 1) this could be the start of something very important that will hopefully gather momentum in years to come, 2) moderates have remained more or less silent so far, and the general condemnations Wadud elicited should not yet be taken as the last word in this matter, merely the loudest (which, when it comes to Islamic public affairs, is unfortunately par for the course).
Yes, but female gential mutilation is also practiced in Christian, Jewish, and traditional African cultures. Moreover, the practice preceded Islam and Christianity. I don’t think that it’s one of the things you can “blame” on Islam; it just was adopted by Islamic (and Christian and Jewish) adherents in the area.
“Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision, or female genital cutting, has been practiced for several thousand years in almost 30 African and Middle Eastern nations. It is also practiced, to a lesser extent, in parts of Asia. FGM is practiced by Muslims, Christians, Jews and followers of traditional African religions.”
Citation: http://www.afrol.com/Categories/Women/index_fgm.htm
The war between the Spirit and the Flesh is a common theme in western thought.
I think that in general this entire argument has been dominated by an idea that we are somehow superior to Islam, even less sexist or partriarchal.
I think to understand how deeply ingrained into our psyches this sexism is, one should examine the language.
I offer a couple examples:
Think of how the terms “Hystrionics” or being “Hysterical” are viewed as negatives.
Think about how in English “He” is used as a gender neutral pronoun when it is clearly not gender neutral.
Think about the view Christianity and Judaism have about being “Materialistic”. “Mater” is the latin word for Mother. Gaia is the Earth Goddess, or the Earth itself, the very material we are made of.
There is a major trend in feminism to turn women into men.
Traditionally, men have been the ones who ranged from the home, while women took care of the home. The feminine tendency is to internalize things, and the masculine tendency is to externalize things. The shape of the penis and the vagina even point to this idea. You put the penis inside the vagina, or inside the woman’s domain. Or you put the vagina, outside the penis. Masculinity is by it’s very nature penetrative. So it would stand to reason that extra levels of clothing act as a spiritual condom if you will.
I think this conversation would be a lot more effective if the western haughtiness was turned down about 120 decibels.
One sex cannot be repressed without the other sex being equally repressed, and no culture is more or less repressed than any other culture. Western culture is JUST as patriarchal as Islam. Also, a lot of times when traditions are clung to in societies, it is the women who are the most vocal of the traditionalists.
I have never been to an Islamic country, so I do not know what the attitudes are or are not other than my view from the internet and reading of books. However, I think that an examination of the sexism in the Western Culture as portrayed in this thread alone would be useful in understanding the muslim sexism.
Erek
Oh yeah, I’d also like to point out that one of Osama bin Laden’s biggest gripes about western society is the way we rape the Earth in order to fulfill our Earthly pleasures. That’s a pretty strong sentiment in general. I find it ironic that the problem both sides of the coin have with the other is it’s lack of respect for the feminine.
According to a recent interview of Reza Aslan on Fresh Air (an NPR show I dearly love) this justification for veiling is incorrect. According to him, there is no reference in the Quran regarding wearing of the veil.
He says further that in the days of Mohammed, the only women that veiled themselves were royalty (a mark of status since they didn’t have to work in the fields). Mohammed’s wives veiled as a mark of status.
His contention is that each woman should make the decision to veil or not and that it shouldn’t be forced upon them.
My humble O is that is it re-enforcement of class warfare and not about ensuring male based power structure.
Though Islam might have been fairly ‘progressive’ with early womans’ rights, there is the tendancy for such a society to think of woman as property and property is not a threat to the power structure. But it is made to control men’s access to woman, even visually. This way women can be ‘awarded’ to a man and that man is now forever in the dept of the awarder. The promise of a woman can also serve to keep males in their place and maintain the power structure. The ‘repression’ this may cause to women is a side effect not a direct hit against females and not ment to maintain power over women.
Again just my humble one.
1st - Yaow!
2nd - because it really is not a practical solution, castration would be easier. The male would get pierced by this device every morning, and infection and constant pain would result. I suppose eventually that male would become impotent, but the constant wear against spikes would further injure the member, and I would wag it would eventually fall off (member and spiked collar together). Having the working class in constant pain and infection does not bode well for your economy.
I listened to that interview, too. He strikes me as a guy who has one of these idealized images of Islam in his mind that is so well buttressed by reationalizations that it can explain away anything – even the virulent Islamic fundamentalism that forced his family to flee Iran when the mullahs took over. Surely we can concede that some ideas and beliefs almost invariably have a baleful effect on the cultures they afflict? Can you say “social Darwinism”? Can you say anarchism? Can you say sexism? Can you say Islam?
Firstly: the “covering” of women in Islam predates Islam, it derives from tribal customs.
Secondly: Islam, for its time, was just as progressive as Christianity. Women were given rights and protections they never had before. Men were limited to four wives. The prophet did not say: “you can have four wives”, he said: “you can only have four wives.”
Thirdly: it is important to note that much of Islam today is a gross distortion of the original creed (much like abortion clinic bombing in the US distorts Christianity, or “God hates fags” is in direct contradiction to Jesus teaching that God loves sinners - if indeed homosexuals are sinners, which in my opinion frankly they are not).
On this point: the muslims jumping up and down in horror at a female leading prayers should remember that Mohammed’s wife Ayesha was a teacher of Islam: men actually visited her to learn from her. Likewise those jumping up about women leading public lives should also remember that Mohammed’s first wife was an independent and successful businesswomen.
Fourthly: it is indeed true that women are NOT equal in Islam. They can only inherit a third of their parents’ property, two-thirds goes to male offspring. Their testimony is given half the weight of a man’s. However to some extent men are also not equal in Islam - they cannot claim alimony, for example, and there is no onus on a woman to support her husband financially (even if he gave up his job for her, or was ill) as there is on a man to support his wife.
Fifthly: as has been pointed out on these forums myriad times before, female genital mutiliation is a pre-Islamic, African-origin practice that happens extremely rarely to the point of never in most Muslim countries. It is Africans that practice FGM, not Arabs or Muslims (though there are obviously Muslim Africans and Arab Africans, eg some Sudanese).
Sixthly: there is indeed a bizarre and chauvinistic ideology among many muslim males (generally the less eduated ones) that “the woman corrupts” and “the woman led me astray with her beauty”. This abnegation of personal responsibility/sense of guilt is interesting in itself - it is not uniquely a muslim/arab/Middle Eastern phenomenon (witness the western rape cliche “she was asking for it by the way she dressed”). However it does correlate with other, fatalistic beliefs also used to abnegate personal responsibility, such as “it is Allah’s will” for example if a young person is killed while speeding, when it is highly unlikely that Allah ever intended some young fool to drive at 200kmph into a lamppost.
Actually, I don’t disagree with you. It was, however, the first semi-rational discussion of the roots of certain Muslim practices that I’ve heard.
I don’t find Veiling in the Muslim community far different than the “must wear home-made dresses” requirement of certain Mennonite sects, or the “woman must submit” emphasis of fundamentalist Christian sects.
In fact, rampant sexism is one of the reasons I can no longer count myself as a member of the Christian community.
Not to mention one or two parts of Africa where Islam arrived, but gave in to the climate & cultural tradition. Westerners have been surprised to see young women with exposed breasts (our taboo, after all) who also venerate Mohammed.
Can you say arguments? Can you say support? Can you say details? Can you say substance?
Or can you only say hand-wave?
Tell me, what is the connection you see between Islam and virulent Islamic fundamentalism? Can you describe any of the rationalizations you vaguely allude to in the quoited extract? What ideas and beliefs are you really alluding to?
Do you suggest that Islam = sexism? Or anarchism? What on earth are you talking about?
What society? Pre-Islamic Arabia, overwhelmingly patriarchal, was without doubt a collection of such societies. Women were a curse, an expense, a source of impurity, and so forth. We still have patriarchal societies today, but they are more limited and not necessarily always dominant by geographical focus – are those the socieities you are referring to? In that case this has little to do with class warfare, and everything to do with male authority.
How do honour killings fit in with this view of yours? Honour killings are an excellent, ideal even, way to glimpse the distinction between religion and culture, and to study the problems of cultural mysoginy.
How does female genital mutilation fit in to your thesis? How does FMG possibly contribute to ANYTHING other than male authority? Destroy or seriously limit a woman’s ability to have an orgasm, and you take away from her something that only men remain able to do. The oppression of male power doesn’t get any more explicit than that.
Because the male self becomes the overriding preoccupation in societies with strong patriarchal and mysoginystic tendencies. The woman is not just seen as property – she is seen as the man’s property. And she must be pure at all times, so as not to bring shame to her current or future husband, or her brothers and father. She must hide herself for the reasons already given (i.e., the culture of blaming the victim in such events as sexual harrassment or even just ogling). This view is common in a much larger swath of the world than that where Islam is dominant – you will find such views, as I mentioned earlier, from India to Brazil.
[quote]
This way women can be ‘awarded’ to a man and that man is now forever in the dept of the awarder.[/.quote]
What? Are you sure you’re not thinking of a swingers’ club? But seriously, the above is not at all the case. In fact it’s a bizarre concept that you would have to elaborate further before it could be convincing.
May I ask a question?
According to the Islamic faith, a male martyr is promised 72 virgins and rivers of gold [or something like that], in paradise, correct?
What does a female martyr get?
First of all, there is no number specified in the Koran, only allusions to sensual delights. The number 72 was added in the Hadith, the post-Koranic, post-Mohammed Traditions of the Prophet. I don’t actually know how reliable that particular Hadith is, nor do I put much stock into the Hadith as a whole collection of works – perhaps Muslims can let us know what they think, but under no circumstance to my knowledge is any Hadith ever considered anywhere near as important as the Koran (and some of them are barely considered credible by Hadith jurisprudence).
Secondly, it is not martyrs who receive sensual delights including the hottest heavenly girls and the best wine, but all Muslims who behave themselves, according to the Koran.
Cecil discussed this in Does the Koran really promise Islamic martyrs 72 virgins?. Short answer: not exactly.
There is some worth to your question though: are women left out of Islam’s paradise? On the one hand men and women are supposed to be equal in the eyes of Allah, and there are clear mentions of women going to paradise:
On the other hand, the rewards in heaven seem skewed a tad to the male side, as Cecil described. For example:
It goes on, mentioning virgins and so forth. Being a frank rather than a prudish work, the Koran describes a fantastic vision of heaven – or, at least, it’s right up my alley. I note again that the women are right there in paradise too. Perhaps, while the dark-eyed virgins attend to the men, the women are serviced by the immortal youths? Seems like an equitable arrangement, though it would have helped had the Koran made more explicit mention in this regard.
Quite a few prudes are shocked by the Koran’s frank depiction of heavenly delights, and quite a few others seem to be obsessed with getting out the word of specific numbers of virgins for martyrs, probably as the usual tired ethnocentric accusation that Islam condones both violence and the misuse of women, or what have you.
Of course, according to Islam (or the core of Islam) sex is wholly good. Further, since Islam permits a man up to four wives should he be able to care for them equally, getting some extra ass in the afterlife hardly seems like a big deal, especially if it consists of heavenly creatures explicitly made to please human souls (I keep – rather irreverently, for which I apologize – thinking of the ideal solution as girl-on-girl woman/houri action, but that’s just me). Since the cultural mindset around and since the time of the prophet was for male-centred polygamy, it is not entirely surprising that someone neglected to mention the pleasures for women in paradise.